Hyperessary Role of Viewer: Objectual Conciousness

In the following thought experiments, we would presume with the idea of objectual consciousness and its performative aspects while contemplating upon the role of viewer. Notice that as an experiment, a contrived role would subject to change but nonetheless far from arbitrary.

Firstly, we think about the characters involved.

 

The Artist

Untitled 1972 by Donald Judd 1928-1994
Donald Judd, Untitled, 1972

As a ghost in the machine, the artist would perform textually a stream-of-consciousness. What does it meant to be still? The manifestation of its speech would be dependent of the states that the artist is in:

1. Present

2. Absent

3. Passive

4. Active

 

The Viewer

IMG_0029
Locational environment where to work would be installed.

Audience would be considered as a the public that was geographically located in a college with largely populated with Singaporeans. In that regards, consider the cultural behaviour that may dictate the action-reaction.

1. People related to the artist prior to the experiment

2. Intentional participants with no relations to the artist

3. Non-intentional public without knowledge of the artist and the artwork

The Relationship
Now discuss the probability of what is going to happen.

Activities

1. The object constantly replays its consciousness.

Present
When the artist is (tele)present, seduction would run its course in in text writing from stream-of-consciousness.

Absent
When the artist is not, seduction is generative and automatic. The object speaks in machine language.

2. The audience’s engagement with an object

Passive
Where the artist is passive in its identity, the machine listens and attempts to conduct a session encouraging transference.

Active
Where the viewer is active in its engagement, the identity of the artist in its object becomes active.

Form and Format
The materialisation of the objectual consciousness of the ghost in the machine would be established in Project Hyperessay Technical Realization.

Hyperessay Concept: Phantom of the Machine

Phantom of the Machine: The Ghost in the Machine

Concept

Phantom of the Machine is an exploration of human’s reception to intelligence of a machine. It is contrived in experimental spirit to study the interactivity between non-human being and object. This is done through playful public intervention, inspiring experiences with an emotional machine. Where the intelligence is of human, there is, however, negation of noticeable physical presence. This installation aims to disrupt he audience everyday interaction involving computers.

Prior Art

Since the culmination of Project Virtual Awkwardness last left of in OSS, the investigation of spaces was running along the discourse of the third space. Whereas the humans who are governed by the fear of God ties in with physical death, the being whose fear of social media challenges the existential notion of intellectual engagement in space-time continuum ranging from the real, virtual to the third space.

The artist’s fear of social media would render the physicality of a human body irrelevant and would live as close as to  minimally on consciousness. This implies that the object would have to live on collaborative interaction between itself and its environment. For the artist, that stream-of-consciousness would be the only way to indicate her presence. Was silence then relevant How could silence be perceived? The mind and its data visualised in textual form and silence as glitch?

In Internet Art & Culture, we have dealt with concepts such as the collective artwork,  data visualisation, glitch aesthetics and more. At the end of this experiment, more would be elaborated as we look into our findings.

Objectual Consciousness

In 1965, Amerian artist associated with Minimalism, Donald Judd, wrote  one of the most significant texts of the movement known as “Specific Objects”. Judd emphasises the physical, phenomenological experience of objects rather than representing any metaphysical or metaphoric.

Objectual consciousness, as a term would help unravel Phantom of the Machine’s idea of a concrete with its consciousness emancipating in a stream. Additionally, a layer of performance filmed the box and to complicate matter, interactivity is involved in the experience.

Judd believed that art should not represent anything, that it should unequivocally stand on its own and simply exist. Contextually speaking, it was ousting painting’s representation of space and abandoning plinth of a sculpture. Strict rules are set against illusion and falsity. 

In Phantom of the Machine, an objectual consciouness is alchemised with a machine installed in plexiglas. The evaluation of its consciousness in performance and interactivity would be ensued in the Project Hyperessay Role of Viewer, we determine the role of artist and its viewer, how the interaction would be, and the rituals involved.