Research – When art meets technology!

March 20, 2018March 20, 2018

Research Critique: Annie Abrahams, The Big Kiss (2008)

Since its invention, the Internet was seen as a technological marvel that truly transforms our world into a McLuhanesque global village, where information gets from one end to the other in a blink. Moreover social media made it feel like we know the things that are going on in our friends’ and families’ life effortlessly. Yet people often talks about preferring face-to-face conversation and feeling lonely despite connected. Why so? What exactly is missing from a mediated human interaction?

The Big Kiss (2008) by Annie Abrahams, live Webcam networked art, performed by Abrahams and Mark River

In 2008, Annie Abrahams created a performance installation, The Big Kiss, which invites members of the public to kiss her telematically. Their imageries appeared in the same video space, but the participants are from different geographical spaces. The “kiss”, made of a string of code and number, was transmitted through wires, transmitters, satellites, receivers, and other electromagnetic systems, before finally landing on the other pair of lips. A much bigger group of “participants” are involved as opposing to the conventional kiss, thus a truly “big” kiss.

Out of some of the most famous imageries of kiss in art history, such as Marc Chagall’s painting depicting the happy couple kissing, the photograph of Kissing the War Goodbye, one of the most daring and intense representation is the performance piece Breathing In/Breathing Out by Marina Abramovic and Ulay. By sharing their breath until the verge of passing out, they question the physical and mental limits of the human body through a kiss. Anyone who has watched the performance felt that intensity. In a rather loosely constructed comparison, The Big Kiss, in which the act of the kiss appears to be much less passionate, more gestural, almost etiquette like, came short of intensity. Perhaps, because touch, voice, and body signals, which we know are important for communication from traditional psychology, are deprived in the machine mediated experience. Indeed it feels, like how Abrahams put it, “closer to a ‘drawing à deux’ session than to a real kiss.”

Breathing In/Breathing Out. Marina Abramovic and Ulay. 1977.

With The Big Kiss, Abrahams asks a crucial question, if the mediated kiss felt alienated for the missing of these senses, what would the disembodied human interaction lose in this machine dominated society?

Robert Plutchik, Wheel of emotions

One thing we are witnessing is the simplification of emotional expression in online communication. As seen in psychologist Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of emotions, emotions are complex conscious experience. This wide range of emotions are no where to be found in the generic response options provided, for instance, by Facebook.

Facebook reactions

Abrahams points to the same direction in the article that summarises her practise, Trapped to Reveal – On webcam mediated communication and collaboration, it is likely human communication are made “easy, clean, and free of danger” to not to display the “ordinary, vulnerable and messy aspects of human communication.”

In summary, Abrahams suggests that technology at large might isolate people due to its disembodied experience and while this superconnected loneliness is experienced more and more, it is crucial to be skeptical “when people started discussing, dreaming of and glorifying the advantages of Internet collaborations“.

March 13, 2018

Research critique: Telematic dreaming, 1992

In 1992, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz concluded the captivating article “Welcome to Electronic Café International,” with the following line.

If the arts are to take a role in shaping and humanising emerging technological environments, individuals and arts constituencies must start to imagine at a much larger scale of creativity.

The same year, Paul Sermon created the above work Telematic Dreaming, positioning two beds, one in Finland, and the other in England, and linking them by projecting their respective realtime images onto each other. By doing so, Sermon enabled human interaction between the performer in one space, and the the visitor in the other with technologically mediated tools, acknowledging the concern of Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz that technology might lack temperature, warmth, human touch, filling this gap which Roy Ascott refers to as “deep-seated fears of the machine coming to dominate the human will and of a technological formalism erasing human content and values.”

As comparing to Kit Galloway and Sherri Rabinowitz’s work Hole-in-Space 1980, an earlier example realised with similar technology, Sermon created a more personal environment in Telematic dreaming by introducing a bed to the setting. Often associated with relaxation and intimacy, the notion of a bed elevated a sense of privacy in the visitors. The possible forms of interaction emerged between the telematic participants over a bed in the Third Space, such as “touching” each other gently and simply resting and gazing into the others, thus appeared much humanised, and warmer.

To highlight the human factor that defines the work, Sermon also confines the possible senses engaged by excluding the transmission of the realtime sound component, thus prompted the participants to primarily “see with our hands and touch with our eyes”. Hence a nearly spiritual interchange between the participants is established. This connection, this new level of consciousness and creativity, Roy Ascott would say there is love.

February 27, 2018February 27, 2018

Research Critique: The Eternal Frame, 1975

The Eternal Frame, 1975, Ant Farm and T.R. Uthco

The Eternal Frame (1975) is the artists’ re-enactment of the infamous J.F.K assassination in 1963, which is captured on Zapruder’s home video recorder. The collaboration is done by Ant Farm, a collective of radical architects who works with video, performance, and installation in the late sixties and seventies, and T.R. Uthco, a San Francisco-based multi-media performance art collective that engaged in satirical critiques of the relation between mass media images and cultural myths, using irony, theatricality, and spectacle as its primary strategies.

What’s re-staged, to be precise, is not the actually historical event of the assassination, but these moments captured on Zapruder’s film, the single most viewed video clip in the world and help mold Kennedy’s tragic death into a symbolic event globally.

Historically, according to Wikipedia, there are more then 30 attempts to assassinate an US president and four sitting presidents have been killed, all of them by gunshot: Abraham Lincoln (the 16th President), James A. Garfield (the 20th President), William McKinley (the 25th President) and John F. Kennedy (the 35th President).

Washington Post advocates that “if the presidency is to be evaluated on its actual merits, John F. Kennedy was not a good president.” Then what makes JFK so adored and remembered? What makes the assassination of JFK so impactful, seemingly even more impactful than the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, who lead the country through Civil War?

The answer is probably, television.

The first televised presidential debate on the 26th September, 1960. Between JFK and Richard Nixon.

Today we see images, still or moving, almost everywhere. On billboards, in magazines, on bus placards, on TV and computer screens, they are so compelling that we cannot not watch them. This power of images in the age of technical reproducibility has been discussed as early as in 1936 in Walter Benjamin’s influential essay “Works of Art”. He claimed that “…art underwent a fundamental metamorphosis, losing its status as a unique object tied to a single time and place (it’s aura), but gaining in return a newfound flexibility, a capacity to reach a larger, indeed mass audience, and to effect a hitherto unimagined political impact.” Perfectly exemplified by the case of John F. Kennedy, he was this first US president whose character is shaped so lively and vividly by images. He used the media to his own advantage to win the election, and tragic as it is, he was brutally killed, which was captured and broadcasted by television to the whole world.

As a simulation of the Zapruder’s film, The Eternal Frame made us see clear that what the world remembers of JFK owes much to the media experience of a historical event, which is possibly a singular and altered version of the actual event. Doug Hall who acted as Kennedy, the artist president, also clarified in 1984 that “the intent of this work was to examine and demystify the notion of the presidency, particularly Kennedy, as image archetype….”.

It is of no surprise that the assassination of JFK becomes a matter of interest to Ant Farm and T.R. Uthco, for Constance M. Lewallen described the social environment at that time in Still Subversive After All These Years as “tremendous cultural ferment, especially in San Francisco, where the free speech movement, centered just east of the city at the University of California at Berkeley, was followed by passionate antiwar demonstrations.”

February 13, 2018February 13, 2018

Research Critique: Char Davies, Osmose (1995)

In Osmose, Char Davies employed Virtue Reality (VR) to create an immersive experience of an imaginary world. Here the viewers are invited to wander a multi-dimensional space which is in a way lifelike but not exactly resemble the real physical world we live in. (e.g. the gravitational rules don’t quite apply here.) The navigation through Osmose is done through immersants’ own breath and balance. Davies aimed to provide a ‘first-person’, interactive point of view that can offer multi-dimensional experience.

Still from Osmos (1995), Char Davis

As opposing to image realism, which is one the main pursuits of Media Technology of the time according to Scott Fisher’s 1989 essay“Virtual Environments“, the visual aesthetic of Osmose is semi-representational/semi-abstract, which serves to ‘evoke’ rather than illustrate. This rather poetic and abstract experience, as reported by the artist in 1998 have elicited a series of “unusual” sensations, experienced by participants immersed in “Osmose”:

a feeling of being somewhere else, in another “place”

losing track of time

heightened awareness of their own sense of being

a deep sense of mind/body relaxation

an inability to speak rationally after the experience

a simultaneous feeling of freedom from physical bodies and acute awareness of them

intense emotional feelings, euphoria and overwhelming sense of loss when the session ends.

Norberg-Schulz has made the assumption as early as in 1971 that “a mobile, wholly-changing environment can be disorientating”; however it is still powerful to think how impactful a 15 minutes virtual experience could do to impact our physical well being, especially people experiencing “an inability to speak rationally after the experience”. In connection to Ivan Sutherland’s 1965 vision to the ultimate display, the Wonderland into which Alice walked, the world where the existence of matters are manipulatable, what struck me is that the most powerful display one could imagine might be achievable in the realm of the mind. If we could actually prove the dualism of body and mind, perhaps the virtual chair would be actually good enough to be physically sit in, or at least in the mind of the immersants.

Totem from the movie Inception that could tell a dream from reality

February 5, 2018February 5, 2018

Research Critique: Lynn Hershman, “Deep Contact”, 1989

Lynn Hershman Leeson, Deep Contact, 1984-89.

Deep Contact (1988) by female artist Lynn Hershman Leeson is one of the first interactive artworks using touchscreens. Marion, the girl in blue in the video, calls out to visitors: “Try to reach through the screen and touch me. Touch me! Try to press your way through the screen.” Depending on the part of her body touched, a personalized narrative will unwind.

Vannevar Bush held the conference that gathered all the brilliant minds together at the end of WWII, encouraging inventions to extend man’s powers of the mind. His vision was realised perfectly and beyond his imagination by Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, who built the prototype of today’s handy personal computer in the 70s, “Dynabook”. The significant reduction in the size of storage, as well as new ways to input and output information made the light-weighted touchscreen used in Leeson’s work possible.

Lynn Hershman Leeson, Deep Contact, 1984-89, Installation with Microtouch monitor, interactive video, screen, DVD

In 1972, Kay described the main function of Dynabook at the ACM National Conference in Boston this way, “we think that a large fraction of its use will involve reflexive communication of the owner with himself through this personal medium, much as paper and notebooks are currently used…” This reflexive communication is achieved by allowing the users to “mold and channel its power to his own needs.” The programmable nature of Dynabook thus paved way for the construction of a personalised dialogue one could have with a machine host in Deep Contact.

Lastly, this artwork is quite thought-provoking for its feminist message. But I want to address how Leeson suggested the possibility of human desires getting way out of control in an information age. Bush have criticised “the applications of science…have enabled him to throw masses of people against one another with cruel weapons” (at war). However out of war, soon after everyone is empowered with such a tool that helps to get things organised, especially with the invention of internet, problems like cyber bullying, addiction, illegal contents, and physical inactivity start to emerge. Among these problems, the anonymity of the digital medium brought one of the urgent threat. One can imagine the recruitment of terrorists, a ISIS member put up a trustworthy mask online and then call out to the curious innocent minds out there, “Try to reach through the screen and touch me. Touch me! Try to press your way through the screen.”

January 30, 2018January 30, 2018

Peace can be Realized Even without Order

Many example artworks we covered in class today have shown artists tend to bring entropy to a system, “the more chaotic the better”, while engineers like to bring things under control. e.g. John Cage’s Variation 5, Robert Rauchenberg’s Soundings, Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece, etc.

Here is an interactive work by Japanese collective teamLab, which presents a reverse narrative. The 80 independent hologram figures play instruments or dance, while they exist independently and don’t really leave the spot, their rhythm and degree of movement are responsive to the sound of their neighbours. When there’s no visitor moving around, their movements and music are in sync, and the scene is rather harmonious. The system has the lowest entropy at this point. When visitors enter, the nearby dancers are interrupted. The participation caused the entropy to increase.

The work is inspired by a traditional Japanese dance festival. The below paragraph is taken from teamLab’s website:

In Japan, there is a primitive dance festival called the Awa Dance Festival dating back so far that its origins are unknown. Groups of individual dancers play music and proceed around the town arbitrarily. Groups play their own music as they like and dance as they like. Interestingly, for some reason, the music forms into a peaceful order across the whole town. Dancers who randomly meet other groups of dancers gradually and subconsciously match the tempo of their music with that of the other group. This is not due to any set of rules; it just feels right and happens without conscious choice. It seems that when people are set free from their inhibitions, an extraordinary peaceful feeling prevails despite the lack of any order to the dances. Perhaps this is how people of ancient times maintained a feeling of peacefulness.

More about the work, click here.

January 27, 2018January 27, 2018

Class 2 Reading Assignment Vocabulary

cybernetics /sʌɪbəˈnɛtɪks/

noun. the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things.

Origin

1940s: from Greek kubernētēs ‘steersman’, from kubernan ‘to steer’.

Use over time for: cybernetics

automaton

/ɔːˈtɒmət(ə)n/

noun

plural noun: automata

– a moving mechanical device made in imitation of a human being.

“a collection of 19th century French automata: acrobats, clowns, and musicians”

– a machine which performs a range of functions according to a predetermined set of coded instructions.

“sophisticated automatons continue to run factory assembly lines”

– used in similes and comparisons to refer to a person who seems to act in a mechanical or unemotional way.

“like an automaton, she walked to the door”

Origin

early 17th century: via Latin from Greek, neuter of automatos ‘acting of itself’, from autos ‘self’.

Use over time for: automata

kinaesthetic

(US kinesthetic)

Pronunciation /ˌkʌɪnɪsˈθɛtɪk//ˌkɪnɪsˈθɛtɪk/

ADJECTIVE

Relating to a person’s awareness of the position and movement of the parts of the body by means of sensory organs (proprioceptors) in the muscles and joints.

‘kinaesthetic learning through a physical activity’

‘walking therapy can improve kinaesthetic awareness’

contingency

/kənˈtɪndʒ(ə)nsi/

noun

noun: contingency; plural noun: contingencies

– a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.

“a detailed contract which attempts to provide for all possible contingencies”

synonyms: eventuality, (chance)event, incident, happening, occurrence, juncture, possibility, accident, chance, emergency; More

– a provision for a possible event or circumstance.

“stores were kept as a contingency against a blockade”

– an incidental expense.

“allow an extra fifteen per cent on the budget for contingencies”

– the absence of certainty in events.

“the island’s public affairs can occasionally be seen to be invaded by contingency”

– PHILOSOPHY

the absence of necessity; the fact of being so without having to be so.

Origin

mid 16th century (in the philosophical sense): from late Latin contingentia (in its medieval Latin sense ‘circumstance’), from contingere ‘befall’ (see contingent).

Use over time for: contingency

behaviourism

bɪˈheɪvjərɪz(ə)m/

noun

PSYCHOLOGY

noun: behaviourism; noun: behaviorism

the theory that human and animal behaviour can be explained in terms of conditioning, without appeal to thoughts or feelings, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behaviour patterns.

treatment involving the practical application of the theory of behaviourism.

Use over time for: behaviourism

homeostasis

ˌhɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs,ˌhəʊmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/

noun

noun: homeostasis; plural noun: homeostases; noun: homoeostasis; plural noun: homoeostases

– the tendency towards a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements, especially as maintained by physiological processes.

Origin

1920s: modern Latin, from Greek homoios ‘like’ + -stasis.

Use over time for: homeostasis

January 27, 2018

Research Critique: Nam June Paik, “Magnet TV”, 1964

Nam June Paik, MAGNET TV, 1965

An altered television set combined with a magnet sitting on top is unlike the majority of artworks back then. It is not an autarchy. This screen does not broadcast fixed programme but shows a crooked moving abstract image, that can be manipulated at will.

Norbert Wiener’s 1954 essay “Cybernetics in History” outlined the basic concepts of Cybernetics. I drew out my interpretation of it in the below diagram.

A complex action is one in which the data introduced, which we call the input, to obtain an effect on the outer world, which we call the output.

This control of a machine on the basis of its actual performance rather than its expected performance is known as feedback…

My interpretation of Wiener’s Cybernetics theory

Interpreting Magnet TV through Wiener’s Cybernetics lens’, the viewer’s action could be considered the input of the system, the output is the distorted image, and the feedback of the system is achieved by viewers‘ cognitive process, which then informs their next possible action. The work is established in this interactive process. To a certain extent, Paik has turned the passive spectators, to active participants, even the co-creators of the piece. A true piece of Modern Art, in the definition of Roy Ascott.

I came across the following video by a visitor to the Whitney Museum in NYC’s exhibition of this work last year.

I, then wondered, is this the work Magnet TV artist intend to create?

Wiener in “Cybernetics in History” said the following “A shift in the point of view of physics in which the world as it actually exists is replaced in some sense or other by the world as it happens to be observed.”

In considering Magnet TV with this perspective, if every situation is formed by the moment of observing, and “observing” means controlling the movement of the magnet in this context, the informed movement of the magnet controlled by a viewer made the work come into existence.

In another word, when interaction is removed, the work doesn’t exist anymore.

January 23, 2018

Thinking afresh about multimedia

In the overture of the book, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, 2001, the authors presented that multimedia experience dates way back, to as early as 15000 BCE of the cave paintings of Lascaux. And the theory of multimedia has been established in 1849 by Wagner as “Gesamtkunstwerk”, or “Total Artwork”.

My initial encounter with the word “multimedia” is in the 90s during my primary school years in China. There was a special venue where English listening class are taught, called “Multimedia Classroom”. In this room, there are screens for video projection and every student are given headsets to listen to English recordings at their own pace. There are the visual, sound, and even interactive component in this initial encounter I had with multimedia, which to certain extent in turn also defined multimedia in my mind as means dealing with technological media.

http://a0.att.hudong.com/84/47/01300000825366131669470243061.jpg — Multimedia classroom

The concept of Wagner’s artistic synthesis theory has really broadened my understanding to consider this art genre from a much pluralistic and unbiased point of view. I then start to notice many art experiences that qualify as multimedia but I have overlooked at. For example, the Japanese tea ceremony which values the overall experience of preparing and appreciating green tea, and Yuefu, a term for the music and dance ensemble that presents poems and folk songs in the Han Dynasty in China. These unification of more than one genre of works of art and engaging multi-sensory experience coincide perfectly with Wagner’s theory.

https://www.insidekyoto.com/tea-ceremony-koto-northwest-kyoto — Tea ceremony

http://chinafestival.carnegiehall.org/events/13980.aspx — Han Yuefu Performance

The recent decades have seen more interdisciplinary collaborations, especially artists seeking help from engineers to realise their work. The projects done by E.A.T in the past 40 years provide many great examples. Another phenomenon is the establishment of many artist collectives that consists of members from all disciplines, like the many engineers, designers and artists for collectives like Dumb Type in the 70s, and today’s Art+Com, Random International, teamLab etc.

I believe the future of multimedia is going to focus more on human beings as a subject matter. Here are two interesting works by Random International and teamLab. Enjoy!