Friday 21 September 2007
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.
(The Matrix, 1999)
“This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.”
(Steinbeck, 1952).
In this essay I will articulate a contextual framework for my own computational arts practice. I investigate the idea of computational arts practice, arts practitioners, how my own creative practice relates and extends on those practices. Within the framework of practitioners, I examine the philosophies and the intentions of my creative practice. My areas of artistic interest are light, projection, emergent behaviour, learnt behaviour (to digital media technology), redefining technology in our expression and ways in which we as humans can look at ourselves in a different light. In this scope of this reflective process, I also examine my creative process of iconoclasm in computational arts practice.
Who I am?
I have a background in computer programming that informs an interest in technology as well as an aversion to the learnt behaviour that was required to work as a programmer in the mainstream corporate environment. I am at 43, beginning a new practice in performance art and am at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) to pursue and develop my creative form. My own artistic expression is an element that was only previously explored as it related to creating software programs and systems for clients in response to the analysis of their business requirements.
Who am I? The Artist Statement.
In the process of self-knowledge and self-awareness, I have been developing an artist’s statement. The statement about my art form and process is proving insightful, in relation to where I am currently. (Mafe, 2007). I like the process of making something and of becoming something, the journey, more than the outcome, it is what fascinates me. MetaM is the name I have begun to use in relation to my creative practice. The name stems from the word metamorphosis, the metaphor that fits the process of finding my form. I define the type of practice I am currently engaged in as a metamorphart and, subsequently, one who is developing in this open-ended practice development as a Metamorphartist.
At QUT, I have immersed myself in performance work and have found that physical performance work, particularly innovative and improvisation resonate strongly with me. The act of working in the now and formulating physical structure using the body, is an immediate and liberating art form in juxtaposition to the formulated oppression I operated under for many years as a I performed the role of programmer sitting dutifully in front of a computer.
“We are forced to site, stationery, in front of the screen and keyboard, to access the system. These systems were never developed with artistic practice in mind. We have become harnessed to the keyboard, mouse and screen.”
(Penny, 2007).
In his discussion of his artistic practice, Simon Penny was interesting, conflicting, challenging and reassuring all at the same time. The reassurance came with the threads of improvisation and using technology to provide avenues of exploring ones form rather than having to find expressions within the technology. (Penny, 2007) For me, it’s not about the code, that’s why I gave up programming as a career and came to university to find my form of creative expression. Like Penny, I find myself somewhat opposed to the currently dictated medium of technological interactivity, namely screen based medium, how we perform “screen based” (computer, television, cinema) behaviour, and how that is used to control our behaviour as human beings. Typical views toward performance and performativity encompass the theatrical model in which a literary or symbolically notated work is performed mimetically or representationaly, to that of an artist's self-actualised performance art. In relation to my own creative practice, I see that computational art is a vehicle in context toward my self-expression.
Self-Projection
One of the aspects of my current process involves exploring the human form as the canvas. We create the environment, which then inscribes us; our bodies become canvas of the projections of our constructed realities. In my work as a computational media artist, I explore the use of digital tools, to re-create my internal organic realities. In Self Projection, (Gibbs, 2007) the approach of the work is to create an ironic view of the virtual reality that we create for ourselves through our own projections. In reality life becomes and is much more complex as all the environments overlay each other and we navigate through a thick soup of projections. Golan Levin produces work in this “style” where performers meet, enhance and are enhanced by the digital medium and computational practices. An example of which is Messa di Voce a concert performance in which the speech, shouts and songs produced by a pair of abstract vocalists are radically augmented in real-time by custom interactive visualization software. (Levin et al. 2003)
Digital Forum Theatre
The traditional western view of art is focused on where the art is taking place, the “centre”, and the art in the gallery or the acting on the stage. John Cage rejected this notion and contested that art is everywhere and exists at the position of focus where “everyone is the best seat” (Cage, 1961). Cage in his life explored the concept with music and randomness, notably his piece 4’33”, whose three movements are performed without any notes being played. In 4’33”, the people listening to the performance become instruments, the spectators embody the performance are thus are an expression or the manifestation of that idea. This aspect fascinates me. Certain types of theatre, such as Improvisation Theatre, Community Theatre, Playback Theatre and Forum Theatre also work with elements of spontaneity and audience participation. Augusto Boal states
“…theatre does not exist in the objectivity of bricks and mortar,
sets and costumes, bur in the subjectivity of those who practise it,
at the moment when they practise it. It needs neither stage nor
audience; the actor will suffice. With the actor is born the theatre.
The actor is theatre. We are all actors: we are theatre!”
(Boal, 1996. pp 19)
I am interested in creating an interactive installation based on Boals notion of Forum theatre, where computational art is the vehicle for the work. Interactive technology, based on Penny’s’ Fugitive 2 technology for motion capture, provides a framework for creating a real time, interactive environment. I discussed my ideas with Simon Penny, who indicated the possibility of having access to the software. What if, through the device of interactive artwork installation, people are afforded the possibility of personal insight, a digital pedagogy of self-exploration? Their voice and bodily interaction with artwork becomes a vehicle of communication. Penny noted in his reflective process, that humans generally don’t remember their exact body position prior to 3 seconds. (Penny, 2007). Interesting. We lack a cultural practice that examines and understands the myriad of communication elements that happen as we interact. Human interaction and the little understood communication that happens gesturally, visually, modally, are elements I seek to explore in my own creative practice. I postulate that elements of this type of creative practice are potentially a mirror, for myself and for those who observe it and interact with it.
Instructions for Art
In my creative practice, in relation to improvisation, I am very interested in the aesthetic elements for the audience and the conceptual aspect of the art. The idea involved in the work overtakes the traditional aesthetic, which is the composition. By creating a set of coded instructions that can be followed by anyone, a piece of artwork is created. Sol LeWitt works may be created by anyone by following a set of written instructions. LeWitt defines conceptual art thus,
“In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.”
Creation of simple pieces of code in Impromptu, with clear instructions on how to change listed elements and execute it, people may create a piece of visual or aural computational art in real-time. What is the effect on the person empowered to create the performance of the work? In following this idea, I am endeavoring to humbly build on the concepts pioneered by Cage and LeWitt.
The Light Work
I am interested in the ideas and the process of the ideas. I am drawn to understand the nature of image. How we create it? How it inscribes us? I am, in a sense, I am interested in the performance of iconoclasm as it relates to technology and the visual landscape. I propose that elements of technological expression in form of the personal computer have become a mechanism of religious symbolism in our culture. Projection bombing is an art form from The Graffiti Research Lab, where images and graffiti are projected onto urban structures. James Powderly, a robotics engineer and Evan Roth, an artist whose graduate thesis analyses graffiti tags as a source of mathematical data, are the artists behind the Projection Bombing concepts. (Eyebeam, 2007 and The Graffiti Research Lab, 2007). The work of The Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) is well known for inventing LED Throwies, a small LED (light) powered by a small battery and fixed to a magnet so it may be attached to metal surfaces. It was designed to provide people with a means to create urban art, by changing their environment. The LED is a cheap tool that can be made at home, as all the instructions are available from the GRL online. I speculate that this conforms to conceptual art, as proposed by LeWitt. The nature of empowering people to alter their urban landscape though non-violent means, an environment that is currently controlled by powerful organizations, appeals to me. This practice is both liberating the expression of the individual (Boal, 1995) and has elements of a social transformation, arguably an emergent behaviour through digital media transformation.
In relation to this type of computational arts practice, I am intrigued and engaged currently in devising possibilities of this type of work. I am also inspired by Issac Asimov’s science fiction short story I read as a child. (Appendix 1)
BigSilo
In the context of my computational art practice, creating installation work that operates along the same contextual framework as Boals ideas in Theatre of the Oppressed, affords the opportunity, for people to create in an aesthetic space. (Boal, 1995) and proposes elements of urban landscape transformation. In BigSilo, (Gibbs, 2007), the approach of the work is to create a computational art display, with a connection to the agricultural, regional isolation and project the images up onto the wheat silos that populate most of the wheat belt towns in Western Australia. I would like to develop the methods in collecting the material for projection by involving the people in the regional area so that they are co-creators of the work. Developing a framework and structure based on rural isolation and connectivity, BigSilo can become a method of liberation, an independent, self-sustaining art installation that can travel and germinate in rural wheatbelt areas all over Australia.
John Maeda (2007) in the his work regarding his 10 laws of simplicity, states that the “more care, attention, and effort applied to that which is less, the more it shall be perceived as more than it really is”. I propose, in the context of my own computational art practice, that the act of coding is not objective. My initial focus on code was the subject and as such, the process to create the artwork was complex and overwhelming. To reassess the aspect of computational art, as it relates to my own creative practice, has required a change of perspective and focus.
Paul Browns work as an artist reflects his journey as a human being, and some excerpts from his work “Stepping Stones in the Mist” published in 2000 caught my attention.
“the artistic mind is a ‘butterfly’ mind that can fly from flower to flower, from source to source, with little respect for logic or scholarship. The result is a grand synthesis formed at a meta or pre-conscious level…it follows that the visual arts are beyond language, beyond conscious processing, at least when they are created. (Brown, 2000).
The metamorphosis of my artistic mind, my evolution, is not a singular or isolated event, nor is it orchestrated. It is a performance of life, of art, of expression that informs and is informed by a greater recursive process that we instinctively seek to understand through self-expression.
References
Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the Oppressed. London: Pluto.
Boal, A. (1995). The Rainbow of Desire: The Theory, 2 Human Beings, A Passion and A Platform: The 'Aesthetic Space’. Routledge:London
Brown, P. (2000) Stepping Stones. http://paul-brown.com/WORDS/STEPPING.HTM#top (Accessed 10 August, 2007).
Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage. New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press.
http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/john_cage/2.html (Accessed 20 September, 2007).
Eyebeam Research (un), (2007). Evan Roth:People.
http://research.eyebeam.org/people/evan-roth (Accessed 10 September, 2007).
Gibbs, K. (2007). Metam – Week 7 Shor, Mantz & Levin - The Human Canvas. http://student.ci.qut.edu.au/~n5710227/wordpress/?p=13 (Accessed 20 September, 2007).
The Graffiti Research Lab. (un) (2007).
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/ (Accessed 20 September, 2007).
(Levin, G. & Lieberman, Z. & Blonk, J. & LaBarbara, J. (2003) Messa di Voce.
http://www.tmema.org/messa/messa.html (Accessed 9 September, 2007).
LeWitt, S. (1967). Paragraphs on Conceptual Art. Artforum:UK
Maeda, J. (2007) Simplicity.
http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/SIMPLICITY/archives/cat_laws.html (Accessed 21 September 2007)
Mafe, D. (2007) Arts Practice and Artist Statement. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_16272_1 (Accessed 10 September, 2007).
Penny, S. (2007, September 11). Robotics, Sculpture, symbolic Representation, Behaving Systems. Brisbane: QUT.
[Public lecture: KKB211 seminar series]
Steinback, J. (1952). East of Eden.
(Accessed 21 September 2007)
Appendix 1
Light Verse is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the September-October 1973 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. It later appeared in the collections Buy Jupiter and Other Stories (1975), The Complete Robot (1982), and Robot Dreams (1986). The author has reported that he wrote the initial draft in one session and later had to change hardly a word in the final revision.
This story details a small portion of the life of Avis Lardner, the widow of an astronaut, William J. Lardner.
After her husband's death, Mrs. Lardner receives a large pension, which she invests wisely, becoming very wealthy. She buys many valuable jeweled artifacts from a number of countries, and displays them in her home. She then takes up the art of light-sculpture, which fascinates many, but she refuses to sell her works and only paints them at parties.
A roboticist with the U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation, John Travis, is invited to a party at Mrs. Lardner's, and tries to imitate her art by using the mathematics related to his robotics to sculpt, but all his attempts fail.
At the party, seeing it as an act of kindness to Mrs. Lardner, he makes an adjustment to one of her robots, known as Matthew, whom he considers to be maladjusted. Discovering what he's done, Mrs. Lardner is furious at him, and reveals that Matthew is the one who actually does the light-sculptures, through a creative process made possible by his maladjustment. By adjusting Matthew, Travis has irreparably destroyed that creative process.
The notion of a robot creating works of art that exceed in greatness and sublimity the best efforts of humans isn’t surprising; writers throughout the twentieth century imagined machines that were superior to people in every conceivable aspect of brains and brawn, thought and action. Asimov’s interesting twist is that it’s an autistic artistic robot. In this story, normal robots are obedient servants, but the special robot is creative only because it is out of kilter. The robot is creative by accident, not by design.
John Cage worked by chance using the Iching and random possibilities. Was he looking for the creative accident?
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