Some theory for the recent motion capture work http://www.alansondheim.org/figure3.jpg (still) http://www.alansondheim.org/figure2.mov (loop) The space reflected in the recent motion capture files is three- dimensional; a file is only a representation of that space from a particular perspective. Any still image within the file is a temporal slice of that representation, and the file is itself a sheave or well-ordered catalog of temporal slices. There is _nothing_ between one image at t = x and the immediately subsequent image at at t = x+1. But the movement in real life, the temporal stream, is not discontinuous. So a reasonable model is that of the cinema film, which is optically sutured into a continuous representation of reality, by the spectator. (Not through the 'persistence of vision,' by the way, but as a result of active processing in the brain.) The space represented is also a supple and deep space, cut or modified to appear as a proscenium of action; the constructed images of the performer (or coalesced performers) may disappear at times - indicating the proscenium is also an activated space of representation. It is not the same as "any other space," since the software creates a stage where recording occurs. It is a fundamentally dialectical space, always under negotiation among the actants in any particular session. The figures in the motion capture imagery are themselves simultaneous representations of physical and virtual bodies. In other words, they are residues of physical bodies and mappings. It is not too much of a stretch to consider consciousness entangled here between real and virtual bodies, as a form of Polyani's tacit knowledge and appetition developed through the appearance of a diffused and distributed totality, instead of based, for example, on the human body's use of a tool such as a screwdriver, with its related focus. Given this, one might consider the state of affairs as cyborg, cyborgian (depending on one's epistemology), a coalescence of "real" and "virtual" which emerges by virtue of the machinery - but also and basically points to this coalescence in daily life where representations are more complex and implicit. Here, culture, rules, norms, etc. form the _proscenium of daily life,_ which the models, videos, etc. can only imply. In other words, what I'm modeling is _implicit_ and _implicated_ in daily life, and - on a practical level - these videos, these artifacts - are a form of research into both whatever the "organic" might be - as well as the entanglement of the "organic" into and within a multitude of environments - organic, technological, geological, and so forth. So these ensembles - videos, still, texts, are a way of thinking through issues of theory as well - considering the body's (and multiple bodies') - behaviors, minds and mindings, graspings, tool-usage, interactions, sexualities, accumulations (from what might appear as uncanny and problematic singularities of consciousness and prehensile physicality), cultural constructs, etc. Two points - First, look beyond the surface appearances with these pieces; they represent different but related dynamic states, spelled out in the accompanying texts. Second, the jerkiness, the result of computer processing (as well as simulacra of collapse), related to ideas of edgespace and catastrophe theory, is itself a scaffolding whose leaps or divisions (as above) can be overcome by curve fitting or smoothing functions. However, the leaps may also be relevant to breaking - the image of the physical body extended and devolved into untoward spaces. This can occur, for example, by occlusion of some of the markers, by altered mappings, by distribution of the avatar body among several performers, etc. By creating "coherent" (non-random or loosely structured) mappings, the transformations are readable back into imaginary phantom bodies that open up new realms of exploration among cyborgian entities. (Such entities extend beyond downloads or implants to regimes of _accumulations_ or swarms of organic and non-organic particles acting within some coherency in relation to each other.) There is also the fractured and crystalline beauty of these dynamic-hypnagogic formations within the imaginary; watching even the few-seconds segment in the video accompanying this test, all sorts of fairy-tale structures may be imagined. This is of course another interaction - with the spectator who may be willing to spend some time with the videos, the texts, the still images, the accompanying sound tracks. If this is phenomenology, it is experiential as such. There are so many actants! Live performers; their individual images; the "coagulated" images inhering in the computer; the screen with its projected avatar or avatars; the intersections of the projections with the live performers (who may be watching their image/s on a screen or screens); the internal projections or introjections of the performers ("this is what I want to do" etc.) - related to scripting and plans; the edgespaces and "breakdowns" of the software and software arenas; the strategies necessary to "back away" from collapsed states; the viewers in the room itself who may or may not be calling the shots, making suggestions, creating performance structures; everyone's and everything's personal and communal histories; the physical limitations of the performers ("i can't bend this way (but maybe my image can"); and everything occurring in a room which has its own characteristics (temperature, boundaries, hard surfaces and lighting, audio resonances, and so forth). I try in the writing/wryting/wrything to provide descriptions and guidelines (according, of 1, to my own interests) which are necessarily incomplete; there's a poetics to all of this, revealed in both text and image that are often askew in relation to the video, itself askew in relation to the multiple sets of instructions governing the productions. And I try in the images themselves to provide a Dickinsonian truth told slant, approached, self-decomposing, or a grounds extruding something wayward or contrary (no grounding, no middle grounds) - as well as the sound, which almost coheres, as if understood or familiar - which develop the imaginary space of their production (rather than the linguistic burden they might carry): each segment, then, is only partial, a contract among viewers and producers, biologies and machines - not to mention all the necessary protocols to shape and deliver the files themselves to you, to your activations (and not perhaps to consider all the corporations, neoliberalisms, censorships, contracts, obligations, patents, and so forth involved, and the carriers themselves and their delivery philosophies or mandates from my machine to yours) - what arrives at the destination then is only a constricted accumulation... and with that in mind... http://www.alansondheim.org/figure1.jpg (still) _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
