Brad and Selma,
Serious questions. Perhaps these
couple of pages from the book Democracy's Body - a history
of one of the revolutionary work theaters for Dancers in the modern era -
contains some further explorations of what you are examining.
This is not about computers but about the work habits of creative extremely
well-trained professionals who are searching in the pre-computer era for a new
way of looking at kinetic form (movement). When
these explorations are applied to graphics it often is incomprehensible to
the uninitiated. That is the IBM Crescendo
the simple graphic that they used in their papers (Brad
did you invent it?) to describe the customer problem of diverging
information. The top line being the expertise required to
understand and use the product with the lower line being the consciousness and
skill of the people who hadn't studied it and had no desire to take time out of
their busy lives to do so. Hence the Psychological invention of the
"Dummy" series of books.
the simple graphic that they used in their papers (Brad
did you invent it?) to describe the customer problem of diverging
information. The top line being the expertise required to
understand and use the product with the lower line being the consciousness and
skill of the people who hadn't studied it and had no desire to take time out of
their busy lives to do so. Hence the Psychological invention of the
"Dummy" series of books. Unfortunately the Arts have been so tied to
Entertainment and relaxation in the corporate commercial music world that
calling someone a Dummy for not understanding or caring to understand a
Schoenberg string quartet or a complicated opera plot simply drives them away
since the reason that they go in the first place is sensual and not analytic or
even intelligent most of the time. One should remember
that it is an accident when a commercial Entertainment product makes it into the
historical lexicon of serious art and to call it a Masterwork is almost an
oxymoron. Anyway, here is an example of an artistic
process in this case used by dancers. The Dancer Elaine
Summers was the head of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation and is considered
one of the forces in American Modern Dance. The article
also includes a short bio to show her expertise as well as the projects and how
they were developed in "Work-Shops" run by Dance Masters who helped the Dancer
Choreographers develop and hone their products. Summers was also my
teacher in the years of the ascendancy and supremacy the SOHO section of New
York.
Ray Evans Harrell
Democracy's Body
Judson Dance Theater, 1962-1964
Sally Banes
Duke University Press Durhamand London 1993
Judson Dance Theater, 1962-1964
Sally Banes
Duke University Press Durhamand London 1993
Elaine Summers was born in Perth, Australia. When
she was five, her family moved to Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, where at first
she went to convent school, but then soon began studying tap and toe dancing. At
thirteen she began taking ballet lessons in Boston. She wanted to become a
dancer, but, partly because her parents were opposed to her pursuing that
career, she trained as an art teacher at Massachusetts College of Art.
She continued to dance while at college, and came to New York one summer with her sister to take an intensive workshop at the Graham school, where Cunningham still taught, as did Louis Horst and Erick Hawkins. Summers also studied for a short time at the Juilliard School after graduation. But she had to work nights to afford it, and she began to develop an arthritic hip, so she left Juilliard.
She continued to study dance at various studios,
including Mary Anthony's, Jean Erdman's, and Merce Cunningham's, and she also
began to teach dance. In teaching nondancers, Summers noted the way differently
shaped bodies permitted different dynamics and discovered that many of the
movements she preferred were not considered dance movements. 101
During the summers, she and her husband, the artist
Carol Summers, went to Woodstock, where Elaine Summers choreographed for the
Turnau Opera Company.
In the mid-1950s she saw works by James Waring and Aileen Passloff that excited her in much the same way as Cunningham's dances had.
Ballet didn't really excite or interest me, and Martha Graham didn't. But there was a very lively dance scene [that included Cunningham, Waring, and Passloff] and I was more and more thinking about different sized bodies and ordinary movement.
By the time she entered Dunn's class, Summers had taken several composition classes from Louis Horst, which she had enjoyed, partly because she appreciated Horst's keen kinesthetic memory. (Banes 22)
Horst's classes were also about structure, but they were more historical. They weren't concept-oriented. One of his courses was based on pre-classic dance forms. You made up a dance of your own, using a pre-classic structure. He was extraordinary. You'd do your dance, and then he'd say, "Fourth measure, second beat, third beat -- what did you mean there?"
Summers's impression was that both Dunns taught the class. Judith Dunn may have taken a more active role in assisting Dunn during the third and fourth terms of the class, for many of the students who began taking the class in fall 1961 or spring 1962 refer to it as the Dunns' class. According to Summers:
My feeling is that Judith was teaching alongside of Robert. I remember Robert sitting at the piano and Judith beside the piano, Robert giving out the assignment and Judith participating in it. The extraordinary thing about the class was the clarity of the presentation of Cage's principles, and the clarity of the teaching structure, which both Robert and Judith participated in.
I remember Deborah Hay's dance with a mirror, and I remember a dance that Trisha [Brown] did, where what the dancer did depended on what the audience was doing, like crossing their legs or coughing. That was a chance mechanism.
Summers says that one of the few rules in the class was that the solution to the assignment had to be presented as a complete, finished dance.
You couldn't come in and say, "This is the idea," and then when the critical time came say, "Well, you'll like it better when I do it better or when I get Margot Fonteyn to come in and dance it for me."
Not all the criticisms in class were supportive. One of Summers's earliest dances made in class was based on Debussy Ondine, and she remembers that the class "rejected" it.
I was still afraid to step out from Debussy's structure and I did a dance that was quite romantic. And Steve [Paxton] said, "Well, I don't like the dance and I don't like the structure, and you didn't dance it well." First time out!
So I went home and thought about that a lot and then I thought, "Well, I don't care, I like the structure."
I went back the next week and I did it again, and Steve said, "I still don't like the dance, I don't like the structure, but you danced the hell out of it." And I felt good because I felt that my own feelings about my work were more important to me than what somebody, even someone I respected a great deal, felt. Unconsciously, though I think I was being safe, doing a structure that wasn't chance at all.
But even though I had been rejected tremendously, there was an impersonal aspect in it. The class was very dry. You went, you did your work, and you were totally involved with ideas and concepts, so that if you were rejected, you didn't feel personally destroyed. There was a kind of objectivity in the situation that was caused by Bob and Judy [Dunn], to begin with, plus the intensity of the participants. 102
Elaine Summers's son Kyle was two years old when Dunn's class began, and at one point Summers brought in a score for Ruth Emerson that used a drawing by the child to dictate movement choices. The drawing was a long vertical scrawl, and Summers divided its length into thirds to determine the timing. In the first third and last third of the dance, the shape of the line dictated the pattern of movements in terms of space, and in the second section of the dance, the shape of the drawing determined the floor pattern. The initial instructions read: "Any length of time in total, but the proportions the same in time as the division in space." Instructions for movements in the first section of the dance read: "Toes, head, 2 hands." or the middle: "jump, gallop, squiggle", for the end: "Squiggle, jump, walk." 103
Several chance mechanisms remove the personal
involvement of the choreographer from the dance in this instance: the drawing,
which shaped the movements in space and along a path, was a "found" drawing, and
a drawing by a child who did not have adult, aestheticized design sense; the
list of movements corresponding to each section was probably established through
another chance procedure; finally, the dance was performed not by the
choreographer, but by another dancer, who could install certain of her own
choices in the interpretation of the score. Emerson chose to make the dance last
a total of eight minutes, with one minute of stillness inserted arbitrarily into
each section. 104
For Dunn's assignment to use a chance mechanism to choose body parts, Summers remembers using a spinning ball to solve the problem. 105
Later, Paxton developed the use of the ball by writing movement choices on
it and stopping the diagrammed ball with his index finger or flattening it with
a piece of glass to determine the order of the options. 106 Summers remembers
that the discussion following the body parts assignment centered on "how
difficult it is to break away from body patterns that go together, your own
particular clichés or dance clichés in general."
107
Movement, too, it was thought, could tune the mind-body to an "authentic" and intensified consciousness of energy flow and varying physical states. For instance, the techniques of "kinetic awareness" that Elaine Summers would eventually develop as a full-blown system of physical/ spiritual therapy -- using anatomical studies and the verbal expression of emotional and physical states to heal the whole person and liberate his or her movement potential -- had its roots in her Dance for Carola (dedicated to one of Summers's kinesiology teachers).
Movement, too, it was thought, could tune the mind-body to an "authentic" and intensified consciousness of energy flow and varying physical states. For instance, the techniques of "kinetic awareness" that Elaine Summers would eventually develop as a full-blown system of physical/ spiritual therapy -- using anatomical studies and the verbal expression of emotional and physical states to heal the whole person and liberate his or her movement potential -- had its roots in her Dance for Carola (dedicated to one of Summers's kinesiology teachers).
In this solo dance (performed in silence) Summers
changed from a standing posture to crouching and then back to standing again,
all in sustained slow motion. The single task took eight to ten minutes. For
Summers, the dance was a result of discovering a new energy pattern and body
image that was authentically hers, one that savored time and extended sensory
impressions. Again, the ideal of expanded consciousness seemed to serve as the
route to a utopian vision.
On the one hand, then, there was an urge toward
sincerity, natural impulse, and harmonious union with the cosmos, achieved
through the expansion of the bodily senses. On the other hand, any inklings that
a unified, direct, and original experience of the world was indeed possible were
countered by the Cagean affirmation of chaos.
(Banes 244)
(Banes 244)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Selma Singer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
"Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 10:35
AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Re: Chess (was If a
Machine Creates Something Beautiful, Is It an Artist?)
> > Hi Harry,
> >
> > I think I understand that you're saying that even when the chess players are
> > playing the computer, they're playing a human.
> >
> > So, Harry, do you think that if a machine produces something beautiful, that
> > product is art? Is the machine an artist?
> >
> > Perhaps you would say that, since the machine is being manipulated by a
> > human, the product is really being produced by a human?
> >
> > What comes to my mind is fractals which could not be produced by a human.
>
> I would not be so sure about this. I am not sure what
> are the limits of Benoit Mandelbrot's imagination. I would
> not be surprised if he can imagine what fractals look like
> without "crunching the numbers".
>
> Another thing about pictures of fractals. It is my
> impression -- perhaps false -- that the pretty picvtures of
> fractals we see are "false color" images. By this I mean
> that the person programming the image says that values
> of the formula generating the image between x1 and x2 should be
> colored green, between x2 and x3 blue, etc. So the
> colors are not exactly part of the fractal itself. This
> is not necessarily bad, but it does indicate that there
> is a lot of human judgment -- be it esthetically or
> pragmatically motivated or whatever -- in these computer-generated images.
>
> --
>
> Ever since the invention of the telescope and the microscope,
> we have lived in a world of machine-mediated images -- a world
> in which we see things that are invisible.
>
> But, making a thought experiment, what different does it make
> if something originates from a carbon-based processor that
> came out of a birth canal, or a silicon-based processor that
> came out of a "clean room" -- if, that is either one or both
> happen in the given instalce to think and/or feel? Our
> current computers do not think or feel (at least the
> ones we persons without security clearances know about,
> but I don't see any logical difference between one set of
> chemical reactions and another. If the day ever comes that
> a computer seems to enter into dialog with me, and I can't
> find the little man hiding inside, what should I
> hypothesize? Conversely, when one talks with a person
> and one cdan predict everything they say and do?
>
> > Granted, the human has to put in the information that will make it possible
> > for the computer to produce the fractal, but is that the same thing as
> > composing a beautiful piece of music or a painting or a poem or delivering
> > an opera aria that makes one tremble and cry?
>
>
>
> >
> > Selma
> >
> > I've been moved to tears by some fractals I've seen.
>
> I wonder what ones. I generally find some sort
> of "pattern" in the fractal images I've seen,
> which makes the infinity of details kind of boring.
>
> But, on the other hand, Mandelbrot said that the coastline of
> England is infinitely long, which is a different kind of
> fractal image (not computed or computable).
>
> --
>
> Let's try this from a different angle:
>
> Another thought experiment: Suppose a computer started
> cranking out really great art. Leonardo-ish drawings
> and National Treasure grade ceramics, etc. How would you
> (I...) respond to these things? How would you (I...)
> feel about them. How satisfied would you (I...) be
> with the things themselves,as opposed to turning
> your attention to the computer that produced them?
>
> Hereis another angle: Why don't more human beings
> get on with making things of value, or at least
> trying to? And if they can't make them,
> why don't they get on with buying them and
> patronizing their makers? Etc.
>
> I don't know about your social surround, but I know
> mine could be a lot better without any breakthrus
> in computer power. I also know that the powerful
> things we know computers can do to help us are
> not being done or are only being done in
> half-assed ways (SGML, again).
>
> \brad mccormick
>
> >
> > S.
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 7:43 PM
> > Subject: Chess (was If a Machine Creates Something Beautiful, Is It an
> > Artist?)
> >
> >
> >
> >>Selma,
> >>
> >>I used to be a pretty good chess player, but both my boys outstripped me.
> >>(Chess was the only thing I forced on my children. I made them play when
> >>they didn't want to, then when they weren't bad, I stopped pushing and let
> >>nature take its course.)
> >>
> >>Alan reached the top 40 in the country as a professional and to my horror
> >
> > I
> >
> >>realized he wasn't pushing wood, but playing to a pattern. These top
> >>players look at the board and they see a positive or negative pattern in
> >>the arrangement of pieces - so they move to make the negative - positive!
> >>
> >>I haven't played them for several decades. I'm not that stupid.
> >>
> >>But to the computer. As I understand it, in Kasparov's matches, the IBM
> >>computer wizards were changing the machine all the time. As information
> >>came in about Kasparov's play, they would make adjustments.
> >>
> >>So Kasparov was playing a different machine all the time - until
> >
> > eventually
> >
> >>he made a mistake and it won - the other games in the match were draws -
> >
> > as
> >
> >>I recall.
> >>
> >>Chess is like all games. People are playing people and although we expect
> >>bluffing in Poker, Bridge, and suchlike - the same thing goes on in Chess
> >>matches. When Alan played, he was not necessarily playing to win, but
> >>playing for the best monetary return.
> >>
> >>Then, of course, there was Lasker, who smoked an ill-smelling cigar which
> >>would be puffed into an opponent's face. But, of course, that would never
> >>happen now.
> >>
> >>Harry
> >>
> >>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > -------------------------
> >
> >>
> >>Selma wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>This article from NYTimes.com
> >>>has been sent to you by [EMAIL PROTECTED].
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>It seems to me that this article fits some of the recent discussions on
> >>>this list in some oblique way.
> >>>
> >>>Selma
> >>>
> >>>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>If a Machine Creates Something Beautiful, Is It an Artist?
> >>>
> >>>January 25, 2003
> >>>By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Ask most chess grandmasters if chess is art and they will
> >>>say unequivocally, "Yes." Ask them if chess is also a sport
> >>>and the answer will again be yes. But suggest that chess
> >>>might be just a very complex math problem and there is
> >>>immediate resistance.
> >>>
> >>>The question is more than academic. Beginning tomorrow in
> >>>New York, Garry Kasparov, the world's top-ranked player and
> >>>the former world champion, will play a $1 million, six-game
> >>>match against a chess program called Deep Junior. It will
> >>>be the fourth time that Mr. Kasparov has matched wits
> >>>against a computer and the first time since he lost a
> >>>similar match in 1997 to Deep Blue, a chess-playing
> >>>computer developed by I.B.M. Recently, Vladimir Kramnik,
> >>>Mr. Kasparov's former protégé and the current world
> >>>champion, tied an eight-game match against another chess
> >>>playing program called Deep Fritz.
> >>>
> >>>Whether Mr. Kasparov wins or loses, clearly chess computers
> >>>have reached a point where they can compete against, and
> >>>sometimes beat, the world's best players. Even Mr.
> >>>Kasparov, always reluctant to acknowledge that anyone or
> >>>anything might be superior to him over a chess board,
> >>>admits that the point at which computers consistently play
> >>>better than humans is probably not that far off.
> >>>
> >>>But if computers become better than humans at chess, does
> >>>that mean that computers are being artistic or that chess
> >>>is essentially a complicated puzzle?
> >>>
> >>>The question arises partly because of the very different
> >>>ways that humans and computers play chess. People rely on
> >>>pattern recognition, stored knowledge, some calculation and
> >>>that great unquantifiable - intuition. Computers, on the
> >>>other hand, have a database of chess knowledge but mostly
> >>>rely on brute force calculation, meaning they sift through
> >>>millions of positions each second, placing a value on each
> >>>result. In other words, they play chess the way they attack
> >>>a large math problem.
> >>>
> >>>Chess is not the only field where computers have achieved
> >>>success formerly thought to be achievable only through
> >>>human creativity. In 1997, six months after the victory by
> >>>Deep Blue, a competition was held at Stanford University
> >>>between a human and a computer to see which could compose
> >>>music in the style of Bach. The computer won. Monty
> >>>Newborn, a professor of computer science at McGill
> >>>University in Montreal who has just published a book called
> >>>"Deep Blue: An Artificial Intelligence Milestone," thinks
> >>>that the question of what chess is is fairly clear. "There
> >>>is no question that it is a puzzle," he said. "Some people
> >>>like to imagine that it is an art form."
> >>>
> >>>But if that were the case, some chess players reply, then
> >>>why are so many people who play chess well not good at
> >>>math? David Goodman, an international master, said that
> >>>chess players come from many backgrounds with different
> >>>skills. "In international tournaments, it's true, I've
> >>>played a grandmaster who became a math professor at 23. But
> >>>there are others who were writers and lawyers and even one
> >>>who played soccer on Norway's national team," Mr. Goodman
> >>>said.
> >>>
> >>>Others do not see the implications for computer supremacy
> >>>in chess in black-and-white terms. Murray Campbell, a
> >>>developer of Deep Blue who still works at I.B.M., said that
> >>>Deep Blue's designers had adopted a scientific and an
> >>>engineering approach when building the computer, but that
> >>>the results could be viewed as artistic, regardless of what
> >>>produced them.
> >>>
> >>>"The question reminds me of the question that often gets
> >>>asked in artificial intelligence," he said. "Is the system
> >>>intelligent? It is because it produces intelligent
> >>>behavior. If it does something artistic, then it is
> >>>artistic. It does not matter how it did it."
> >>>
> >>>Jonathan Schaeffer, a professor of computer science at the
> >>>University of Alberta who created Chinook, the best
> >>>checkers playing entity in the world, thinks that checkers
> >>>and chess are art and sport, regardless of how well
> >>>computers play them. "As a competitive chess player in my
> >>>younger days, when I played a beautiful game, I wanted to
> >>>frame it and put it on the wall," Mr. Schaeffer said.
> >>>"Chess is also a sport because it is incredibly mentally
> >>>and physically demanding. That computers play it better
> >>>does not lessen any of the enjoyment that we can get from
> >>>the game."
> >>>
> >>>For his part, Mr. Kasparov thinks that chess is art and
> >>>sport as well as math and science. If there were a clear
> >>>answer about what chess is, he says, "then the game of
> >>>chess is over."
> >>>
> >>>Mr. Campbell of I.B.M. worries that chess could be
> >>>relegated to the realm of a complex math problem if
> >>>computers ever "solve" the game - figure out all the
> >>>possibilities and know the result regardless of what moves
> >>>are played. For now, while computers have managed to solve
> >>>all endgames where there are six or fewer pieces on the
> >>>board, it does not seem possible that they will be able to
> >>>solve the entire game given that the number of chess moves
> >>>in an average game is estimated to be about 10 to the 40th
> >>>power. That number is so large, it would take the most
> >>>powerful computers billions of years to calculate it.
> >>>
> >>>But, Mr. Campbell said, if computers do ever solve chess it
> >>>would ruin it artistically. Already, he said, those
> >>>endgames that computers have solved sometimes take so many
> >>>moves that the ideas behind them are at times hard to
> >>>follow. "That is not beautiful," he said. "It is just
> >>>incomprehensible."
> >>>
> >>
> >>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/25/arts/25TANK.html?ex=1044502355&ei=1&en=29
> >
> > ad17fecbf0dd34
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>******************************
> >>Harry Pollard
> >>Henry George School of LA
> >>Box 655
> >>Tujunga CA 91042
> >>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>Tel: (818) 352-4141
> >>Fax: (818) 353-2242
> >>*******************************
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ----
> >
> >
> >
> >>---
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> >
> >
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>
>
> --
> Let your light so shine before men,
> that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
>
> Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
>
> <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
>
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