Final Hyperessay: La Camera Insabiatta (2017)

Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson is known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist. In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA, which inspired her performance piece The End of the Moon. Her performance ranges from simple spoken word performances to elaborate multimedia events. She also has published six books, produced numerous videos, films, radio pieces and original scores for dance and film.

Initially trained in violin and sculpting, Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York during the 1970s, focusing particularly on language, technology, and visual imagery. She became more widely known outside the art world when her single  O Superman  reached number two on the UK pop charts in 1981.

The project, her first collaboration with Huang, is Puppet Motel in 1995. That’s an interactive CD-ROM, and in this fictional space, there are thirty unique rooms in hotel scene. Anderson infused with stories and music to make readers interact with the mechanism through a cursor.

La Camera Insabiatta

In a space filled with the graffiti by chalks, participants in head-mounted device, holding controllers and sitting at the chair explore and fly within “the other” world in companion with the artist’s indelible voice on audio serves as the storyteller. There are 8 rooms in this virtual world: The Cloud Room features a galaxy of text like spinning nebula; The Anagram Room, the movements of participants would reflect on the move of two heads on the wall, which are talking to them; The Dog Room represents the artist’s deep missing to her dead dog; The Water Room features a surreal scene taking place in a flooded, ceramic-tiled room; The Sound Room, voices of participants talking and singing will be converted into sculptures, and participants with controllers can strike them to listen their own sound or others who attended before; The Dance Room, surrounded by small people, is characterized by the mysterious story to make participants more soaked in; The Writing Room allows words to flow out of physical gestures; And The Tree Room allows participants to fly around an enormous tree with words leafs that are telling several stories.

The aim of this work is the exploration in the memory space where participants are able to fly without physical constraints. In Laurie Anderson’s interview, she said what she does is about losing your body and making an experience that “frees” you to look at any position. That’s also how it works in Virtual Reality, making people released from the subjectivity of body and experiencing the world at any aspect through senses. In my opinion, La Camera Insabiatta is influenced by some of her previous projects, such as Forty-Nine Days In the Bardo and The Waters Reglitterized. In 2005, The Waters Reglitterized, opened at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City. This work, created in the process of re-experiencing or re-working Anderson’s dreams while awake, uses the language of dreams to investigate the dream itself. The piece includes drawings, prints, and high-definition video. And, this work took its title from an essay on painting by Henry Miller written for his friend Emil Schnellock in 1949. Miller wrote, “Before falling to sleep last night I ordered my subconscious mind to remember, on waking, the last thought in my head — and it worked.” And for Anderson, dreams are “more than just pictures but portrayals of physical sensations and emotions.” That’s why there are lots of drawings chosen in the work but also her lots of works, which have an almost fluid quality and feature warm, saturated colors. In La Camera Insabiatta, it also emphasizes on the awakening consciousness, but ignores the physical present. And both of these works reproduce the experience that could not happen in the physical world, one is the dream world and the other is the human’s memory world, like the state of dreaming.

The Waters Reglitterized at Sean Kelly Gallery http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/finch/finch9-22-05_detail.asp?picnum=3

In La Camera Insabiatta, Anderson makes participants forget the physical self, and fly in the dream or the memory to feel the different statement of life, the death, in the virtual world. When it comes to the topic, the death issue, it’s worthy of discussing about the projection of the personal life experience of artists in their work. During the production of this project, both artists were just experiencing the death of their beloved family. Therefore, they wanted to explore the experience of death with the advanced technology, and combined the religious concept of “Bardo,” which is the period about first 49 days after people’s death, a transitional state between death and rebirth. In this period, these dead people still own their senses and feelings, but without the physical body, and their memory are disappearing gradually. In my view, the other exhibition also has an impact on this work, Forty-Nine Days In the Bardo, opened at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia in 2011, exploring the themes of love and death, the many levels of dreaming, and illusion. The installations include texts as well as drawings, sculptures, projections, and sound are made from materials including mud, foil, iron, chalk, and ashes. Both of two works are inspired by the death of her dog, Lolabelle, an intense discussion on loss as well as the deep spiritual connection between pets and their owners.

Lolabelle’s portray in Forty-Nine Days in the Bardo http://the-st-claire.com/1111/1111-review1.html

Lucid Dreams

Among Anderson’s works, there is the similar concept with Lucid Dreams, a dream during which the dreamer is aware of dreaming. During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment. From the aspect of epistemology introduced by Paul Tholey, there are seven conditions, awareness of the dream state, awareness of the capacity to make decisions, awareness of memory function, awareness of self, awareness of the dream environment, awareness of the meaning of the dream, and awareness of concentration and focus. In La Camera Insabiatta, participants know what they see and heard is not from the real world, just like the state of dreaming, and they are aware of it. In the virtual space, participants can decide what is their next step and how to interact with objects by themselves. And they can “feel” themselves, instead of seeing their own body or any physical present in the virtual world and seek for the personal meaning of this work for themselves, not just following the guidelines to operate the mission. With the help of VR device, participant are more immersed in this virtual world than the sole projection.

Comparison with Osmose (1995)

Forest in Osmose http://www.immersence.com/osmose/os_forest_grid.html

Besides, I would like to mention Osmose by Char Davies here. They both utilize the techniques of VR to help participants “fly” or “swim” in the virtual world, to “free” themselves form the limits of body. And both of them have different kinds of space in the virtual world, with regard to nature. In Osmose, Davis presents the nature scene, such as forest, cloud, pond and so on, but also code and text about the technological issue. In La Camera Insabiatta, Anderson talks about the nature of the death and also makes use of text as material but on the different purpose, for the representation of memory here. When it comes to the controlling devices, both of them use of a head mounted display, and with the help of hand-held controllers in La Camera Insabiatta; however, Osmose depends on the body’s most essential living act, the breathing, to navigate and to make participants feel themselves, a particular state-of-being within the virtual world. Regarding to visual presentation, the visual aesthetic of Osmose is semi-representational, consisting of semi-transparent textures and flowing particles instead of the hard-edged realism. And in La Camera Insabiatta, it transcends the state of the medium, the abstract sound transferring into the concrete sculpture.

Virtual Space
https://medium.com/@hsinchienhuang/la-camera-insabbiata-vr-installation-b04e8a60197e

VR

When it comes to the importance of the techniques of VR, Huang mentioned, VR is a tool that can efficiently and greatly deliver the cogitation, sensation or affection of the creator to the audience, just like so-called “empathy machine” by Chris Milk in his TED talk. In this work, the artists transformed their life experience, facing with the loss and thinking about the meaning of death, into the work to make participants experience the same and real feeling. What’s more, Huang also predicted that VR could influence people’s perception of themselves in the future. For instance, through the eyes of other creatures, the opposite sex or a different cultural background, VR helps people look at themselves from different aspect. Huang considered it’s the next wave of influence on human beings. Because people can release themselves from their physical present or social norms in the real world, and achieve to truly “fly” and “free” physically, mentally and consciously.

 

 

Final Hyperessay: Work Selection

La Camera Insabbiata

  • Artists: Hsin-Chien Huang(Computer Graphics & Interactive Program), Laurie Anderson(Story & Music)
  • First Public Display: Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art- Chalk Room,  2017
  • Device: head-mounted device, hands-held controllers
  • Reward: the Best VR Experience Award winner at the 74th Venice Film Festival

“Your feet say, you are in the room. I feel the floor. But your eyes say, I’m in great dangerous flying and back to fall. You believe your eyes, not your feet.” –Laurie Anderson

the scene in Taipei Fine Arts Museum http://artist-magazine.com/archive/image/edcontent8/515132_165/515_158_3.jpg

In a space filled with the graffiti by chalks, participants in head-mounted device, holding controllers and sitting at the chair explore and fly within “the other” world in companion with the artist’s indelible voice on audio serves as the guide. There are 8 rooms in this virtual world: The Cloud Room features a galaxy of text like spinning nebula; The Anagram Room, the movements of participants would reflect on the move of two heads on the wall, which are talking to them; The Dog Room represents the artist’s deep missing to her dead dog; The Water Room features a surreal scene taking place in a flooded, ceramic-tiled room; The Sound Room, voices of participants talking and singing will be converted into sculptures, and participants with controllers can strike them to listen their own sound or others who attended before; The Dance Room, surrounded by small people, is characterized by the mysterious story to make participants more soaked in; The Writing Room allows words to flow out of physical gestures; And The Tree Room allows participants to fly around an enormous tree with words leafs that are telling several stories.

The Chalk Room
The Anagram Room
The Dog Room
The Water Room
The Sound Room
The Dance Room
The Writing Room
The Tree Room

(source: http://lacamerainsabbiata.org/)

The aim of this work is the exploration in the memory space where participants are able to fly without physical constraints. In Laurie Anderson’s interview, she said what she does is about losing your body and making an experience that “frees” you to look at any position. That’s also how it works in Virtual Reality, making people released from the subjectivity of body and experiencing the world at any aspect through senses. What’s more, this characteristic of VR matches the core idea of this work, the death issue. During the production of this project, both artists were experiencing the death of their beloved family. Therefore, they wanted to explore the experience of death with the advanced technology, so they combined the religious concept of “Bardo,” which is the period about first 49 days after people’s death, a transitional state between death and rebirth. In this period, these dead people still own their senses and feelings, but without their physical body, and their memory are disappearing gradually. In the introduction video, Huang said,

“The mission of last technology is to help people to think about the most important issues such as live and death in our daily life.”

In my opinion, this work makes an overwhelming demonstration of technology in  arts, making people experience the feelings that never could be explored before, and making anything, including the experience, feelings and emotions, “real” in the virtual space.

  • Chalk and Blackboard

The reason to choose “chalk” as a material to present the world, which is like the space of memory in the brain, is that chalk is like memory; words can be removed, but cannot be erased completely and must be remain something on the blackboard. It is the same state with memory; sometimes, people might forget something, but it doesn’t mean that this memory disappears from the consciousness; instead, it hides somewhere in the subconsciousness, and the only difference is whether it’s stronger or weaker memory.

Besides, that’s an interesting perspective from Anderson: she thought chalk has certain tactility, handmade, and it’s opposite of what virtual reality usually looks like, where the world is perfect compare to the chalk room filled with dust and dirt. It’s kind of a savvy means to mixing the real world with the virtual space.

Laurie Anderson painting the wall https://www.vrroom.buzz/vr-news/immersive-arts/experience-worlds-best-vr-artwork-taipei
  • VR

“It’s an isolated experience, not like the film or the concert. You are alone in this world,” said Anderson.

Rather than following the goal-oriented structure in the previous VR project, this VR interactive work focuses on the personal experience. In my view, this method breaks through the entertainment of the VR device, but enhances the level as a mediation to help people to introspect their lives. And Huang mentioned, VR is a tool that can efficiently and greatly deliver the cogitation, sensation or affection of the creator to the audience, just like so-called “empathy machine” by Chris Milk in his TED talk. In this work, the artists transformed their life experience, facing with the loss and thinking about the meaning of death, into the work to make participants experience the same and real feeling. What’s more, Huang also predicted that VR could influence people’s perception of themselves in the future. For instance, through the eyes of other creatures, the opposite sex or a different cultural background, VR helps people look at themselves from different aspect. Huang considered it a next wave of influence on human beings. The potential of technology is not foreseeing, but the domain to be explored by human is expanded continuously and certainly.

Vive- VR Device https://www.tfam.museum/Exhibition/Exhibition_page.aspx?id=624&ddlLang=en-us

Final Research: Artist Selection

Overview

Huang Hsin-Chien http://img.ltn.com.tw/2017/new/sep/11/images/bigPic/600_136.jpg

Huang Hsin-Chien is a contemporary new media artist from Taiwan. Huang is expert in large-scale interaction, performing, mechanical apparatus, algorithmic computations and video installations. Now he is also the director of the Digital Content and Technologies Program in National Cheng Chi University in Taiwan, my home university.

He studied mechanical engineering in National Taiwan University. Then he studied industrial design in Art Center College of Design and Illinois Institute of Technology for master degree in design.

His first rewarded creation is “Time of Dream” in the first year of new media art competition “New Voices, New Visions,” when he was a Ph.D. student of the graduate school of Illinois Institute of Technology in 1994. It was based on a book “Einstein’s Dreams” talking about a series of fantasies about time and gave him inspiration to create an interface between words and images. Readers were able to travel between different times and stories, such as separating themselves from their own shadows or visiting the rooms with reversed causalities.

During that period, he also won acquaintance of several people such as world-renowned multimedia artist Laurie Anderson, who collaborates lots of projects with Huang, such as  “Puppet Motel”, “Here” and “La Camera Insabbiata,” which just won the Best VR Experience Award in 2017 Venice Film Festival.

Laurie Anderson http://www.laurieanderson.com/2018site/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-01-at-3.19.19-PM.jpg

Actually, after his graduation, he served as a general art director in Sony online game business in West United States for several years. He said,

“When I was in the computer game industry, many of my colleagues were from the military. They created games for kids using the same technology from military simulation and training. After the Columbine High School campus shooting, I started to look deeply into the characteristics of technology and to reflect how humanity is altered by technology.”

Eventually, he went back Taiwan and is devoted in art creation since 2001 and rebuilt his profession as a new media artist and made the relationship with society.

He not only produces art creations that are presented in museums and art-related festivals or exhibitions, but also participates in the visual or stage design for well-known singers’ business concerts in Asia.

Rationale to choose

The reason I regard Huang as a contemporary new media artist is that he meets the criteria: the combination of technology, live performance, interactivity, collaboration, interdisciplinary and something to speak out.

In terms of technology, he already attempted to use the camera to project participants’ image on the screen in 2002, but the differentiation between pervious similar works, instead of a complete colored-silhouette or the real image, he picked up the silhouette of birds and rain as materials in the work, “Rain.” With the help of the interactive software and the formula of acceleration of gravity, the image can be projected in sync and the images of rain and bird that are from the nature can be presented smoothly and cope with the natural movement. And in his latest rewarded project, “La Camera Insabbiata,” he also utilized the techniques of the virtual reality device to make people to go in the other world where reflected on the reaction of the participants in the real world to create a feeling of “suspending disbelief.”

When referring to the concept of live performance, the representation of Huang’s work is “Road” in 2015, an interactive multimedia performance. The performance used real-time motion capture technology to transform the performers’ movements onto projected background. What’s more, it is an interdisciplinary art work. Huang collaborated with the professions from dance, visual design, music production and playwright. In his interview, there is a vital point of view for the collaboration of the interdisciplinary.

“It is a disturbing problem when collaborators always put the goals or the ultimate achievement in the first place, especially from different fields. Because people involving in would have preconceived ideas about how to do is sensible and what is necessary. However, for people who are professionals in different specialty, they may not think so.”

I think it’s essential to keep this perspective in mind, because the creation can be an innovative sparks when everyone throws away his/her own rules and views.

Road(2015) http://www.storynest.com/pix/_4proj/per_road/p2.jpg

There is a representative of interactivity, “Window of Heaven and Earth, Mirror of the travelers,” it is a public art in the airport MRT station in 2017. When people pass by the screen, the visual would reflect their images that the historical architecture is as a material. Besides, the screen also reflected the real-time weather and sky color that made this work more real in the virtual image. At the aspect of collaboration, Huang not only collaborates with other artists, but also cooperates with the audience. In “La Camera Insabbiata,” he recorded the audience’s footage, which were sound being transformed into the images, as a new material for the work in the next audience’s spectacle.

In Huang’s works, the techniques, forms and material to present or utilize in an art are not chosen randomly or just catch up the fashion. He always wants to talk about something in his works. Take “Window of Heaven and Earth, Mirror of the travelers” for example. Why he chose to present Taiwanese architecture from different periods as a material is that the airport is a symbol of departure, where people have an emotional paradox that combines with the feeling of expectation and missing. The historical architecture represents the impression of hometown in peoples’ memories, who have left their hometown for a long time. And these architecture made a comparison to the urban life which is noisy and over-mechanized.  At the airport, before people left, Huang hoped to create a dream that took us back to the calm and natural countryside where can smooth our disturbed mind.

After Art of the Networked Practice(2018)

Through attending this online symposium at the first and second day, I would like to pick up some works and views that catch my attention.

Dissolved in Station House Opera in 2014

Dissolved (2014) 

Through the interview with Julian Maynard Smith, the director of Station House Opera, he wants to show that this space is no a theater, although he specializes in performance. He also mentioned that he was interested in architecture recently, so space is important to him. What’s more, he also made a point about “flux,” discussed in the keynote presented by Maria Chatzichristodoulou; “ we need to think about space outside particular rooms, it’s a sort of flux action.” Actually, I cannot fully understand the interpretation of flux from Maria, but introspecting the idea from Smith, I consider that flux is a fluid and endless statement that flows between real and virtual world. And the work “Dissolved” presented in Station House Opera in 2014, he used two-way video link, the idea like Hole in Space and Telematic Dreaming, connecting participants in London and Berlin to interact with others’ images in full-body size in sync. More impressed is the concept of the identity, he said,

“when your face is close to somebody else, it looks like either of you, it’s third character and has its own identity.”

How participants think of themselves in this blended image and how they separated themselves from this image to think of “the other.” I think this is a quite interesting and exciting experience flowing between the subject and the object!

Julian Maynard Smith

Performance- Entanglement

the performance- Entanglement (2018)

When talking about the latency issue in the roundtable discussion, it reversed my view of the latency, which I regarded as a “noise.” The latency is unpredictable, but participants can prepare mentally because it is the feature of this environment that we must accept it and embed it in the performance. The latency could be an element for the performance! In Entanglement, there are seven performers busy keeping an eye on others’ action, following the instruction of the “script,” and paying attention to what happened in the chat room. They were doing something deliberately to create the atmosphere where there is no seasonable or logic arrangement of dialogue and visuals. In the end of discussion, Annie Abrahams concluded,

“without speaking, without viewing, how to connect with others? It’s feeling.”

Actually, my first impression on this performance is blank and meaningless when I just focused on their physical images and sounds. However, when I took a look on the conversation between others’ audience, what they were talking about was atmosphere or their feeling. I started to focus on my own feeling and found out there is a wave in my mind. Sometimes I felt calm, but sometimes I felt nervous. I think participants who expressed their feeling in the chat room also performed in this work. After appreciating and realizing this performance, I consider Abrahams an experimenter instead of a performer, because she mentioned that audience is more important the artists and performers. She makes experiments to realize people and to stimulate people to focus on themselves physically and mentally.

I’d Hide You

I’d Hide You

It is not just an online game, but it’s a life transmission, a game about relation. In the documentary video, the most impressing scene is the runner hiding or taking a break on others’ space like cars. This action symbolizes building the relationship between participants online and people on the street, and it also means participants build trust on strangers in the same city. Although participants are in the online world, they build an authentic connection with people in the real world through the ambassador of runner. I like the idea given by Matt Adams,

“It’s easy to learn, quick to share, but also easy to lose if you don’t concentrate on the game.”

It makes me come up with the point, if people are not building relation, keeping in touch with others or their communities, does it also mean that people might easily disappear or be forgotten in this world? If people don’t concentrate on their life and get together well with others in their society, do they protect themselves in danger? I don’t know whether or not the artists are intent to deliver this idea, but it could lead a different route to explore.

Online Symposium, the networked third space

At the beginning in the first day, when Prof. Sorensen, the Chair in ADM, was making an introduction, some people responded the sound issue in the chat room. It makes me start to think about how important problems can be responded or solved timely by presenters? It’s a technological issue, but I think it’s worthy of discussing this trivial but significant problems. Here is my idea, or more specific, it’s my imagination! In my opinion, the interface of participants can be inserted a button about the technical issue that there is a drop-down list, such as the serious latency or disappearance of sounds’ or images’ problems. If it exceeds to certain amount of participants pressing the same problems, the desktop of the presenters would sound an alarm to disrupt presenters. Although it seems to be impolite to presenters, it can enhance the quality of the communication and collaboration in the third space.

Above this picture, it presents the collaboration in the chat room and really impresses me with the share of intellectual. When I viewed the topic “The promise of internationalism,” it also confused me of the definition of internationalism. It’s difficult for presenters to respond questions through making an oral presentation, but other participants involved in this issue and “co-“created this project (this presentation), just like the core concept of new media art, there is no boundary between senders and receivers, between performers and audience, everyone inside the spectacle is producer. Sometimes, there is more lively, energetic and creative in the chat room, even though text is only mediation available here. And this also could happen in the performance, Entanglement, audience sharing their feeling and idea in the chat room.

“Hope people in the chat room could also create the atmosphere,” said Annie Abrahams.

Conclusion

Before taking this new media history and theory, I consider the use of advanced technology in art work is too deliberate and just for innovation but nothing meaningful. Nevertheless, after the overview of the history and the realization of the significant concept of new media, I think what Steve Dixon, President of LASALLE College of the Arts,  said in the online symposium can represent my view.

“Telematics is a tool to find new relationships between things already exist in,” said Steve Dixon.

Research Critique: Kidnap(1998) & Blast Theory

An interactive media art, Kidnap, was represented in 1998 led by Matt Adams in Blast Theory. It explored the social and cultural phenomenon through the application of innovative technology, live performance, media, dramaturgical structure and game in the fluid environment, combining real, virtual and fictional experience. In the official introduction of Kidnap, it highlights the ideas of control and consent, the media, theatre, surveillance and lottery culture in this performance, or called the event.

Control and consent are related to the political issue, about the power or authority. It asked “winners of kidnapped” for giving up control themselves and asked for approval to snatch them in a symbiotic risky way. In the article ‘How to kidnap your audience,’ politics is infused in our behavior, and how we relate to someone who asks us directions is a political act, through that type of inter-relationship, Adams said. Although he revealed some people described their work as apolitical, I agree with Adams’ view from the broad definition. When I take a look on the definition of politics in the dictionary, one of meanings is the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government. In my opinion, politics is not just control over a physical government, it also could dominate other people’s minds or behaviors, just what kidnap presented.

And in this event, it utilized the digital broadcasting where audience could appreciate the performance or “watch the news” through broadcast, and the interactive media, where people could have an access to communicate with kidnapped directly, but it’s pitiful not to find the document recording the dialogue between the audience and the victims. That’s interesting that besides people are attracted by the idea of being plucked from daily life and having every responsibility taken away from them for 48 hours, they also had a desire to be surveilled. I guess people may be eager to grab others’ attention, but may reassess themselves through this experience and I want to cite an article written in Independent here,

For that, I turned to Roger Plant, who has enthusiastically registered to be kidnapped. “I have been to a number of Blast Theory’s performances, and they are good at making you rethink suppositions and re-examine yourself.”

As Plato said, ‘Know thyself.’

one of winners https://www.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/kidnap/

The other element that inspired me is “theatre,” which is the first passion on for Adams. In the article ‘How to kidnap your audience’ the author mentioned, audience are given strict guidelines in terms of how they can engage with it. It is a new point for me! Although the work put the audience in the center to make improvised behaviors, it is necessary to have strict and delicate arrangement for the happenings if we want to trigger real feelings and it must be like a “real” event. And “game” is also a new element that was never told about in the previous work we discussed. I never think about the game as a form of media art, a means of understanding and participating more easily for audience as well as a part representation of social and political dialogue. I think the game here has a strong connection to the idea of immersiveness, an easy way for people to swim in the world  that combines reality with virtuality, or an access to stimulating a strong sentiment resort to the strict arrangement of the game.

Paul Sermon and his work “Telematic Dreaming”(1992)

Paul Sermon is dedicated in pushing the boundary of interactive telematic installations which emphasizes the sense of users’ experience. I think that the core idea of Paul’s works inherits the concept of the “composite-image space,” discussed in “Welcome to ‘Electronic Cafe International ‘ ” written by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, and originated from the prototype of the electronic cafe in 1984.

Paul Sermon http://www.esbaluard.org/en/actividad/lecture-by-paul-sermon/

“Composite-image space mixed live images from remote places and presented the mix at each location so performers could see themselves on the same screen with their partners.”—“Welcome to ‘Electronic Cafe International ‘ “

This  idea is ubiquitous in Paul’s installations and easily seen in his “Telematic Dreaming.” This project takes place between two beds from different rooms which could be thousands of miles away from each other. Performers in each room can see the high-resolution projected image of others from the other room. In this kind of experience, the performers exchange their tactile senses by replacing their hands with their eyes. And I would like to quote the similar view from “Welcome to ‘Electronic Cafe International.’ ”

“In designing such spaces, we look not only at their qualities and aesthetics, but how people interact when they are disembodied and their image is their “ambassador.” “

from http://categorized-art-collection.tumblr.com/post/55965717382/paul-sermon-telematic-embrace-1993-a-series

I consider that ambassador(or called as telepresent) of the physical presence is a key element in the telematic installations and how to make the personal experience immersive in its own avatar depends on the techniques of technology, the intensity of interactivity and the materials that are picked up to present the meanings. In  “Telematic Dreaming,”  it presents high-resolution projected image within the ISDN digital telephone network, making the ambassador vivid. Besides, performers can interact and “touch” the ambassador of others in real-time. What’s more, I think it’s astute that choosing the beds as a spectacle because the symbol of the bed is relaxing and intimate, and performers can easily enter this field, a surreal but intimate space. The spectacle mixed with computer graphics and other images projected in this environment blurs the line between the real world and the virtual reality experience. Therefore, I think this is the reason why “Telematic Dreaming”  is one of eminent telematic interactive projects.

 

Research Critique: Ant Farm and Media Burn(1975)

Ant Farm

Ant Farm was an avant-garde application of architecture, graphic arts, performance, environmental design practice and other aspects of hyper-futurism, founded in San Francisco in 1968 and ended in 1978 by Chip Lord and Doug Michel.The works made by Ant Farm made a big progress among previous works mentioned in the class is that it made good use of the dissemination of the media, especially the mass media, the icon culture at that time, television, to inform and influence more people than before.

During studying the ideas of Ant Farm, “hippie” is considered one of core concepts for Ant Farm. Browsing the interpretation in Wikipedia, hippie is a member of a counterculture, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s. And the celebration “the summer of love” brought hippie to the life of teenagers in San Francisco. The beliefs of hippies are joy, nonviolence, to free themselves from societal restrictions, to find new meaning in life, to question authority. And one of the significant movements of them is utopian socialism to form communes to live as far outside of the established system. It seems interesting that Chip Lord said at the conference, “the difference between hippie and Ant Farm in 1960s is new technology.” But I think most importantly is both of them made good use of mass media. In the article The root of the 1960s communal revival’ written by Timothy Miller,

“The rural hippie communes were media attention-grabbers, full of photo opportunities, wild anecdotes, and the weirdest-looking people most Americans had even seen. Press coverage was massive from about 1969 through 1972.”

Nomadic Experiments: Ant Farm Inflatables http://mcadenver.blogspot.sg/2011/11/nomadic-experiments-ant-farm.html

It is obvious that Ant Farm is influenced by hippie counterculture greatly when talking about its effort to redefine the way we see, heard and believe in daily life, such as cultural icons and the concept or structure of architecture always presented in works. What’s more, Ant Farm also develops its characteristics by utilizing the ironic humor, focusing on an awareness of the media impact on people’s view and urging the introspection of American kitsch culture.

Besides, Ant Farm is also influenced by the trend of “underground” like underground newspaper. It appeals to “underground architecture” that works against the existence that materials use in works are inflatable or movable and opposition to the Brutalism.

Media Burn

Media Burn was displayed on July 4, 1975 in San Francisco and Ant Farm termed it “ultimate media event.” The main part of this event is a “Phantom Dream Car,” a reconstructed Cadillac car was driven through a wall of burning TV sets. It presented the collision of two American prominent cultural symbols in 1960s: automobile and television. And the drivers inside the car were dressed as astronauts, I suppose that the character of astronauts and the image of car symbolize the futuristic, a powerful vision in the future world that people can be liberated from the control of the cultural production at that time.

Besides, I think of the arrangement introducing an independent speech by artist-president representing as Johnny F. Kennedy on July 4 as a savvy means, because it made good use of the news spot which is also condemned in this event on public, “the monopoly of mass media”, television, which shapes the world we see and think. The gimmick of the date, American Independent day and the character of President, Johnny F. Kennedy, who is first elected on television and also dead in front of his citizens through television easily grabbed the eyes of the public and the mass media. In this speech, it appealed to the public to reflect on the impact of mass media in our daily life in this public performance as well as through the television and encouraged people not to be controlled by the information that the mass media fed and to put their foot through the television screen.

Artist-President and astronauts http://mondo-blogo.blogspot.sg/2010/12/ant-farm-sex-drugs-rock-roll-cars.html

It impresses me that just at the beginning period of the population of television, artists started to ponder over the influence of the centralized thought delivered from the mass media, because the aspect it chose or the interpretation it made of every event could greatly shape or distort the picture or the thought of the event in audience’s mind. Back to the previous topic we discussed in the class, the position of artists in the new media field is obvious in Media Burn that they go outside the inherent way of thinking and own a sensitive awareness of our daily life, and most importantly, they take actions to arouse everyone’s awareness.

“It’s a visual manifesto of the early alternative video movement, an emblem of an oppositional and irreverent stance against the political and cultural imperatives promoted by television, and the passivity of TV viewing.”–recorded in the article

 

Research Critique: Videoplace(1970) & the idea of immersion

The Background of Myron Krueger’s Work

Videoplace is Myron Kruwger’s main work in 1970s. The movements of the participant recorded on video were analyzed and transferred to the silhouette representations of the users in the virtual reality environment. Through the use of the colored silhouettes, participants can see their actions on screen. The silhouette of participants can touch the objects on screen while interacting with each other. What’s more, participants can interact with others in the connected room on screen.

The Device used in Videoplace http://thedigitalage.pbworks.com/w/page/22039083/Myron%20Krueger

It was based on his previous work, Glowflow, Metaplay and Psychic Space, which focus on the quality of interaction. The first work, Glowflow, is a darkened room with tubes of light, sensing the participants’ footsteps. But this work lacks of the dialogue between man and machine, audience cannot be aware of the response from the environment. The second work, Metaplay, empathizes the interaction between participants and the environment. The artist from the other place can draw following the hand movement of the participant in the other room. The third work, Psychic Space, adds the responsive sound and also creates the dialogue between the participant and the computer that the movement of the participant can trigger the difference responses of the computer.

The Discrepancy from Others’ Interactive Works

“Man-machine interaction is usually limited to a seated man poking at a machine with his fingers or perhaps waving a wand over a data tablet. Seven years ago, I was dissatisfied with such a restricted dialogue and embarked on research exploring more interesting ways for men and machines to relate.”—Myron Kruwger

Myron Kruwger

Kruwger’s idea with Videoplace is the creation of virtual reality that surrounds the users, and responds to their movements and actions, without being encumbered by the use of goggles or gloves.

The concept of Myron Krueger’s interactive environment is without wearable devices to interact with objects or other participants on screen. But is it a viable way to immerse participants in the virtual reality compare to the help of head-mounted display or the use of goggles or gloves?

In ‘Virtual Environment’ written by Scott Fisher,

a truly informative picture, in addition to merely being an informational surrogate, would duplicate the physicality of confronting the real scene that is meant to represent.”

I think Kruwger’s works lack of the aspect of 3-dimension space and audio, and the sense of touch. According to the interpretation of the virtual environment in Whatls.com, there are several elements to increase the immersiveness of the experience, continuity of surroundings, conformance of human vision, freedom of movement, physical movement, physical feedback, narrative engagement, and 3D audio. In Myron Krueger’s works, due to the reduction of the aid of the head-mounded display and data gloves, it has difficulties with presenting the sense of space and triggering the physical interaction with other objects or participants.

I think that is the reason why immersing the virtual environment with wearable devices is the mainstream nowadays because people can be more satisfied with the multi-sensory experience compare to Kruwger’s idea that participants are being liberated from a seat or the gloves, but constricted in the 2D experience. But Kruwger attempted to figure out the way to liberate the constriction of the wearable devices still expands the another path of immersive experience.

Reference:

‘Responsive Environment’: http://raley.english.ucsb.edu/wp-content/Engl800/Krueger-AFIPS.pdf

Myron Krueger Biography: http://thedigitalage.pbworks.com/w/page/22039083/Myron%20Krueger

 

Research Critique: Soundings(1968) & the idea of Cybernetics

Norbert Wiener defined “Cybernetics” as a mechanism dealing with communication and control among people, nature and machines. To be more specific, this control is the feedback that depends on the actual performance rather than the expected and still one.

Soundings, whose catalysts, defining as triggering changes in the spectator’s behaviors by Roy Scott, are the silvered panel at the outer layer of plexiglass and the electronic device. The former can reflect viewers’ own image and the latter can trigger the change of images, depending on the sound and the voice that viewers make.

Soundings in Artsy. https://www.artsy.net/artwork/robert-rauschenberg-soundings

I’m so pitiful that I have difficulties with finding out the video of this artwork, because I consider that only the dynamics of the artwork can present the value of modern arts, such as “dialogue,” among artists, audience and the artwork. As Roy Scott said in “Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision,”

“the modern artist is primarily motivated to initiate a dialogue to enrich the artistic experience with feedback from the spectator’s response.”

Robert Rauschenberg in Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rauschenberg

When I search for MoMA document, where was its first public show, records that “Rauschenberg insisted that viewers become his collaborators, and without them the work doesn’t exist.” His idea corresponds to Roy Scott’s feedback, “a function of an output(observer response) is to act as an input variable, and leads to more variety in the output(observer experience).” Interpreting the essay written by Roy Scott and the artwork “Soundings,” I consider that the core idea of Cybernetics and Modern Art is feedback, representing interactivity, uncertainty, instant communication, which is the real departure from the traditional art, which draws a line between artists and audience, and which is static and unchangeable.

My Understanding of Multimedia

How collective intelligence will change corporate leadership: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-collective-intelligence-change-corporate-dave-parkerson

In my view, I regard multimedia as a pure medium that combines sound, images carrying nothing meaningful. However, after I read the content in the overture part, it surprised me that the meaning of multimedia is not just a tool, but also a carrier that loads the creativity and intelligence of human beings, and a breakthrough that changes the inherent thinking routes and decentralizes the authority to all participants who just are involved in. And what’s more, like the concept of Pierre Levy for “ Collective Intelligence”, it shapes the aesthetics and social implication at that time.

 

Considering that how long is the history of multimedia, I thought the appearance of multimedia is in 1993, when World Wide Web was seen in public. But it just represents the form of multimedia, I always forget the core concepts of multimedia, integration and interactivity, thriving for creativity and intelligence. I never think of the notion that people dating from 15000 B.C. had an idea that created an environment that integrated all forms of media. Or it just might be over-interpreted, because people at that time just appealed to a surrounding, which can helped people immerse themselves in the world that were totally different from the real world. At this point, I consider that people at any time are all seeking for this experience , the same goal but different route.

Art who comprehends her with whom can one consult concerning this great goddess: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/22437

Although my major in undergraduate study is classical music performance, I never thought of opera as a form of multimedia. In essence, people studying classical music usually would not admit that any form of artworks could be regarded as “art”, which is eternal, beautiful, and sometimes divine, which is not easily be produced according to that era. After reading essays from different aspects, I contemplate if I take the cultural society and the production at this generation into consideration, it can make sense that art that collaborates with technology may also be viewed as the real art now.

 

Actually, I never thought that the history of new media has the tight connection to the art. In my intuitive opinion, I thought that the beginning of new media is the incoming of Internet, and never considered that in 1950s, the concept of hyperlink, prefigured by Vannevar Bush, has its prolong and supreme impact on the development of new media, accompanied by hypertext and hypermedia. Continuously, new media also creates the new paths or forms of art presented or interpreted, because artworks made by new media is decentralized and open, people who immerse themselves in can be the author of the work and the work can be reflective to their mind. Before the invention of technology, these perspectives cannot be imaginable.