Re: [-empyre-] real vs. unreal
Glad to finally have time to look in my empyre mailbox and see/read this exciting thread! Too bad it's already ending! With respect to the discussion of interpellation, AR invading personal imaginary space, and advertising/entertainment, Ian Bogost's recent article attempting to shift discourse from gamification to exploitationware is timely: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6366/persuasive_games_exploitationware.php As we've seen from some of the examples in this thread, AR (like videogames) can be an opportunity to interrupt/alter the status quo. Whether that happens or not is a battle to be fought. jack stenner, ph.d assistant professor: art + technology school of art + art history university of florida http://digitalmedia.arts.ufl.edu http://www.jackstenner.com On May 1, 2011, at 3:02 PM, Will Pappenheimer wrote: I guess we're asking for it widening the AR discussion this broad. But I think it's worthwhile to continue to consider a technology, in this case AR, in all its ramifications and associations. About objects, the objects of AR, or maybe the development of all networked objects: I think you can look at objects as impoverished or impoverishing, or you can look at them as extraordinary sites of social relations, psychic projection, etc. A McDonald's cup goes from oppressive icon to a complex sign of a network of desires and repetitions embedded in daily living. The submit button or the progress bar in digital life presents both a closing down and opening up of modes of social interaction or the experience of time. I'm a fan of object relations theory. As artists, making objects, physical or digital, I guess we try to make it our business to make objects that set situations and relationships in motion. (We are more early successful perhaps depending on the quality of the work.) DuChamp's urinal is just a urinal, but put in a certain context, presented in a certain way, it sets the whole art world or the world of categories into an upheaval. AR gives us a chance to place objects out of context, in excess, call up unwanted histories in public space. The right choice or modification or can resonate or conflict with a situation in such a way to loosen the conventional or institutional hold that space or place. What is nice about this moment in the public technology of AR, is that the objects can't really compete with real backdrop. They are not seamless, but more about rupture. They suggest the limitations of the technology at the same time as opening them up to a sweeping possibilities. Their appeal is in their simplicity, their lack. (This is part of an aesthetic that I find very few people in the fine art world understand yet.) I agree that, what is probably coming, if public AR is catches on, will be a tide of advertising and entertainment infestations. Hopefully, in various ways human response and artistic response find means of resistance or nuanced incorporation. Will Pappenheimer 698 Hart St Brooklyn NY 11221 Cell: 347-526-5302 Email: will...@gmail.com www.willpap-projects.com On Apr 30, 2011, at 12:32 PM, Pawel Oczkowski wrote: Hi there, I tried not to join this discussion for a while, but probably it the last moment to jump in. I do really love all those sophisticated arguments, ranging from technological remarks, your manifesto and epistemological threads mixed with some ontological questions. However, what make AR really creepy to me is sth what has nothing in common with technological, nor with philosophical issues. Last but not least artist - as most of you, play incredibly important role in exploration and spreading AR among users. I wouldn't perceive it problematic at all, if most of AR object/interventions hadn't deal with public space and my imagery space at the same time. Recently, just to keep the track of discussion, I red intro to this year conflux festival and its flag ship 'We AR in MoMA'. Being honest, I was puzzled down when I discovered that: Developments in the field of psychogeography advance rapidly and radically. In former times the discipline required mental capabilities such as concentration and imagination, nowadays mobile phones provide us with easy-to-use viewing tools to perceive multitude of fictive realities, anywhere we are, instantly. (http://confluxfestival.org/projects/conflux-festival-2010/we-ar-in-moma/). I thought, its far more probably, that artist won't play 'Marco Polo' role, as stated few posts ago, but rather, as many times before, will be impersonating next generation of 'useful idiots', opening the space for all but not psychogeographic experiments within this field. Why? Maybe rather old-school notion of gentrification provide some deeper insight into this discussion. Until gentrification happened to dwellers of rather abandoned spaces, beloved by artist and
[-empyre-] Thanks to Patrick Lichty for organizing and moderating the April discussion on -empyre
Thanks so much to all of the subscribers and guests who participated in the April discussion on -empyre soft-skinned space organized by our Moderator, Patrick Lichty. Patrick you organized an awesome month and we are all so excited that so many of our subscribers participated in your discussion. Renate and Tim will be introducing the May discussion later this evening, Wearable Technologies: Cross-disciplinary Venues. We are hoping that this discussion will actually piggy-back off from many of the points made last month. Thanks to all of you again. Renate Ferro and Tim Murray -- Renate Ferro Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Cornell University Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office #420 Ithaca, NY 14853 Email: r...@cornell.edu URL: http://www.renateferro.net http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net Lab: http://www.tinkerfactory.net Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre Art Editor, diacritics http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/ ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] Thanks to Patrick Lichty for organizing and moderating the April discussion on -empyre
Just wanted to say great work to all the Manifest.AR members + contributes! Sorry I couldn't jump in. I was running very far behind. Again great discussion! Cheers- Mark On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 4:02 PM, Renate Ferro r...@cornell.edu wrote: Thanks so much to all of the subscribers and guests who participated in the April discussion on -empyre soft-skinned space organized by our Moderator, Patrick Lichty. Patrick you organized an awesome month and we are all so excited that so many of our subscribers participated in your discussion. Renate and Tim will be introducing the May discussion later this evening, Wearable Technologies: Cross-disciplinary Venues. We are hoping that this discussion will actually piggy-back off from many of the points made last month. Thanks to all of you again. Renate Ferro and Tim Murray -- Renate Ferro Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Cornell University Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office #420 Ithaca, NY 14853 Email: r...@cornell.edu URL: http://www.renateferro.net http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net Lab: http://www.tinkerfactory.net Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre Art Editor, diacritics http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/ ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre -- Mark Skwarek http://markskwarek.com/ Manifest.AR Augmented Reality Artist Group http://www.manifestar.info/ ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
[-empyre-] Welcome to Wearable Technologies: Cross-disciplinary Ventures”
Welcome! May 2011 on –empyre soft-skinned space “Wearable Technologies: Cross-disciplinary Ventures” http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/ Moderated by *Renate Ferro (US*) and *Tim Murray (US)* with guests: *Janis Jefferies* (UK), *Valérie Lamontagne* (CA), *Ashley Ferro-Murray*(US), *Sabine Seymour* (US), *Susan Elizabeth Ryan* (US), *Danielle Wilde*(AU/FR), *Sarah Kettley (UK), **Lucy Dunne* (*US)* During the month of May 2011, -empyre soft-skinned space will be featuring a discussion of wearable technologies, means through which technology augments or enables the body in interacting with the surrounding environment. The integration of wearables that augment the body with technological capabilities permeate our diverse worlds from entertainment to the military. During a recent episode of American Idol, singer Katy Perry wore a white body suit that flickered with pink LED lights to the beat of a song with Kanye West. Just a few days ago, during a US military secret mission to hunt down Osama Bin Laden, elite Navy Blue Seals wore special goggles that allowed them to see in low light conditions and helmets installed with video cams that beamed the capture and killing of Bin Laden in real time for the President of the United States and other onlookers in the White House Situation Room. In the realms of art and technology, wearable technologies have proliferated while linking the areas of art, design, science and engineering. In the art and technology DIY world, the arduino and lilypad platforms and open source software have made these technologies more accessible. Embedded accelerometers within ubiquitous communication and computer hardware such as the i-phone, i-pod touch, and the i-pad among others have simplified the relationship between code and interactivity. Some of the questions to be considered over the course of the next four weeks will include: How do wearable technologies enhance the body’s capabilities to interface with the environment as transmitters, receivers, enablers of data-in-the-world. How do the technologies of material protect the body upon harmful impact (fire, heat, microbes) or enhance more pleasurable sensation? What is the role of risk in relation to the failure of design or delivery? What are the relationships between the practical aspects of use and the aesthetic concerns of design? How do we understand wearable technology in relation to the excesses of commodified culture? While some of our guests will discuss interface design and practice we will also encourage others to theorize about interventions between technology, the body, and architecture. This months guests biographies are below: Week of May 4th *Janis Jefferies* (UK) is an artist, writer and curator, Professor of Visual Arts at the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths University of London, Academic director of the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles and Artistic Director of Centre for Creative and Social Technologies and Goldsmiths Digital Studios. Jefferies was trained as a painter and later pioneered the field of contemporary textiles within visual and material culture, internationally through exhibitions and texts. Since 2002 she has been working on technological based arts, including Woven Sound (with Dr. Tim Blackwell). She has been a principal investigator on projects involving new haptics technologies by bringing the sense of touch to the interface between people and machines (MIT) and generative software systems for creating and interpreting cultural artifacts, museums and the external environment. She is an associate researcher with Hexagram (Institute of Media, Arts and Technologies, subTELA Lab directed by Professor Barbara Layne, Montreal, Canada) on two projects, electronic textiles and new forms of media communication in cloth. Wearable Absence was launched in Montreal in June 2010 and shown as part of the Science Festival in Edinburgh, April 2011. She has had numerous publications but most recently: 'Loving Attention: An outburst of craft in contemporary art' in *Extra/ordinary: Craft Culture and Contemporary Art*, (2011) and ‘One and Another: a Handshake with the Ancestors’ in *The Shape of Thing* and ‘The Artist as Researcher in a Computer Mediated Culture’, in *Art Practices in a Digital Culture*. *Valérie Lamontagne* (CA) is a digital media designer-artist, theorist and curator researching techno-artistic frameworks that combine human/nonhuman agencies. Looking at the rich practice of performance art, social intervention and interactive installations – she is invested in developing responsive objects (specifically wearables) and interactive media scenarios which interlope the public-at-large, the environment and matter as “performer”. She is the Founder and Director of 3lectromode, a design group invested in developing wearables that combine D-I-Y technology with current fashion research. Her work has been showcased in
[-empyre-] Week One: Wearable Technologies
During the month of April, Patrick Lichty hosted a discussion on -empyre dealing with Augmented Realities. During the month I was noticed that the discussion often included wearable technologies that augmented the senses. I recently came across an interview with Stelarc on You Tube just a few days ago where he said in relationship to his own performance work, “The body is obsolete: These performance projects position the body as a kind of evolutionary architecture for operation and awareness in the world. Here we have the biological architecture of the body and when you add technology to it you can extend its operational capabilities. The body is not seen as a site for the psyche more for social inscription but is seen as a structure not as an object of desire but as possibly an object for redesign.” Perhaps during the month we will be able to talk more about the intersections of the body, technology and architecture. Tim and I are hoping that last month's discussion and guests will join this month's group as we talk specifically about wearable technologies. We would like to introduce *Janis Jefferies* (UK) and Valérie Lamontagne (CA) whose biographies I just sent out a few minutes ago. Janis and Valérie will be making posts tonight or tomorrow given our time zone differences. Welcome to them! Renate Ferro Renate Ferro Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Cornell University Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office #420 Ithaca, NY 14853 Email: r...@cornell.edu URL: http://www.renateferro.net http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net Lab: http://www.tinkerfactory.net Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre Art Editor, diacritics http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/ ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
