Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 104, Issue 25
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hi all Interesting discussions I wonder why it is necessary to change the term? surely to some extent it avoids the discussion? That is how have notions of interaction evolved in recent decades? todays discourse is of course around evolving notions of interaction – once pushing the play button on the CD player was regarded as interactive and music resulted as an outcome. As I mentioned in a recent post in response to comments by Mez, I think asking the same (or similar) questions is a constructive discipline. For the context of the discourse changes and similarly the nature of the discussed actions evolve. There is an evolving taxanomic discourse and an epistemic one - both equally engaging and with long histories - so to move the target (change the term) seems to me to disassociate the evolving discourse from past endeavors - all of which have led to our current depth of understanding - surely we want to thicken the knowledge, not move its focus completely ? Cheers, Garth Paine ga...@activatedspace.com On Jul 26, 2013, at 11:05 PM, Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- I only intended to state that interactivity was part of the mix, not the complete paradigm. I quite like the term inter-agency and Hayles's term technogenesis is workable. best Simon On 26 Jul 2013, at 12:05, carol-ann braun carol-ann.br...@wanadoo.fr wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- The “entanglement” Hayles writes about is so complex and the technologies so polymorphous that the term “interactivity” (in its simplest form : command-response...) is both too limited and too vague... What other concept/term? At the CUBE’s “Living Art Seminar”, we’re stuck on the term “living” (...which survives a French accent...but maybe not Spanish or Chinese...) and evokes a relational, pragmatic (and mutually attentive?) context. We’re even into “Living community management” :-) How does the term strike those of you who are on the other side of the globe ? I’ve been in France so long, I can no longer resist the funky terms that keep popping up here. On another note, artistic activity for me isI’m embarrassed to admit...resistance to living, however mediated...But that’s another subject... Carol-Ann le 26/07/13 11:52 Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- I want to pick up on Sue's comments about the ubiquity of, and entanglement of ourselves with, technology and Johannes' comment that interactivity is over. I'm not sure what Johannes intends with this comment. I agree with Sue - that we live in a technologised environment and we are enmeshed within it. We are in a constant state of interactive alert with that environment - although perhaps, for many, this has become such a default condition we are unaware of it. Sue's concern with attentiveness suggests a practice intended to address this existential complacency. Katherine Hayles' recent work on what she terms technogenesis is relevant here. She argues that human evolution is not an entirely biological process but also social and, thus necessarily, technological. The relationship between language, tool making and social formation is the focus of her thinking, building on the work of Heidegger, Foucault, Latour and others. In her view we have been enmeshed in ubiquitous technology for as long as we have made tools and used language - it follows that being human is all about this entanglement as it is these characteristics that define us as a species. In this light I would argue that interactivity, in art and in life, is extremely relevant. In this context it might be considered the artist's role, at least in part, to facilitate the critical self-consciousness required to become aware of this condition. I assume this is what Sue means by attentiveness. Seeking to respond to Ruth's lament concerning the lack of politics at ISEA I would suggest that developing a critical self-consciousness is a political activity and, perhaps, a necessary step if one is to engage broader political agendas. Assange kicked off his keynote by insulting his audience. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was to the effect that artists are self-absorbed a-political wankers (he definitely said wankers). I'm not going to try and defend artists against his attack, firstly because they don't need defending and secondly because Assange is right. Nevertheless, you are likely to find quite a few politically aware and committed people in the ISEA crowd - I know the scene well enough to know they are there and they purposefully choose to work in that context. This would seem to come back to the idea that the artist has an obligation to
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 104, Issue 25
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Perhaps, but a new terminology is also very helpful. Why talk of ³composition² when the term ³montage² helps define the specificity of film? And didn¹t ²montage² provide a handle for subsequent innovative hybrid time-based practices ? Yes, in the word technogenesis there is ³genesis², becoming, process, movement, evolution...But then, does the expression ³technogenesis art² work ? Or ³inter-agency art² ? The terms strike me as more appropriate for sociologists than for artists. How to characterize a kind of art doted with autonomous behaviour and capable of taking an initiative with respect to its environment (including the viewers whose behaviour it seeks to manipulate) ? What are the terms of this new ³rhetoric² rooted in data and fictional agency ? I don¹t like the term ³living art², because it masks the building blocks of the illusion of ³life/intelligence²; though, as has been argued here, perhaps it is futile to ³resist² vast and invisible manipulation. Florent Aziosmanoof, with whom we regularly discuss these questions at ³Le Cube², is not interested in resisting anything; he just wants to know how to dive (artistically) into the fray. If we narrow the scale of the discussion to consider the building blocks of a new kind of art-making, there are some basic pillars to consider : the principles of generated movement + the criteria for analysing sensory data + the structural principles of ³alterity²... In each of these three areas, there are precedents that provide ³leads² and the basis for a specific terminology. One lead: Italo Calvino¹s ³Invisible Cities² is a kind of inventory of structural (and power) relationships between people and their environments. For me, this book is a key to understanding poetic ³inter-agency²... Carol-Ann le 27/07/13 04:40 Garth Paine ga...@activatedspace.com wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Hi all Interesting discussions I wonder why it is necessary to change the term? surely to some extent it avoids the discussion? That is how have notions of interaction evolved in recent decades? todays discourse is of course around evolving notions of interaction once pushing the play button on the CD player was regarded as interactive and music resulted as an outcome. As I mentioned in a recent post in response to comments by Mez, I think asking the same (or similar) questions is a constructive discipline. For the context of the discourse changes and similarly the nature of the discussed actions evolve. There is an evolving taxanomic discourse and an epistemic one - both equally engaging and with long histories - so to move the target (change the term) seems to me to disassociate the evolving discourse from past endeavors - all of which have led to our current depth of understanding - surely we want to thicken the knowledge, not move its focus completely ? Cheers, Garth Paine ga...@activatedspace.com On Jul 26, 2013, at 11:05 PM, Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- I only intended to state that interactivity was part of the mix, not the complete paradigm. I quite like the term inter-agency and Hayles's term technogenesis is workable. best Simon On 26 Jul 2013, at 12:05, carol-ann braun carol-ann.br...@wanadoo.fr wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 104, Issue 25 The ³entanglement² Hayles writes about is so complex and the technologies so polymorphous that the term ³interactivity² (in its simplest form : command-response...) is both too limited and too vague... What other concept/term? At the CUBE¹s ³Living Art Seminar², we¹re stuck on the term ³living² (...which survives a French accent...but maybe not Spanish or Chinese...) and evokes a relational, pragmatic (and mutually attentive?) context. We¹re even into ³Living community management² :-) How does the term strike those of you who are on the other side of the globe ? I¹ve been in France so long, I can no longer resist the funky terms that keep popping up here. On another note, artistic activity for me isI¹m embarrassed to admit...resistance to living, however mediated...But that¹s another subject... Carol-Ann le 26/07/13 11:52 Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk x-msg://32/si...@littlepig.org.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- I want to pick up on Sue's comments about the ubiquity of, and entanglement of ourselves with, technology and Johannes' comment that interactivity is over. I'm not sure what Johannes intends with this comment. I agree with Sue - that we live in a technologised environment and we are enmeshed within it. We are in a constant state of interactive alert with that environment - although perhaps, for many, this has
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 104, Issue 25
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Dear Simon all Thanks for the invitation to join this discussion. I'd like to pick up on a point made early on in the month's discussion by Christina Spiesel: On 4 Jul 2013, at 18:21, Christina Spiesel christina.spie...@yale.edumailto:christina.spie...@yale.edu wrote: We are organisms in environments. If we can't see those environments, we can't adapt for self-protection. If we wish to sustain our lives, we must be able to operate under changed signals from a changing environment ... So how we attend to what is there, I submit, is very important. And the capacity for play which is the science of children. As a dance artist, I am interested in exploring how people shape and are shaped by their environment. Immediately after the debate and activity of ISEA (my first), I had the pleasure of spending time in residency at Bundanon Trust, working with collaborators on the development of a new interactive performance installation work. In the context of the beautiful setting of Bundanon, it sometimes seemed at odds to be in a darkened studio, immersed in projected image, learning to negotiate a highly mediated environment where motion was tracked, voice captured, action augmented, space constrained. The presence of technology was very apparent in the particular environment we created in the studio, which at first glance seemed in total contrast to the 'natural' environment outside and loaded with constraints on 'the performers' 'freedom' to move. But outside, one has to negotiate the technological infrastructures of communications, transport, power, sanitation, conservation. Operating in an environment like Bundanon requires opening and closing of gates, driving with peripheral vision on high alert for kangaroos (although the roos also adapt to traffic, and carefully stop-look-listen before crossing the track!) taking care where one sits, avoiding wombat- holes, being mindful of the river's currents It would be simplistic to regard the different aspects of this experience as more, less or even un-natural. In the installation system we were creating, I developed embodied practices to nurture the performers' capacity to cope. these emphasised attending to change, treading lightly, listening carefully and/or reacting quickly. I'm sharing this because it was such a great way for me, to put in to practice and make sense of some of the ideas I heard at ISEA - in particular concerning the ubiquity of technology, the impossibility of disentangling ourselves from systems of mediation, and attentiveness to our changing environment. all the best, Sue On 23 Jul 2013, at 03:00, empyre-requ...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au empyre-requ...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au wrote: Send empyre mailing list submissions to empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/empyre or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to empyre-requ...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au You can reach the person managing the list at empyre-ow...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of empyre digest... --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Today's Topics: 1. empyre: Resistance is futile, ISEA, Sydney 2013 - week 4 (Simon Biggs) -- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 10:52:01 +0100 From: Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk To: soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au Subject: [-empyre-] empyre: Resistance is futile, ISEA, Sydney 2013 - week 4 Message-ID: 96faf381-6119-48a3-8486-1f1bb6f0f...@littlepig.org.uk Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Welcome to the fourth and final week of empyre's July 2013 discussion: Resistance is futile, ISEA Sydney, 2013 Thank you to Garth Paine and Deborah Ely, who described their own activities at ISEA and considered those of others. Thanks to all those who responded and contributed to the debate. The focus during the week oscillated between themes concerning embodiment and place and how each can be mediated and affected as a creative and experiential site. Our guests during the final fourth week (July 22-28) of our discussion about ISEA are: Clea T. Waite (US/D) is a research artist-scholar and experimental filmmaker investigating the correspondences between art and science via somatic, cinematic works. Her films are realized using animation, immersion, stereoscopic imaging, structural montage and unique interfaces as well as one inter-species collaboration with several hundred spiders. She received her SB and SMVis degrees from the MIT Media Lab as a physicist and 3D computer graphics developer. She has been an Alexander von
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 104, Issue 25
--empyre- soft-skinned space--I want to pick up on Sue's comments about the ubiquity of, and entanglement of ourselves with, technology and Johannes' comment that interactivity is over. I'm not sure what Johannes intends with this comment. I agree with Sue - that we live in a technologised environment and we are enmeshed within it. We are in a constant state of interactive alert with that environment - although perhaps, for many, this has become such a default condition we are unaware of it. Sue's concern with attentiveness suggests a practice intended to address this existential complacency. Katherine Hayles' recent work on what she terms technogenesis is relevant here. She argues that human evolution is not an entirely biological process but also social and, thus necessarily, technological. The relationship between language, tool making and social formation is the focus of her thinking, building on the work of Heidegger, Foucault, Latour and others. In her view we have been enmeshed in ubiquitous technology for as long as we have made tools and used language - it follows that being human is all about this entanglement as it is these characteristics that define us as a species. In this light I would argue that interactivity, in art and in life, is extremely relevant. In this context it might be considered the artist's role, at least in part, to facilitate the critical self-consciousness required to become aware of this condition. I assume this is what Sue means by attentiveness. Seeking to respond to Ruth's lament concerning the lack of politics at ISEA I would suggest that developing a critical self-consciousness is a political activity and, perhaps, a necessary step if one is to engage broader political agendas. Assange kicked off his keynote by insulting his audience. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was to the effect that artists are self-absorbed a-political wankers (he definitely said wankers). I'm not going to try and defend artists against his attack, firstly because they don't need defending and secondly because Assange is right. Nevertheless, you are likely to find quite a few politically aware and committed people in the ISEA crowd - I know the scene well enough to know they are there and they purposefully choose to work in that context. This would seem to come back to the idea that the artist has an obligation to encourage self-awareness and awareness of context amongst those who encounter their work. Perhaps the lack of a sense of the political at ISEA was less a product of a lack of politics but of the fragmentation of the agendas being addressed in and around the event? ISEA addressed so many themes and sub-themes, seeking to respond to so many threads of current discourse and practice. This broad engagement and willingness to take on board so many concerns suggests an openness in the direction of ISEA, which we should welcome. However, perhaps future ISEAs need to be more focused, addressing specific questions, if a sense of urgency is to emerge from ISEA's activities. I suspect that even debating what such a focus might be would generate significant heat. best Simon On 25 Jul 2013, at 20:23, Sue Hawksley s...@articulateanimal.org.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Dear Simon all Thanks for the invitation to join this discussion. I'd like to pick up on a point made early on in the month's discussion by Christina Spiesel: On 4 Jul 2013, at 18:21, Christina Spiesel christina.spie...@yale.edumailto:christina.spie...@yale.edu wrote: We are organisms in environments. If we can't see those environments, we can't adapt for self-protection. If we wish to sustain our lives, we must be able to operate under changed signals from a changing environment ... So how we attend to what is there, I submit, is very important. And the capacity for play which is the science of children. As a dance artist, I am interested in exploring how people shape and are shaped by their environment. Immediately after the debate and activity of ISEA (my first), I had the pleasure of spending time in residency at Bundanon Trust, working with collaborators on the development of a new interactive performance installation work. In the context of the beautiful setting of Bundanon, it sometimes seemed at odds to be in a darkened studio, immersed in projected image, learning to negotiate a highly mediated environment where motion was tracked, voice captured, action augmented, space constrained. The presence of technology was very apparent in the particular environment we created in the studio, which at first glance seemed in total contrast to the 'natural' environment outside and loaded with constraints on 'the performers' 'freedom' to move. But outside, one has to negotiate the technological infrastructures of communications, transport, power,
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 104, Issue 25
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- The ³entanglement² Hayles writes about is so complex and the technologies so polymorphous that the term ³interactivity² (in its simplest form : command-response...) is both too limited and too vague... What other concept/term? At the CUBE¹s ³Living Art Seminar², we¹re stuck on the term ³living² (...which survives a French accent...but maybe not Spanish or Chinese...) and evokes a relational, pragmatic (and mutually attentive?) context. We¹re even into ³Living community management² :-) How does the term strike those of you who are on the other side of the globe ? I¹ve been in France so long, I can no longer resist the funky terms that keep popping up here. On another note, artistic activity for me isI¹m embarrassed to admit...resistance to living, however mediated...But that¹s another subject... Carol-Ann le 26/07/13 11:52 Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- I want to pick up on Sue's comments about the ubiquity of, and entanglement of ourselves with, technology and Johannes' comment that interactivity is over. I'm not sure what Johannes intends with this comment. I agree with Sue - that we live in a technologised environment and we are enmeshed within it. We are in a constant state of interactive alert with that environment - although perhaps, for many, this has become such a default condition we are unaware of it. Sue's concern with attentiveness suggests a practice intended to address this existential complacency. Katherine Hayles' recent work on what she terms technogenesis is relevant here. She argues that human evolution is not an entirely biological process but also social and, thus necessarily, technological. The relationship between language, tool making and social formation is the focus of her thinking, building on the work of Heidegger, Foucault, Latour and others. In her view we have been enmeshed in ubiquitous technology for as long as we have made tools and used language - it follows that being human is all about this entanglement as it is these characteristics that define us as a species. In this light I would argue that interactivity, in art and in life, is extremely relevant. In this context it might be considered the artist's role, at least in part, to facilitate the critical self-consciousness required to become aware of this condition. I assume this is what Sue means by attentiveness. Seeking to respond to Ruth's lament concerning the lack of politics at ISEA I would suggest that developing a critical self-consciousness is a political activity and, perhaps, a necessary step if one is to engage broader political agendas. Assange kicked off his keynote by insulting his audience. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was to the effect that artists are self-absorbed a-political wankers (he definitely said wankers). I'm not going to try and defend artists against his attack, firstly because they don't need defending and secondly because Assange is right. Nevertheless, you are likely to find quite a few politically aware and committed people in the ISEA crowd - I know the scene well enough to know they are there and they purposefully choose to work in that context. This would seem to come back to the idea that the artist has an obligation to encourage self-awareness and awareness of context amongst those who encounter their work. Perhaps the lack of a sense of the political at ISEA was less a product of a lack of politics but of the fragmentation of the agendas being addressed in and around the event? ISEA addressed so many themes and sub-themes, seeking to respond to so many threads of current discourse and practice. This broad engagement and willingness to take on board so many concerns suggests an openness in the direction of ISEA, which we should welcome. However, perhaps future ISEAs need to be more focused, addressing specific questions, if a sense of urgency is to emerge from ISEA's activities. I suspect that even debating what such a focus might be would generate significant heat. best Simon On 25 Jul 2013, at 20:23, Sue Hawksley s...@articulateanimal.org.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Dear Simon all Thanks for the invitation to join this discussion. I'd like to pick up on a point made early on in the month's discussion by Christina Spiesel: On 4 Jul 2013, at 18:21, Christina Spiesel christina.spie...@yale.edumailto:christina.spie...@yale.edu wrote: We are organisms in environments. If we can't see those environments, we can't adapt for self-protection. If we wish to sustain our lives, we must be able to operate under changed signals from a changing environment ... So how we attend to what is there, I submit, is very important. And the capacity for play which is the science of children. As a dance artist,
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 104, Issue 25
--empyre- soft-skinned space--I only intended to state that interactivity was part of the mix, not the complete paradigm. I quite like the term inter-agency and Hayles's term technogenesis is workable. best Simon On 26 Jul 2013, at 12:05, carol-ann braun carol-ann.br...@wanadoo.fr wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- The “entanglement” Hayles writes about is so complex and the technologies so polymorphous that the term “interactivity” (in its simplest form : command-response...) is both too limited and too vague... What other concept/term? At the CUBE’s “Living Art Seminar”, we’re stuck on the term “living” (...which survives a French accent...but maybe not Spanish or Chinese...) and evokes a relational, pragmatic (and mutually attentive?) context. We’re even into “Living community management” :-) How does the term strike those of you who are on the other side of the globe ? I’ve been in France so long, I can no longer resist the funky terms that keep popping up here. On another note, artistic activity for me isI’m embarrassed to admit...resistance to living, however mediated...But that’s another subject... Carol-Ann le 26/07/13 11:52 Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- I want to pick up on Sue's comments about the ubiquity of, and entanglement of ourselves with, technology and Johannes' comment that interactivity is over. I'm not sure what Johannes intends with this comment. I agree with Sue - that we live in a technologised environment and we are enmeshed within it. We are in a constant state of interactive alert with that environment - although perhaps, for many, this has become such a default condition we are unaware of it. Sue's concern with attentiveness suggests a practice intended to address this existential complacency. Katherine Hayles' recent work on what she terms technogenesis is relevant here. She argues that human evolution is not an entirely biological process but also social and, thus necessarily, technological. The relationship between language, tool making and social formation is the focus of her thinking, building on the work of Heidegger, Foucault, Latour and others. In her view we have been enmeshed in ubiquitous technology for as long as we have made tools and used language - it follows that being human is all about this entanglement as it is these characteristics that define us as a species. In this light I would argue that interactivity, in art and in life, is extremely relevant. In this context it might be considered the artist's role, at least in part, to facilitate the critical self-consciousness required to become aware of this condition. I assume this is what Sue means by attentiveness. Seeking to respond to Ruth's lament concerning the lack of politics at ISEA I would suggest that developing a critical self-consciousness is a political activity and, perhaps, a necessary step if one is to engage broader political agendas. Assange kicked off his keynote by insulting his audience. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was to the effect that artists are self-absorbed a-political wankers (he definitely said wankers). I'm not going to try and defend artists against his attack, firstly because they don't need defending and secondly because Assange is right. Nevertheless, you are likely to find quite a few politically aware and committed people in the ISEA crowd - I know the scene well enough to know they are there and they purposefully choose to work in that context. This would seem to come back to the idea that the artist has an obligation to encourage self-awareness and awareness of context amongst those who encounter their work. Perhaps the lack of a sense of the political at ISEA was less a product of a lack of politics but of the fragmentation of the agendas being addressed in and around the event? ISEA addressed so many themes and sub-themes, seeking to respond to so many threads of current discourse and practice. This broad engagement and willingness to take on board so many concerns suggests an openness in the direction of ISEA, which we should welcome. However, perhaps future ISEAs need to be more focused, addressing specific questions, if a sense of urgency is to emerge from ISEA's activities. I suspect that even debating what such a focus might be would generate significant heat. best Simon On 25 Jul 2013, at 20:23, Sue Hawksley s...@articulateanimal.org.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Dear Simon all Thanks for the invitation to join this discussion. I'd like to pick up on a point made early on in the month's discussion by Christina Spiesel: On 4 Jul 2013, at 18:21, Christina Spiesel
