My Work – The Studies of Art, Media and I Have Never Discovered

Final Hyperessay: When Human Dance with Technology – Daito Manabe

Daito Manabe (まなべだいと) is a Tokyo-based interaction designer, programmer, DJ and new art media artist. Launched Rhizomatiks in 2006 which committed to effecting wide-scale social change by bridging the gulf to foster collaboration between media art, industry, and business. He was also selected as one of the 11 most influential people by Apple celebrated 30 anniversary of Mac mark with website tribute in 2014. In addition to high-quality, high-premium and multiple sensory-style performances, his practice is informed by careful observation to discover and elucidate the essential potentialities inherent to the human body, programming, computers and other phenomena.

Music- the medium of human and machine

Daito is also the key creative and technical director of Perfume (Japanese pop girl group) and Elevenplay (Japanese dance troupe). His past works were highly relevant to music, such as concert or music video filming, and were consisted of professional dancers and cutting-edge technology with bright rhythm and futuristic sound effects. Moreover, the performances rarely have any speech and word. Maison de la Culture du Japon à Paris (MCJP) held Fertile Landscape welcoming Daito also talked about his artistic practice. Reprinted from the interview:

If I had wanted to express myself with words, I probably would have become a singer or a writer. The reason I chose music as the medium for expression precisely was that I did not want to use words. That is because I was attracted to the universality of things that are not words.

The music video, “Cold Stares”, is one of his works to present how Daito thought of the relationship among music, human and machine. This video is the collaboration between Daito Manabe and Los Angeles beatmaker, Nosaj Thing featuring Chance The Rapper in 2015. The dance piece by two dancers was produced to express the message in the lyrics—their mental situation and conflict searching for the reason of being and memories, wandering along the border between reality (the real world performed by people) and illusion (the delusional world of Computer Graphics Effect). In the design of performance, Daito frequently utilized each beat and bridge of the music to alternate the real and virtual realities, thereby creating a scenario that dancers and drones mutually support and communicate with each other. The audience seems to be drifting on a virtual-to-reality space with the rhythm of music through the six shots installed on the drones, and sometimes is in a short distance but far away from the performers. Besides, it may be discovered that the virtual reality is filled with a considerable amount of minimal polygon and glitch art. The dirty media artist Jon Cates talked about his approach and inspiration of glitch art in the interview with Randall Packer:

It should be extended to considerations about other aspects of our society beyond art, in which we ignore those who don’t fit into our social ideals of perfection and worthiness.

Unlike Jon Cates took advantage of the glitch to create the imperfections, errors and the aberrations remaining people to face this “problem”, Daito’s glitch presents the essence of the machine and differentiates the real and the virtual world in this work. Each glitch was arranged on the beats and camera movements perfectly. Jon Cates provokes the conflict and contradiction, but this work rather aims to encourage the cooperation between human and glitch. The interview and official website have more details of this work.

The cooperation between human and glitch

Anthropomorphism- Machine-as-human

In Daito’s numerous works, it could be further discussed how he handles the relationship between human and machine. Fly, one of his works in the series of drones created in 2015. The three drones are arranged three-dimensionally in real space through a tracking technology and control system, and the work, in which dancers give performances to find the possibility of a new bodily expression. Working through a set of cameras with motion capture, dancers can physically and intuitively perceive the relationship between the body and data through the computer-controlled drones.

We are constantly experimenting and thinking of ways to create a new form of dance performance by utilizing technologies such as machine and deep learning

Like Daito said, he successfully created a duet dance attended by human and machine by this work. In the first three minutes of the performance, the drones played a supporting role and kept up with the dancer’s movement, but they were able to move individually with the music in the following time as the dancers left. This solo was like to resort to the rhetoric that they are exactly alive and do not doubt their existence to the audience. Anthropomorphism is commonly considered to be the quaint and archaic activity of people far removed in time and place from the complex functioning of contemporary technological society. But anthropomorphism is widespread in modern life, so common that we take it for granted and fail to react to its peculiarity (Caporael, 1986). “When I give an order to a machine, the situation is not essentially different from that which arises when I give an order to a person” Norbert Wiener said in his book, Cybernetics in History. When modern human are used to living with artificial intelligence, Daito dropped a bombshell which reminds us do not forget ignoring the existence and possibility of the machine. However, rather than the majority of sci-fi movies or theories which narrate machine will eventually rule the earth, the author considers that Daito aims to accomplish a co-prosperity of human and machine by this work.

Mechanomorphism- human-as-machine

If anthropomorphism, referring to machine-as-human, is one face of the human machine, we might allow “mechanomorphism,” the human-as-machine, to be its other face. Mechanomorphism is the attribution of characteristics of machines to humans (Caporael, 1986). Thus, Motion, one of Daito’s work, could be a classic example of mechanomorphism. This performance was shown at an Electric Company’s Opening Ceremony in 2015. Integrating the industrial robots and dancers, it aims at making the audience feel and imagine the harmonization of human and robots.

Interestingly, compared with Fly (the previous example), this work has a completely opposite performance that the industrial robots acted alone at the beginning but the dancers joined afterwards. If the purpose of Fly is to express the soul of the machine, the piece could be seen as a demonstration how human get along with these souls. The audience may be attracted in the first half of performance that each robot handed over the cube to another and worked in cooperation, but the fascinating part should be the human dancers acted along with the robots. Nowadays, human always lead the machine and bring them life, but no one can guarantee that the situation may be completely different someday like the dancers mimicked the robot motions as machine-like dance. Nonetheless, the most impressive part is the consistent performance of human and robots (like the below image shows). The piece not only performed human-as-machine choreography but also convey what the mentality of people see machine should be in the future. In this interview, Daito also mentioned that how he is inspired by technology:

No matter how much machinery and algorithms advance, you can re-motivate them creatively in service of a new idea. That process is a lot of fun. I think it is going to become more important that humans have better faculties of judgement when inputting information.

Reference

Caporael, L. R. (1986). Anthropomorphism and mechanomorphism: Two faces of the human machine. Computers in Human Behavior, 2(3), 215-234.

Symposium Hyperessay- An Unfinished Communications Revolution

The symposium which I participated was the first and the last, and Annie Abrahams and Jon Cates, they all demonstrated a performance and talked about their own piece, webcam interaction and glitch art. As a third-space audience, it was a very interesting experience and some of audience talked about online chat culture as well (will be discussed later). Even, the online chat was also a part of the performance during this third-days symposium.

Day1. Annie Abrahams

As Annie Abrahams described, the one of reason why she always uses the Internet as a medium for her performance is to “study human behaviour without interfering in it.” In the round table discussion, she emphasized that ”It’s an unknown trading, you are not in the same space and don’t know each other. Between the machine and people, you can make something happen, and everything could be possible”. In particular, this time the performance was a live steam. Unlike the other videos which we can fast forward or go back anytime, as third-space audience, everything we are watching is real and bare. Unpredictable but beautiful. Even under the same situation, each participant will demonstrate in various ways because of the limited environment or different physical status. But still, it showed that the effort of a group of people solving a problem collectively.

Interestingly, I think online chat room could be also a kind of unknown trading, and we were all participating. If the purpose of chat room is to have a general consensus, even just a listener, you can still obtain new information through other’s discussion. Just like Annie said,

“We are alone together and we form meaningful and deeply human connections through networked interaction and performance.”

Audience are not in the same space, don’t know each other and unable to expect what other people will do, but eventually everyone will collaborate together.

Moreover, focused on the symposium theme – An Unfinished Communications Revolution, Annie Abrahams further explained the more possibilities of this piece from her aspect, such as using telematic performance to think about questioning geopolitical barriers or political statements. A multiple voice is a beautiful way to put it and she also tried to use some phrases referencing the issues on it. Concerning differences of languages, political experiences, technologies and cultures is very challenging. In my opinion, perhaps she has answered that “do we come close to achieving the promise of the communications revolution in a complicated world with global, political and technological inequalities”. Possible but not finished yet.

Day3. Jon Cates

Day3 symposium consisted of three main performances, young girls of XXXtraPrincess, #exsanguination and Shawne Michaelain Holloway’s Chamber Series. Different from BOLD3RRR, the previous work I studied, the display and screen of three performances all were quite completed and did not have any glitch. Conversely, the sound became more fragmented, muffled and non-linear. Because of the technical problem with latency, even the audience did not know which part of glitch were arranged and which part were not, such as sounds check or screen adjustment. This uncertain factors made the scenario more realistic, and the objection would be perhaps more profound to be in the performance space.

In the piece of young girls of XXXtraPrincess, there were two girl who looked at their phone screen and took selfie with SnapChat Lens and memes. With the set-up of the camera so you see the avatar and the person. It has a sci-fi feeling and sort of advance guard. As the result, audience can freely move among the phone screen, two performers and the whole environment.

a process of mourning and cleansing with leeches being applied to the performer’s body

In the round table discussion, the majority of people were more curious about the story and meaning of the performances, and glitch art did not get too much audience’s attraction. Perhaps the chat room offers audience alternative space beyond perfection. Like the discussion of the difference between local people and online audience, on the third-space, there is no geographical boundaries, people will tend to active and conversational. However, online audience could not see at times what was occurring whereas in the same we would able to – different qualitatively. The network almost seems an afterthought to some extent.

Talked about the symposium theme, dirty new media artist, Jon Cates, always enjoys these imperfections, errors and the aberrations. The unfinished undoubtedly is a part of glitch art, and igaies may present well. To summarize, I think the two artists, Annie Abrahams and Jon Cates, they all expressed what the unfinished communications from their piece. Abundant and worth to thinking about.

Research Critique: Ant Farm and Cadillac Ranch (1974)

Ant Farm

The collective was founded in San Francisco in 1968 by Chip Lord and Doug Michels. The group’s initial goal was to reform education, but eventually expended their projects to a deeper level of reflection and criticism of popular culture. Refer to they self-described:

“art agency that promotes ideas that have no commercial potential, but which we think are important vehicles of cultural introspection.”

Ant Farm was also always utopian, ironic and tongue-in-cheek. Their projects revealed the relationships between environmental degradation and mass industry, questioned the role of mass media and consumerism and demonstrated the use of advanced technologies with playful projects. A cultural historian, Rebecca Solnit mentioned that “The group is both part of the subculture and part of the mainstream.”. Moreover, Michael Sorkin, in his essay, “Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll, Cars, Dolphins, and Architecture,” also described Ant Farm’s architectural contribution in a cultural context that includes the French Surrealists and American car culture, such as the below case which remains an icon of American culture – Cadillac Ranch.

Cadillac Ranch

This project was created in 1974 in Texas. They buried 10 Cadillacs, vintage 1948 to 1963, in a field off Route 66 in Amarillo. In the heyday of pop-art and counterculture, this “Stonehenge for America” was trying to create a group that could express their non-orthodox views on architecture, design and media. Exactly, This project brought a marked influence, as Michels said in 1994 in Los Angeles Times, “It took from being an obscure, avant-garde artwork to being an American icon”. Before this artwork, no one considered that American automobile could be a symbol – a ironic celebration of the “grotesque and wonderful” tail-fin as the ultimate expression of wasteful design in American culture.*

*quoted from: here

The Cadillacs were buried in sequence from the oldest, 1949, to the newest, 1964. There are 10, each car representing the latest version of the famous Cadillac tail fin.

When Cadillac Ranch was widely covered on mass communication to draw visitors from around the world, Lewallen observed that, it is not surprising, since the audience for the actual event was largely limited to the press, this phenomenon perfectly exemplified Ant Farm’s

“remarkable ability to exploit the very medium they opposed.”
–M. Lewallen and Steve Seid, Ant Farm 1968-1978, University of California Press, 2004, p. 2

In a letter to Stanley Marsh 3, one of funders of Cadillac Ranch, signed “Rip-Off Artists” in their typically jocular manner, they request money to produce “trash souvenirs”. Ant Farm just were and are among the preeminent comedians of architectural culture.

This work were painted several times in a variety of colors and shades of grey. The pink period was one of the most popular, taken in 1990.

Additionally, I very like the one of discussion of Cadillac Ranch by Melissa E. Feldman in his essay, Unearthing Ant Farm:

This work stands as a symbolic annihilation of America’s two most precious and insidious commodities, the TV and the car, and by extension, an attack on corporate control of wealth and mass-media control of information.

Through this “Stonehenge for America”, in the first level, Ant Farm tried to deliver American automobile can also be a symbol of local. Afterwards, viewers may commence to reflect the conflict between consumerism and environmentalism. The final level, while the artwork was widely covered by press, it should be reviewed the issue of mass-media control simultaneously.

Research Critique: Immersion and Sensorama

The Sensorama is known as the earliest concept of immersive technology. It was invented by Morton Heilig who was touted as the father of virtual reality device in 1957 and patented in 1962 . It was a head-mounted display that played 3D film accompanied by sound, moving air, and aromas to create a virtual sensory environment. The user would sit on a rotating chair which enabled them to face this screen, and be shown the stereoscopic images which gave the illusion of depth and the ability to view something from different angles.

Morton Heilig using his Sensorama machine in 1984.

The Concept of Immersion

Simply, immersion can refer to “a perception of being physically in a non-physical environment”. While Morton Heilig was inspired by short-lived curiosities like 3D movies and Cinerama , he believed that:

“by expanding cinema to involve not only sight and sound, but also taste, touch, and smell, the traditional fourth wall of film and theater would dissolve, transporting the audience into a habitable, virtual world.”

In this “experience theater”, user is able to feel of being inside and interact with his environment in meaningful ways. And the combination of a sense of immersion and interactivity can be also called “telepresence“.

The First Virtual Reality Device (?)

Sensorama widely was considered the pioneer of VR technology. However, when I deeply studied, there are other critiques indicated that The Sword of Damocles should be the priority. They claimed that The Sword of Democles is more in-line with what we would consider modern VR, and importantly unlike the Sensorama, it is computerized. VR usually was defined as:

“A computer-generated scenario that simulates a realistic experience.”

But, from the patent publication of Sensorama, We can clearly find that the main structure was supported by non-computerized components.

“A visual image projection is supported by the housing, and an optical means is included to direct images from the projection means to the hood. In addition to the above, means is provided to direct a breeze toward this hood, and at least one odor-sense stimulating substance is positioned to be releasable into the breeze in response to a signal from a suitable coordinating means.” – Patent Claim

“Sensorama is the first VR device” still need to be considered and discussed further. From the modern perspective, The Sword of Damocles is closer to the prototype of VR whether the concept or structure. In my opinion, Sensorama may be defined the first idea of immersion experience, and the first VR device should be The Sword of Damocles. After all, immersion can be non-computerized.

Which one is the first virtual reality device? Sensorama or The Sword 0f Damocles

Selling The Future

Last but not least, This example is more unique than the previous works which discussing on the class. Heilig found commercial potential from this concept. In his patent publication, he was mentioned that in 50’s:

“There are increasing demands today for ways and means to teach and train individuals without actually subjecting the individuals to possible hazards of particular situations.”

Apparently, he successfully predicted the future, scores of companies use VR as a way to showcase their products and experiences nowadays. But in his generation, corporations weren’t ready, and this work failed to secure sufficient investment and sales. From the contemporary viewpoint, Sensorama exactly has a huge benefit and the direction of development is as he expected either. This failure story just like narrates that true genius is seldom recognized until it’s too late.

like Alex Lambert, Creative Director of a immersive experiences company, frequently references the case of Sensorama device. “It’s amazing that someone did this with the rudimentary technology of the 1960s. That’s some serious ambition!”

Research Critique: Hypermedia and Aspen Movie Map

Aspen Movie Map was created by Michael Naimark together with Peter Clay and Bob Mohlin the late 1970’s. It was a groundbreaking interactive virtual tour of the real world city of Aspen, Colorado. In this simulated environment, users can navigate the streets, go inside selected buildings, or even change the seasons between fall and winter. After researching, I think that this art work is notable for the two following reasons:

1. an early and classic example of hypermedia system.
2. could be seen as the origin of Google Street View.

Today, when people are wandering through Google Map’s street view, they may never know this idea has existed more than 40 years.

What is hypermedia?

According to “As we may think“, wrote by Vannevar Bush in 1945:

A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

However, when I deeply found more articles, the term “non-linear” is often used when defining hypertext and hypermedia. I think this term should be done more comparisons and clarification for me and readers.

Traditional linear media vs Non-linear hypermedia.

Simply, novel and encyclopedia can clearly explain what the difference between “linear media” and “non-linear hypermedia” is:

Linear media: the information is written to or read from the medium in a given order, such as novel is intended to be read from beginning to end, and is therefore a linear medium. It may be written in the same way, but would not necessarily need to be, to be considered a linear medium.

Non-linear hypermedia: Non-linear medium is not necessary for the articles to be accessed (or written) in any particular order, like encyclopedia. Linear medium has a set path of how to get from a point to another point, whereas non-linear mediums do not.

Moreover, I also did a diagram to compare the difference between multimedia and hypermedia. Hypermedia usually refers to “link media” or “interactive media” and could be a software that connects elements(video, plain text or hyperlink) of a computer system, like the following example, Aspen Movie Map.

The first hypermedia system: Aspen Movie Map

A landmark hypermedia installation which allowed visitors to interactively explore and navigate the roads in a small town in Colorado. It was made through the world’s first laserdisc player which had been intended for the storage and playback of large movies. The below photos showing the automobile rigs used to create panoramas of the streets, then and now. (Aspen Movie Map & Google Street View)

Aspen Movie Map and Google Street View — It can find the main idea doesn’t change a lot after 40 years

This research what I learned is that, indeed, I never thought Google Street View can represent hypermedia. Users can wander visually the streets through the non-linear but linked medium of information. This is a familiar and classic example for modern people. Additionally, like the first concept of Dyanbook was designed for children, Naimark may never know that his art work can be developed a kind of navigation system for modern people.

Research Critique: Cybernetics, Nam June Paik and Magnet TV

Cybernetics

In 1948, Norbert Wiener derived this word from a Greek word, cybernēticḗ (meaning governance), and defined as “the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine” in his essay. Nam June Paik described the impact of it as “the exploration of boundary regions between and across various existing sciences”¹. Yet, Ascott suggested that the spirit of cybernetics “offers the most effective means for achieving a two-way exchange between the artwork and its audience”². In the 21st century, the term is often used in a rather loose way to imply “control of any system using technology.”

As my aspect, it might be defined as a scientific approach of how humans, animals and machines communicate with each other through a practical action or interaction.

Nam June Paik

Together the historical concepts of cybernetics, and art works by him, have influenced how electronic art is conceptualized today. His artworks usually combined music aesthetic with technical and performative concern of new electronic media, such as a series of manipulated television sets and the Robot K-456. Personally, there are two crucial elements which indicate the contribution of cybernetics:

1. His use of cybernetics has left an important legacy for contemporary media art
2. Giving a new way to think about the machine in art

Just Paik said “Cybernated art is very important, but art for cybernated life is more important, and the latter need not be cybernated”³, I think he wants to convey if the artwork critiques society through a new technology and medium, society can learn and then grow from it.

Magnet TV

Magnet TV is an early example of Nam June Paik’s “prepared televisions,” in which he altered the television image or its physical casing. Physicist Norman Bauman describes the experience of holding a magnet to a television, and the thrill of seeing magnetic fields in motion. “When you learn to play a Paik TV, you are forced to see these patterns of technology in terms that are different from those you learned in physics”⁴.

Actually, after I searched the relevant studies of cybernetics, there are numerous results and quotes , but it is quite difficult to get a consensus or conclusion to describe what is cybernetics simply. However, I am still fascinated to Magnet TV, and convinced that a good artwork is always beyond the times. This is a quite interesting art of how human, human’s action and machine interact.

Reference

1. NJ, Paik (2004). Paik in Global Groove 2004, p.107.
2. Ascott, R. (1966). Behaviourist art and cybernetic vision. Cybernetica, 9(4), p.247.
3. Wikiquote, NA. from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nam_June_Paik.
4. S, Ballard (2013), Reichardt, [9] p.43.