Dear people,
thanks again for all the thoughtfulness and interaction you brought to the course this session. Your presentation grades are with Lynn in the school office on level 3 Webster. For those that presented in week 11 a big apology for the scribble and please ensure that each member of the group receives the feedback. For those presenting today week 12 I have made copies of the grade template but please ensure that everyone in your group gets the handwritten feedback as well... I do translations if needed.
My very best to each of you.
Ed Scheer
May 26, 2010
Reflections on Debate 2 (WEEK 3)
TOPIC:
"Live V Mediated... Performance is a 'competitive opposition at the level of cultural economy', not at the level of intrinsic or ontological differences."
DEBATE TWO:
Affirmative Speaker 1 - ?
- Argued that many cinematic techniques of editing (eg. fade-ins/outs) were derived from theatrical techniques.
- Suggested that the big screens at concert performances bring audiences closer to the 'live' spectacles.
- Argued the two are becoming closer together, co-dependent.
- TV was an attempt to bring the experience of the theatre into the home.
- Hard to understand/no new arguments.
Negative Speaker 1 - ?
- Used the old, traditional definition of 'live' as used by Auslander.
- Argued strongly for the distinction between a TV broadcast and the physical, temporal sharing of space with the performer acting out the performance - being present in the 'now' of the performance.
Affirmative Speaker 2 - ?
- Argued for the implementation of mediatised aspects in sport - ie. dependence upon a video umpire in cricket.
- Argued that performers act out moves choreographer for music videos, mimicking other performers, etc. - this is remediation.
- Argued for 'types' of liveness, with different ways of identifying with live performances, ie. 'social' and Internet liveness, becoming (in the case of the Internet) interactive with a computer interface.
- In our modern culture, all relative definitions of liveness - time, space, intimacy - are no longer fixed, thus in today's world, live and mediatised go hand-in-hand.
Negative Speaker 2 - Laura
- Argued for two separate forms - in order for them to be dependant, they must be two things co-existing.
- Peggy Phelan - 'created space' and 'intended atmosphere' lost from mediatised performances.
- 'Sensorial' experience - onstage cooking, emotional stories and sharing the food with the audience. This creates a unique live experience. Taste and smell provoked - physical as well as emotional affect.
Affirmative Speaker 3 - ?
- Mass culture expects a more mediatised product?
Negative Speaker 3 - ?
- Performances have not been historically reliant on 'mediatisation'.
- Mediated and live are two separate things - because to have necessary mediated performance, we need to being with the life. Without the life there is not the possibility for the mediatised. The 'live' experience is a different experience than the mediatised.
CONCLUSION:
For me, the stronger team in the second debate was the Negative.
Reflections on Debate 1 (WEEK 3)
TOPIC:
"Live V Mediated... Performance is a 'competitive opposition at the level of cultural economy', not at the level of intrinsic or ontological differences."
DEBATE ONE:
Affirmative Speaker 1 - Liz
- Strong introduction outlining aims and arguments. Suggested the true live performance is 'rare' in our modern mediatised culture, allowing that viewers have become desensitised to the difference between live/recorded.
- Disappearance - the technical degradation of media, ie. videos degrading.
- Distinctions between live/recorded are historically embedded.
- Also suggested that the intimacy of live performance can be realised through the combination of live and pre-recorded media.
Negative Speaker 1 - Alice
- Good attempts to rebut Liz.
- Watching a live performance, we can choose where to look, we are not directed by the shot choices - 'live' enables individual choice of how to experience, whereas mediatised does not allow for such a choice.
Affirmative Speaker 2 - ?
- Good attempt to rebut, somewhat unconvincing.
- Argument based on ideas of interaction with new media, suggested again that live and mediated performance can be co-dependant, stemming from social and online interaction.
Negative Speaker 2 - Brent
- Strong rebuttal - remediation.
- Spoke about acting courses specifically tailored to TV, film or theatrical forms of acting.
- Immediacy and intimacy can be experienced in terms of performance with the crowd - what that shared experience brings to the piece.
Affirmative Speaker 3 - ?
- Rebutted by suggesting that mediation allows new avenues for live performances, ie. Skype.
- Supported big screens at concerts to allow viewers at back to see what's happening.
- Argued that our notions of live are shaped by our exposure to film and TV.
- Live performances have been influenced by film and TV - basically, there is a relationship of co-dependence. Both forms are mutually dependant - both remediate one another.
Negative Speaker 3 - Jan
- Argued that 'live' can exist without mediatised. The mediatised aspects of the live performance are used only to enhance the live experience.
- Short, abrupt ending (weakest speaker).
CONCLUSION:
For me, the stronger team in the first debate was the Affirmative.
May 25, 2010
May 21, 2010
i-cinema reflection
i-Cinema reflection
Michael Mammarella
z3170531
MEFT3353 Performance in a Mediatized Culture
I have been to i-Cinema before and written about it in a similar assessment. I’ve always been more intrigued by the overall concept than the actual works being made with the technology. The usual response from the viewer is an overwhelming of the senses and while this may be true I’ve never felt satisfied after any i-Cinema experience. This may seem like an overly negative response to something which is obviously groundbreaking, especially for UNSW. However it is my honest response which is based on my passion for the concept and the advancement of media technology. Obviously the i-Cinema and it’s works play directly into the hands of media theorists like Auslander and his view on “Liveness” because the hypereal experience of i-Cinema questions our perception of ‘live’.
Place Hampi’s most obvious let down was the 3D glasses not being comfortable and hurting the overall immersive experience of the work. The most interesting part of this work was it’s archival potential. I’ve often marvelled at the age we live in because of that fact that there is a digital record of the billions of events worldwide occurring daily. Archives could be the single most important part of element of media technology. Everything will be digital, as technology evolves we will be able to record and keep absolutely everything. Auslander states that “the ‘live’ can be defined only as ‘that which can be recorded’” which means here that the ability to experience the past in this manner would be ‘live’. Instead of looking at a black and white photograph of the city a hundred years ago, people will be able to walk around amongst a bustling city of the past much like the scene in the Matrix where Neo and Morpheus are able to observe their surroundings in an artificial virtual city. I’m aware this is unrelated to the actual work however it is my honest response to the concept and the explanation of the work by our friendly ‘tour guide’. I feel the 3D experience at i-Cinema is still in experimental stages and is still finding its footing in a mediatised world it’s presence and importance is inevitable.
The Spherecam work was reminiscent of a stroll through google maps street view. I lived next to Anzac bridge for a year and am very familiar with it already in 3D. Bondi beach looked wonderful. The most exciting part of this work was the potential for immersion the ugly/beautiful ensemble of cameras have in the world of entertainment. I imagined a whole film shot in this way where we experience through the POV of the protagonist a full 360 degree view of the world. This would perhaps make the identity of the protagonist elusive in the traditional sense however it may be that the spectator becomes the main character in the ‘films’ made using the Spherecam.
Michael Mammarella
z3170531
MEFT3353 Performance in a Mediatized Culture
I have been to i-Cinema before and written about it in a similar assessment. I’ve always been more intrigued by the overall concept than the actual works being made with the technology. The usual response from the viewer is an overwhelming of the senses and while this may be true I’ve never felt satisfied after any i-Cinema experience. This may seem like an overly negative response to something which is obviously groundbreaking, especially for UNSW. However it is my honest response which is based on my passion for the concept and the advancement of media technology. Obviously the i-Cinema and it’s works play directly into the hands of media theorists like Auslander and his view on “Liveness” because the hypereal experience of i-Cinema questions our perception of ‘live’.
Place Hampi’s most obvious let down was the 3D glasses not being comfortable and hurting the overall immersive experience of the work. The most interesting part of this work was it’s archival potential. I’ve often marvelled at the age we live in because of that fact that there is a digital record of the billions of events worldwide occurring daily. Archives could be the single most important part of element of media technology. Everything will be digital, as technology evolves we will be able to record and keep absolutely everything. Auslander states that “the ‘live’ can be defined only as ‘that which can be recorded’” which means here that the ability to experience the past in this manner would be ‘live’. Instead of looking at a black and white photograph of the city a hundred years ago, people will be able to walk around amongst a bustling city of the past much like the scene in the Matrix where Neo and Morpheus are able to observe their surroundings in an artificial virtual city. I’m aware this is unrelated to the actual work however it is my honest response to the concept and the explanation of the work by our friendly ‘tour guide’. I feel the 3D experience at i-Cinema is still in experimental stages and is still finding its footing in a mediatised world it’s presence and importance is inevitable.
The Spherecam work was reminiscent of a stroll through google maps street view. I lived next to Anzac bridge for a year and am very familiar with it already in 3D. Bondi beach looked wonderful. The most exciting part of this work was the potential for immersion the ugly/beautiful ensemble of cameras have in the world of entertainment. I imagined a whole film shot in this way where we experience through the POV of the protagonist a full 360 degree view of the world. This would perhaps make the identity of the protagonist elusive in the traditional sense however it may be that the spectator becomes the main character in the ‘films’ made using the Spherecam.
May 18, 2010
Presentation QUestion
Hi everyone
I just wanted to know if anyone knows if you are in a group of 3 how long you need to talk for and how many slides you have to have in total. Please answer asap if anyone knows.
Thanks Bec
I just wanted to know if anyone knows if you are in a group of 3 how long you need to talk for and how many slides you have to have in total. Please answer asap if anyone knows.
Thanks Bec
May 17, 2010
week 9 Reading Summary
Exposing Globalisation: Biopolitics in the work of Critical Art Ensemble
Gabriella Giannachi
By Carmen Holmes
Exposing Globalisation: Biopolitics in the Work of Critical Art Ensemble looks at the human body, nature and technology in relation to globalisation. Gabriella Giannachi describes the human body “through the possibilities of genetic manipulation and patenting, a desirable site for global productivity.” In other words, the combination of technology and the human body is a reflection of the human becoming a product of globalisation.
She describe the concept behind biopolitics and its creation from globalisation. By enforcing an image of “global” a ruling “empire” is created. Empire is a product of globalisation and works its way to the individual to somehow bring them into practice as a global citizen. The empire regulates the economic and cultural actions on a global scale, even to the extent of redefining the existing economic and cultural exchanges of the world. In following Michael Foucault’s ideology, Giannachi establishes that societal (or empire) control is not only established through ideology, but also through the control of the human body. This “biopower” is achieved in the way in which life has been redefined and acted out by society.
Giannachi refers to the way in which Donna Harraway observes the way “branding and natural classification” in everyday life. She describes there has been a denaturalisation of classifications that individualise subjects, and move them into a global subject through genetically modified products and cloned organisms. Both these genetically modified foods as well as technology have become easy to reproduce and highly commercial that it has become a feature of our everyday lives. We become subjects of globalisation and global citizens because we immerse our lives into these technologies, with our lives being the setting of product placement.
Technologies such as OncoMouse and the technologies used to create clones have also been methods of globalisation and technology obtaining biopower. OncoMouse was created in 1988 and bred to contain human DNA that was able to create cancers inside this experimental mouse. This mouse then become the subject to pharmaceutical experimentation to test whether or not the medicine is suitable for humans or not. This genetically modified mouse became a global product, viewing it as a tool rather than a living being.
Cloning, the modifying of genetics show the technological capabilities that brought their (and our lives) into being. Corporal wealth is made off these technologies and genetically modified products that we purchase for our everyday life and feel as though we depend on in our everyday lives.
The Critical Art Ensemble work to denounce the links that have been formed in regards to empire, globalisation and biotechnological industries. Their work is global in that art, technology, critical theory and political activism as well as connecting local issues to international issues in their performances. This ensemble use interrelated interventions and political views, performing them in both real and virtual locations.
The company use ECD (electronic civil disobedience) as an option for resistance. Using this method, they argue that “under the capitalist regime, individuals will be forced to submit their bodies for reconfiguration so they can function more efficiently under the obsessively rational imperatives of pancapitalism.” The biological body has become a commodity along with all the other products that are exploited through capitalism and globalisation.
Gabriella Giannachi
By Carmen Holmes
Exposing Globalisation: Biopolitics in the Work of Critical Art Ensemble looks at the human body, nature and technology in relation to globalisation. Gabriella Giannachi describes the human body “through the possibilities of genetic manipulation and patenting, a desirable site for global productivity.” In other words, the combination of technology and the human body is a reflection of the human becoming a product of globalisation.
She describe the concept behind biopolitics and its creation from globalisation. By enforcing an image of “global” a ruling “empire” is created. Empire is a product of globalisation and works its way to the individual to somehow bring them into practice as a global citizen. The empire regulates the economic and cultural actions on a global scale, even to the extent of redefining the existing economic and cultural exchanges of the world. In following Michael Foucault’s ideology, Giannachi establishes that societal (or empire) control is not only established through ideology, but also through the control of the human body. This “biopower” is achieved in the way in which life has been redefined and acted out by society.
Giannachi refers to the way in which Donna Harraway observes the way “branding and natural classification” in everyday life. She describes there has been a denaturalisation of classifications that individualise subjects, and move them into a global subject through genetically modified products and cloned organisms. Both these genetically modified foods as well as technology have become easy to reproduce and highly commercial that it has become a feature of our everyday lives. We become subjects of globalisation and global citizens because we immerse our lives into these technologies, with our lives being the setting of product placement.
Technologies such as OncoMouse and the technologies used to create clones have also been methods of globalisation and technology obtaining biopower. OncoMouse was created in 1988 and bred to contain human DNA that was able to create cancers inside this experimental mouse. This mouse then become the subject to pharmaceutical experimentation to test whether or not the medicine is suitable for humans or not. This genetically modified mouse became a global product, viewing it as a tool rather than a living being.
Cloning, the modifying of genetics show the technological capabilities that brought their (and our lives) into being. Corporal wealth is made off these technologies and genetically modified products that we purchase for our everyday life and feel as though we depend on in our everyday lives.
The Critical Art Ensemble work to denounce the links that have been formed in regards to empire, globalisation and biotechnological industries. Their work is global in that art, technology, critical theory and political activism as well as connecting local issues to international issues in their performances. This ensemble use interrelated interventions and political views, performing them in both real and virtual locations.
The company use ECD (electronic civil disobedience) as an option for resistance. Using this method, they argue that “under the capitalist regime, individuals will be forced to submit their bodies for reconfiguration so they can function more efficiently under the obsessively rational imperatives of pancapitalism.” The biological body has become a commodity along with all the other products that are exploited through capitalism and globalisation.
May 6, 2010
Case Study - Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
MEFT3353 - Performance in a Mediatised culture
By: Rachel Jang, Michelle Goodman, Caroline Moss, Sarina Huang
Intention and How
To outline the methods in which Rafael Lozano-Hemmer reflects both immersion and interactivity through two of his key works “Pulse Room” and “Pulse Tank”.
Background
Pulse Room is an exhibition displaying hundreds of incandescent 300w light bulbs suspended from the ceiling. Each bulb represents the heart-beat/rate of each participant who has visited the exhibition, and placed their hands on the metal sensors displayed at the front of the exhibition. Each participant who holds onto these sensors for 30 seconds, has the sequence of the heart-beat pattern displayed onto the closest hanging bulb. When a new participant touches the sensors, their heart beat is displayed on the first bulb, thus pushing the previous participants heart beat down the line. This project therefore, incorporates an interactive work of 300 hundred individuals blinking in their unique rhythms.
Pulse Tank is an installation allowing any participant to take part in the work. It takes the heart rates of a person, once they insert their finger into one of four available cylinders, then converts the heart rate into ripples in a tank of water. It then is converted into different lighting patterns projected onto the ceiling of the room and below the tank. There are two main ways to create the ripples and light effects. The first, through the pulse in your finger, or by placing your palms to a panel that also measures your heart rate.
Outside influences
Lozano-Hemmer draws his interests and influences from many sources but in particular for Pulse Room, the 1960 motion picture film “Macario” directed by Roberto Gavaldón assists in the setting of the lightbulbs in this installation.
Key questions
1. How it affects our senses?
2. How simple actions generate complex responses?
Michelle
In continuation to Pulse Room we would like to contribute the immersive context to the installation and answer the question of “How simple actions generate complex responses”. This idea is relevant in our piece as the audience becomes immersed by a function that we are all aware of and that is known to every human being. This section will reflect and explore the mobility of the heart within Pulse Room and how it embraces the effects of immersion.
Materials
· Link to Pulse Room in operation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w9yeGIqcLg
· Text by Marie-Laure Ryan – Immersion vs. Interactivity: Virtual Reality and Literary Theory
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/mposter/syllabi/readings/ryan.html
· Youtube link to “Macario” – Lozano-Hemmer’s creative inspiration for Pulse Room. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxuatGW7yNY&feature=related
· Also, the bitforms gallery website has heaps of info on him too because they represent him
http://www.bitforms.com/rafael-lozano-hemmer-gallery.html
· Auslander, P. 1999, 'Live Performance in a Mediatised Culture' Liveness: Performance in a Mediatised Culture, Routledge: London and New York, pp10-44.
By Michelle Goodman
Project proposal - Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
MEFT3353 - Performance in a Mediatised culture
Group members: Rachel Jang, Michelle Goodman, Caroline Moss, Sarina Huang
Intention and How
To outline the methods in which Rafael Lozano-Hemmer reflects both immersion and interactivity through two of his key works “Pulse Room” and “Pulse Tank”.
Background
Pulse Room is an exhibition displaying hundreds of incandescent 300w light bulbs suspended from the ceiling. Each bulb represents the heart-beat/rate of each participant who has visited the exhibition, and placed their hands on the metal sensors displayed at the front of the exhibition. Each participant who holds onto these sensors for 30 seconds, has the sequence of the heart-beat pattern displayed onto the closest hanging bulb. When a new participant touches the sensors, their heart beat is displayed on the first bulb, thus pushing the previous participants heart beat down the line. This project therefore, incorporates an interactive work of 300 hundred individuals blinking in their unique rhythms.
Pulse Tank is an installation allowing any participant to take part in the work. It takes the heart rates of a person, once they insert their finger into one of four available cylinders, then converts the heart rate into ripples in a tank of water. It then is converted into different lighting patterns projected onto the ceiling of the room and below the tank. There are two main ways to create the ripples and light effects. The first, through the pulse in your finger, or by placing your palms to a panel that also measures your heart rate.
Individual presentation
Through an assessment of interactive artwork, we begin to understand how Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Room is a highly interactive form.
The element of interactivity in Pulse Room is assessed through;
• The physical elements of interactivity (sight, touch, sensors, motion)
• The emotional/sensorial elements of interactivity (feelings and thoughts)
• The direct and indirect interactive elements of the project
• The intimacy of the project
• What does intimacy achieve, and how does Pulse Room relate to this intimacy
• The comparisons or differences in interactivity according to Auslander and/or in Marie-Laure Ryan’s work Immersion vs. Interactivity: Virtual Reality and Literary Theory.
By Caroline Moss
Group members: Rachel Jang, Michelle Goodman, Caroline Moss, Sarina Huang
Intention and How
To outline the methods in which Rafael Lozano-Hemmer reflects both immersion and interactivity through two of his key works “Pulse Room” and “Pulse Tank”.
Background
Pulse Room is an exhibition displaying hundreds of incandescent 300w light bulbs suspended from the ceiling. Each bulb represents the heart-beat/rate of each participant who has visited the exhibition, and placed their hands on the metal sensors displayed at the front of the exhibition. Each participant who holds onto these sensors for 30 seconds, has the sequence of the heart-beat pattern displayed onto the closest hanging bulb. When a new participant touches the sensors, their heart beat is displayed on the first bulb, thus pushing the previous participants heart beat down the line. This project therefore, incorporates an interactive work of 300 hundred individuals blinking in their unique rhythms.
Pulse Tank is an installation allowing any participant to take part in the work. It takes the heart rates of a person, once they insert their finger into one of four available cylinders, then converts the heart rate into ripples in a tank of water. It then is converted into different lighting patterns projected onto the ceiling of the room and below the tank. There are two main ways to create the ripples and light effects. The first, through the pulse in your finger, or by placing your palms to a panel that also measures your heart rate.
Individual presentation
Through an assessment of interactive artwork, we begin to understand how Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Room is a highly interactive form.
The element of interactivity in Pulse Room is assessed through;
• The physical elements of interactivity (sight, touch, sensors, motion)
• The emotional/sensorial elements of interactivity (feelings and thoughts)
• The direct and indirect interactive elements of the project
• The intimacy of the project
• What does intimacy achieve, and how does Pulse Room relate to this intimacy
• The comparisons or differences in interactivity according to Auslander and/or in Marie-Laure Ryan’s work Immersion vs. Interactivity: Virtual Reality and Literary Theory.
By Caroline Moss
May 5, 2010
R.Goderie K.Williams PROJECT PROPOSAL
MEFT 3353
Performance in a Mediatised Culture
Presentation Proposal
Rosanna Goderie and Katie Williams
Performance Project:
The multimedia dance Installation/Performance ‘As You Take Time’ (2007 premiere in Sydney and 2009 Japan) as part of artist Sue Healey’s ‘In Time Series’.
Intention: Discover the interdisciplinary and multimedia nature of dance performance in contemporary mediatised society in regard to principles of immersion and interactivity. Time-based art emphasising Healey’s experiments with the sensory experience of changing modalities of time, and how this idea is explored and extended through technologies.
Method: Drawing from historical and theoretic accounts of dance and technology, documentation of work and personal interviews with artist.
Key Questions:
- How do the performing bodies relate to one another, technology, and audience?
- What various types of multimedia technology were utilised? How did these further the artistic intention of the piece?
- How do the diverse range of multimedia aspects along with the live bodies of performance relate to theory of performativity, fusion of live and mediated mediums (Auslander), Human sense perception and desire for proximity (Benjamin), immersion and interactivity?
- What is the future for dance performance as a genre in a mediatised society that offers alternatives to the human body as mode of artistic communication?
Examples of Multimedia elements within work:
- Street entrance of performance space intended and accidental audience are confronted with two live performing bodies and two large TV screens that display a live feed of two dancers and the spectators watching in the shop window. Each TV distorts the live feed to show the footage in a different way e.g. extreme slow motion.
- A room with manipulated images of a Japanese Geisha being prepared with traditional dress and make up projected on walls with interaction from the live body.
- Another room with large movable screens, projectors from behind and in front. Footage taken in Japan projected onto shirt of performer.
- A stack of TV’s with flickering images in confined space.Real time motion capture of dancer in a white room is compacted, and the animated image of the dancer projected onto a white block within millisecond accuracy of live performer. The virtual figure is manually controlled each performance.
Proposal
William Yang
Key Questions
The key questions that will be posed will also be a rough indication of how the slide show will be formatted.
Who is the artist and what is the specific work?
How does his work (My Generation) relate to…
· Remediation?
· Integration?
· Composition?
How do the mediated and the live contribute to this performance?
What are the different mediums that contribute in the work?
How does he integrate his work to create a point of view to the audience?
Where is the audience and how or are they influential to the piece?
(These are the three themes that we will be looking at in relation to William Yangs ‘My Generation’ work.)
William Yang in brief…
Born William Young in North Queensland in 1943, he changed his name to William Yang in 1983. He moved to Sydney and became a photographer who focused on the everyday social life of the gay culture. His work is autobiographical and is a representation of his identity.
Through the projection of photography and live performance, William Yang creates a new presentation of ones identity. The integration of photography, projection, music, and his live presence, we are able to, as the audience, connect with the artist and relive history through his point of view. This is also a place to note the concept of Phelans notion of live and mediated and its place in the memory and the performance being placed in the present. What are the different narratives being raised in terms of performance? (Yangs past and present, the audience?)
My Generation is the performance that we will be looking at in detail. My Generation is the tenth performance that William Yang has done. It offers a glimpse of the gay/art culture in the 70’s and 80’s in Sydneys night/ social life. He delivers a commentary to his projection of photographs, and takes the audience on to a journey through his past.
References
Auslander, P. 1999, ‘Live Performance in a Mediatised Culture’ Liveness:Performance in a
Mediatised Culture, Routledge, London and New York,
Auslander, P, and Scheer, E. 2005, ‘After Liveness. An E‐Interview’ in Performance Paradigm Journal of Performance and Contemporary Culture, Routledge, London and New York
Williams Yangs Home Website -
http://www.williamyang.com/
(Group - Tanya Moore & Bernice Ong)
Project Proposal
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Pulse Room + Pulse Tank
MEFT3353 - Performance in a Mediatised culture
By: Rachel Jang, Michelle Goodman, Caroline Moss, Sarina Huang
Intention and How
To outline the methods in which Rafael Lozano-Hemmer reflects both immersion and interactivity through two of his key works “Pulse Room” and “Pulse Tank”.
Background
Pulse Room is an exhibition displaying hundreds of incandescent 300w light bulbs suspended from the ceiling. Each bulb represents the heart-beat/rate of each participant who has visited the exhibition, and placed their hands on the metal sensors displayed at the front of the exhibition. Each participant who holds onto these sensors for 30 seconds, has the sequence of the heart-beat pattern displayed onto the closest hanging bulb. When a new participant touches the sensors, their heart beat is displayed on the first bulb, thus pushing the previous participants heart beat down the line. This project therefore, incorporates an interactive work of 300 hundred individuals blinking in their unique rhythms.
Pulse Tank is an installation allowing any participant to take part in the work. It takes the heart rates of a person, once they insert their finger into one of four available cylinders, then converts the heart rate into ripples in a tank of water. It then is converted into different lighting patterns projected onto the ceiling of the room and below the tank. There are two main ways to create the ripples and light effects. The first, through the pulse in your finger, or by placing your palms to a panel that also measures your heart rate.
Outside influences
Lozano-Hemmer draws his interests and influences from many sources but in particular for Pulse Room, the 1960 motion picture film “Macario” directed by Roberto Gavaldón assists in the setting of the lightbulbs in this installation.
Key questions
1. How it affects our senses?
2. How simple actions generate complex responses?
Breakdown of Individual roles
(Sarina)
In Pulse Tank, the materials used in the installation include- Ripple tank, heart rate sensors, solenoids, computer, spotlight, custom software and hardware. I will be exploring how these work together as a live interactive installation and their effects on our senses and responses.
* Interaction between live + mediated ([human heart-rate & real water/water ripple effects] + [computer sensors, tank, solenoid & lighting]). I will be linking this with Auslander's theories of live and mediated performance. Also I will be highlighting the two elements of mixing the organic/natural presence with the technological.
* Active audience participation with technology in terms of physical presence/movement/motion (e.g.putting hands and/or inserting fingers in)
* Time- in real time. Environment responds to user’s actions live.
* Installation shape/set-up/spacing allows more than 1 person to interact (e.g. 5 people can go up with a tank at the same time. Space- indoor room, open space allows ability/freedom of movement- giving individuals choice in active participation or passive observation (standing further away, watching the active participants).
Project Proposal - Rachel
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Pulse Room + Pulse Tank
MEFT3353 - Performance in a Mediatised culture
By: Rachel Jang, Michelle Goodman, Caroline Moss, Sarina Huang
To outline the methods in which Rafael Lozano-Hemmer reflects both immersion and interactivity through two of his key works “Pulse Room” and “Pulse Tank”.
Background
Pulse Room is an exhibition displaying hundreds of incandescent 300w light bulbs suspended from the ceiling. Each bulb represents the heart-beat/rate of each participant who has visited the exhibition, and placed their hands on the metal sensors displayed at the front of the exhibition. Each participant who holds onto these sensors for 30 seconds, has the sequence of the heart-beat pattern displayed onto the closest hanging bulb. When a new participant touches the sensors, their heart beat is displayed on the first bulb, thus pushing the previous participants heart beat down the line. This project therefore, incorporates an interactive work of 300 hundred individuals blinking in their unique rhythms.
Pulse Tank is an installation allowing any participant to take part in the work. It takes the heart rates of a person, once they insert their finger into one of four available cylinders, then converts the heart rate into ripples in a tank of water. It then is converted into different lighting patterns projected onto the ceiling of the room and below the tank. There are two main ways to create the ripples and light effects. The first, through the pulse in your finger, or by placing your palms to a panel that also measures your heart rate.
Outside influences
Lozano-Hemmer draws his interests and influences from many sources but in particular for Pulse Room, the 1960 motion picture film “Macario” directed by Roberto Gavaldón assists in the setting of the lightbulbs in this installation.
Key questions
1. How it affects our senses?
2. How simple actions generate complex responses?
I will be focusing on the second half of the presentation. That is, by focusing on how immersion is similar but different to Pulse Room, using similar concepts of a pulse to create the interactivity and immersion. As Pulse Tank focuses on different aspects of the human body, I bring up again the question of how simple actions of the human body transform into large performance installations. Immersion is defined by Marxism as a deep mental involvement. Therefore, all the ideas and concepts behind immersion are based on this definition.
Other key issues that will be brought up are:
- The different senses used in an installation such as Pulse Tank and its effects on us.
- Concepts of live and how it is related to live.
- A comparison between a live performance, and a live installation will be made, in terms of how you cannot choreograph an installation, as it changes every time, but brings Austlander's theories "of mutually dependent technology relying on each other to create a performance.
- How immediacy and intimacy is created and used to establish an audience connection from artist to audience.
PROJECT PROPOSAL
By James Thomas and Jessica Keogh
Our research project will involve a close study of the experimental film works of Martin Arnold, particularly focusing on one of his more recent works, “Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy” (1998), but also referencing “piece touché” (1989) and “passage a l'acte” (1993), among other pieces. “Alone...” is a fifteen-minute work which makes use of footage lifted from three of the popular Andy Hardy films of the 1930s and ’40s, starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Key to the construction of Arnold’s work is the concept of remediation, through which we will see how the artist has created strange new narratives out of the fragmented pieces of old films – reconstructing every moment and relationship on screen through careful and creative editing work.
The key questions of our presentation will concern what Arnold does and how he achieves it – in a career which has interestingly moved from the use of a homemade optical printer and the assistance of a film editor, to completely digital work with “Alone...” We will examine Arnold’s process, and detail the methods by which he achieves his finished pieces. More importantly perhaps, our presentation will engage with the specific creative intentions of the filmmaker, highlighting his theories, ideas and goals in “Alone...” and other works, and offer personal and critical reflections on the effectiveness of his films.
Arnold has said he believes that the cinema of Hollywood "is a cinema of exclusion, reduction and denial, a cinema of repression”, and that he is more interested in considering what is “behind that” – which is not represented. We have discovered that in Martin Arnold’s films, the amount of information and the depth of the unspoken ideas which the viewer can absorb from each little flicker of repeated movement and every reversed gesture are limited only by the viewer’s imagination – and so Arnold’s challenge to Hollywood cinema can be seen and felt in the new narratives that emerge from these appropriated moments, and the new life unearthed in what were once mundane and unremarkable scenes.
In our presentation we will show video samples of Martin Arnold’s work as well as screen captures, to illustrate and support our points. We will talk more broadly about the importance of the editing process in creating a film project – demonstrating the ways in which films are mainly constructed and all kinds of different narratives can be told simply through choices made in the editing room. We will present Arnold’s creations as Hollywood film deconstructions, appropriations, experiments in redefining film time and attempts to construct a new cinematic language, which challenges our viewing assumptions and demands us to consider the viewing experience as a deliberate exercise in patience and active, thoughtful engagement.
We will also speak about Martin Arnold’s reworking of footage in terms of how it reconstitutes the idea of performance. In “Alone…” the original intentions of Arnold’s actors are wiped away and the characters are manipulated into expressing new emotions and motivations. In our presentation we intend to particularly focus upon this idea of the human performance being recreated through remediation, and the role that technology has played in realising this distorted version of performance.
References:
· Lippit, Akira M.: Martin Arnold's Memory Machine. In: Afterimage.
The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism. Vol 24 No. 6, Rochester, NY 1997
· MacDonald, Scott: Martin Arnold. In: A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independant Filmmakers. University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 1998
· Huston, Johnny Ray: What makes you tic/Out Loud. In: San Francisco Bay Guardian. Vol 33 No 25, San Francisco, March 1999.
Morris, Gary: Compulsion at 24 frames per second. Films of Martin Arnold at Cinematheque. In: The Bay Area Reporter. Vol 29 No 12, San Francisco March 1999.
· MacDonald, Scott: Sp.. Sp.. Spaces of Inscription: An interview with Martin Arnold. In: Film Quaterly. vol. 48, no. 1, fall 1994, S. 3 - 11.
Gavin Broll, Emily Newbould and Rebecca Levy: Group Proposal
The question we are addressing:
How has the technology of the earpiece drawn performative aspects out of the game of football?
How we intend to explore and answer this question?
We intend to discuss the incorporation of the earpiece within the National Football League (a.k.a. ‘Mic’d up’) and how this has shifted the sport into a more performative realm due to this technology. Our project works with the interactivity of the football players, integration of technology within football and how the earpiece has developed immersion between the players and the audience which surrounds them.
How we connect these ideas to the question we’ve chosen?
The idea that technology such as the earpiece becoming involved in such a physical performance provides an insight or should we say an inner ear (pardon the pun) on football as a popular sport. By drawing performative aspects other than the players physicality seems surreal yet has given new light to football players and the sport itself. By drawing emotion from the player within their moment of game, it becomes a three-dimensional performance rather than a purely corporeal act. By enforcing sports players to present their audience or spectators with raw emotion and commentary towards their games it provides a in depth character for audiences to now relate to, We become involved in their character. The spectators are connected to their team like never before and can share in all the emotion and drama as if eavesdropping – this lends a sense of inclusion for the supporters in the play by letting them in on the decisions being made on the field as well as the emotion of missed plays and injuries.
The game allows the spectators to interact with the football players on a completely new level, they are now not only physical beings but also emotive ones. The integration of state-of-the-art technology within sport has now led us to look at sport in a completely different way as we view it now, football has now become more so entertaining for the viewer, furthering a connection between the spectator and the football player by means of providing a stream of consciousness.
How we intend to present this theory?
Through the analysis of a particular game between the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns we can see a performance drawn from the football player Matthew Stafford. We will be studying his commentary upon the game, his emotional responses and the physical pain in which he shares with the audience, these aspects can be provided thanks to the technology of Mic’d Up. With this marriage of sport and emotional performance we will also explore how traditionally we would refer to the viewer of a sport as the spectator but due to this incorporation of technology their position as spectator has shifted and become the audience member. We will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this technology for example the advantages that the earpiece provides audiences with the ability to have the game narrated by the actual players as the game takes course and proceeds. This earpiece technology is unlike any other sport. The disadvantages being that it takes away the opportunity of seeing an actual ‘live’ performance, where the commonly the crux of going to a football game is to sit in the stands, observe the game, and formulate your own opinion of the events as they occur.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
You Tube - Sound FX: Matthew Stafford ‘mic'd up’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEaFYsKg-7c
Woods, R. “Social Issues in Sport” 2007
Tenenbaum, G & Eklund, R.C. “Handbook of Sport Psychology” 2007
Khanin, U. L. & Hanin, Y.L “ Emotions in Sport” 2000
Wenner, L. “Mediasport” 1998
Other Websites:
Getting technical: defining the latest sports technology advances - http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FIH/is_2_73/ai_n18616317/
http://florence20.typepad.com/renaissance/2005/08/technology_inno_4.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-allstar071106
How has the technology of the earpiece drawn performative aspects out of the game of football?
How we intend to explore and answer this question?
We intend to discuss the incorporation of the earpiece within the National Football League (a.k.a. ‘Mic’d up’) and how this has shifted the sport into a more performative realm due to this technology. Our project works with the interactivity of the football players, integration of technology within football and how the earpiece has developed immersion between the players and the audience which surrounds them.
How we connect these ideas to the question we’ve chosen?
The idea that technology such as the earpiece becoming involved in such a physical performance provides an insight or should we say an inner ear (pardon the pun) on football as a popular sport. By drawing performative aspects other than the players physicality seems surreal yet has given new light to football players and the sport itself. By drawing emotion from the player within their moment of game, it becomes a three-dimensional performance rather than a purely corporeal act. By enforcing sports players to present their audience or spectators with raw emotion and commentary towards their games it provides a in depth character for audiences to now relate to, We become involved in their character. The spectators are connected to their team like never before and can share in all the emotion and drama as if eavesdropping – this lends a sense of inclusion for the supporters in the play by letting them in on the decisions being made on the field as well as the emotion of missed plays and injuries.
The game allows the spectators to interact with the football players on a completely new level, they are now not only physical beings but also emotive ones. The integration of state-of-the-art technology within sport has now led us to look at sport in a completely different way as we view it now, football has now become more so entertaining for the viewer, furthering a connection between the spectator and the football player by means of providing a stream of consciousness.
How we intend to present this theory?
Through the analysis of a particular game between the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns we can see a performance drawn from the football player Matthew Stafford. We will be studying his commentary upon the game, his emotional responses and the physical pain in which he shares with the audience, these aspects can be provided thanks to the technology of Mic’d Up. With this marriage of sport and emotional performance we will also explore how traditionally we would refer to the viewer of a sport as the spectator but due to this incorporation of technology their position as spectator has shifted and become the audience member. We will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this technology for example the advantages that the earpiece provides audiences with the ability to have the game narrated by the actual players as the game takes course and proceeds. This earpiece technology is unlike any other sport. The disadvantages being that it takes away the opportunity of seeing an actual ‘live’ performance, where the commonly the crux of going to a football game is to sit in the stands, observe the game, and formulate your own opinion of the events as they occur.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
You Tube - Sound FX: Matthew Stafford ‘mic'd up’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEaFYsKg-7c
Woods, R. “Social Issues in Sport” 2007
Tenenbaum, G & Eklund, R.C. “Handbook of Sport Psychology” 2007
Khanin, U. L. & Hanin, Y.L “ Emotions in Sport” 2000
Wenner, L. “Mediasport” 1998
Other Websites:
Getting technical: defining the latest sports technology advances - http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FIH/is_2_73/ai_n18616317/
http://florence20.typepad.com/renaissance/2005/08/technology_inno_4.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-allstar071106
Group Presenation proposal
Jenny Armas and Paraskevi Moutopoulos
Bruce Nauman is a contemporary artist whose practice has no signature style. As a multimedia artist he engages with text, sculpture, installation, photography, neon, video, and performance. He constantly shifts from one medium to another, never attached to one or two for a long period of time. Nauman’s composition work is devised to allow audiences to investigate the complexities of self. His work is confrontational and provocative, and can be analysed from any of the media effects addressed in this course. We will focus solely on his performances that utilise audio-visual technology to engage with his audience, revealing human behaviour and characteristics he attaches and detaches to provide new meaning of the human figure. Considered the ‘living sculpture’, he uses his body entirely to create his works. With the use of technology, he records his works so that this ‘process’ of filming becomes the work itself.
There are three main questions that will be addressed. How Nauman uses immersion and integration to explain and engage audiences in the concept of human behaviour through performance mediums? How immersion and integration work to manifest this? And from the exterior, how immersion and integration can be used to understand and identify with the work.
Immersion: Jenny Armas
Immersion, according to Randall Packer and Ken Jordan (2001), suggest “the experience of entering into the simulation or suggestion of a three-dimensional environment”. To provide an alternate view, immersion can also mean a sensorial overload, the viewer making use of all or most of their senses upon viewing any kind of performance.
Two works that demonstrate this effect is “Anthro/Socio” (1992) and “World Peace (Projected)/World Peace (Received)” (1996).
“Anthro/Socio” (1992) is an installation set specifically in a dark room where the viewer is surrounded by speakers and TV screens of rotating heads repeating orders in a singsong manner, “Feed Me, Help Me, Eat Me...” The repetition and immersion is bound to make the viewer feel unsettled, ultimately leading to the questioning of our human desires and behaviour.
“World Peace (Projected)/World Peace (Received)” (1996) is another installation work but in two. “Projected” is an installation also set in a dark spacious room where there are a number of large projections of faces attempting to communicate with each other. The work is similar to “Eavesdrop” where the viewer had to approach a particular conversation to listen. The second half “Received” is inverted where the viewer is invited to sit down on a stool, surrounded entirely by TV screens at close proximity with the same faces communicating with each other.
Sources I will be using:
Rush, Michael, “New Media in Art”, Thames & Hudson, New York, 2005
van Assche, Christine, “Bruce Nauman”, Hayward Gallery, London, 1998
Integration: Paraskevi Moutopoulos
It is vividly present that Nauman’s visual compositions have significant interactions and interdependencies that operate in terms of the integration of technologies. Each individual element is just as powerful and imperative. The Art Newspaper, Electronic Arts Intermix and various National Galleries are important sources which discuss Nauman’s art practice and how it functions.
Learned Helplessness in Rats and Mapping the Studio are two examples of multimedia works that operate through integration.
Learned Helplessness in Rats is a plexiglass maze, closed-circuit video, with video projectors, and scanners. The screens display recorded images of a rat trapped in a maze, a boy playing the drums and a live fed of the maze. On a similar scale but with a different agenda, Mapping the Studio uses lights, screens and projectors to showcase various angles of Nauman’s studio.
The layout of this presentation will be image based, in order for the class to visualise Nauman’s work and understand the properties of immersion and integration. Bruce Nauman is a strong case study that can easily incorporate many of the ideas and theories introduced and raised throughout the course. His art practice and multimedia works provide concrete examples in tying many of these concepts together.
Bruce Nauman is a contemporary artist whose practice has no signature style. As a multimedia artist he engages with text, sculpture, installation, photography, neon, video, and performance. He constantly shifts from one medium to another, never attached to one or two for a long period of time. Nauman’s composition work is devised to allow audiences to investigate the complexities of self. His work is confrontational and provocative, and can be analysed from any of the media effects addressed in this course. We will focus solely on his performances that utilise audio-visual technology to engage with his audience, revealing human behaviour and characteristics he attaches and detaches to provide new meaning of the human figure. Considered the ‘living sculpture’, he uses his body entirely to create his works. With the use of technology, he records his works so that this ‘process’ of filming becomes the work itself.
There are three main questions that will be addressed. How Nauman uses immersion and integration to explain and engage audiences in the concept of human behaviour through performance mediums? How immersion and integration work to manifest this? And from the exterior, how immersion and integration can be used to understand and identify with the work.
Immersion: Jenny Armas
Immersion, according to Randall Packer and Ken Jordan (2001), suggest “the experience of entering into the simulation or suggestion of a three-dimensional environment”. To provide an alternate view, immersion can also mean a sensorial overload, the viewer making use of all or most of their senses upon viewing any kind of performance.
Two works that demonstrate this effect is “Anthro/Socio” (1992) and “World Peace (Projected)/World Peace (Received)” (1996).
“Anthro/Socio” (1992) is an installation set specifically in a dark room where the viewer is surrounded by speakers and TV screens of rotating heads repeating orders in a singsong manner, “Feed Me, Help Me, Eat Me...” The repetition and immersion is bound to make the viewer feel unsettled, ultimately leading to the questioning of our human desires and behaviour.
“World Peace (Projected)/World Peace (Received)” (1996) is another installation work but in two. “Projected” is an installation also set in a dark spacious room where there are a number of large projections of faces attempting to communicate with each other. The work is similar to “Eavesdrop” where the viewer had to approach a particular conversation to listen. The second half “Received” is inverted where the viewer is invited to sit down on a stool, surrounded entirely by TV screens at close proximity with the same faces communicating with each other.
Sources I will be using:
Rush, Michael, “New Media in Art”, Thames & Hudson, New York, 2005
van Assche, Christine, “Bruce Nauman”, Hayward Gallery, London, 1998
Integration: Paraskevi Moutopoulos
It is vividly present that Nauman’s visual compositions have significant interactions and interdependencies that operate in terms of the integration of technologies. Each individual element is just as powerful and imperative. The Art Newspaper, Electronic Arts Intermix and various National Galleries are important sources which discuss Nauman’s art practice and how it functions.
Learned Helplessness in Rats and Mapping the Studio are two examples of multimedia works that operate through integration.
Learned Helplessness in Rats is a plexiglass maze, closed-circuit video, with video projectors, and scanners. The screens display recorded images of a rat trapped in a maze, a boy playing the drums and a live fed of the maze. On a similar scale but with a different agenda, Mapping the Studio uses lights, screens and projectors to showcase various angles of Nauman’s studio.
The layout of this presentation will be image based, in order for the class to visualise Nauman’s work and understand the properties of immersion and integration. Bruce Nauman is a strong case study that can easily incorporate many of the ideas and theories introduced and raised throughout the course. His art practice and multimedia works provide concrete examples in tying many of these concepts together.
Presentation Proposal
Group Members:
Jan Duong
Maribelle Oliver
Karisha Tumbel
Xixi Chen
Jan Duong
Maribelle Oliver
Karisha Tumbel
Xixi Chen
‘My body is an electronic virgin, I incorporate no silicon chips, no retinal or cochlear implants, no pacemaker. I don’t even wear glasses, but I am slowly becoming more and more a cyborg.’ [Andy Clark]
In this presentation, we want to research the emerging culture of the cyborg image. Starting from human biology to how advancements in technology have affected us humans in every aspect to become more and more hybridized with technology. Being modern cyborgs are not in the merely superficial sense of combining flesh and wires but in the more profound sense of being human-technology symbionts: thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and nonbiological circuitry. Thus, in order to present the idea of the ‘cyborg’ we must start in our brains.
Firstly, we will present the idea that we humans are ‘natural born cyborgs’. The modern cyborg is not merely an image of a human-machine hybrid or the physical merging of electronic circuitry. We will explain the idea of ‘natural born cyborgs’ by exploring the relationship between the human brain and its abilities to merge, readapt and rebuild with new technologies creating new environments.
Secondly, through the examples of artists we want to show a reflection in technology used in everyday lives, and how it has allowed us modern cyborgs to transform our sense of self, of location, of embodiment, and of our own mental capacity. E.g. user sensitive, interactive and mind expanding, technologies such as mobile phones, computers, Internet etc.
Examples:
Starting off with early experimentation of cyborgs, 1981 a Professor of philosophy at Tufts University Daniel Dennett, participated in an experiment where his brain is removed and kept alive in a tank. His body on the other hand is kept alive with multitude of radio links to remain its normal function where the eyes, ears etc can still transmit information back to his brain. When a nurse, takes Dennett into the room where his brain is kept, there he is staring at his on brain. Or is he? This is an early experiment of technology stretching our nerves and expanding our mind beyond its distance.
The second presenter will explore one of the symbolic performance artist in cyborg culture – Stelarc. In his signature aphorism – ‘the body is obsolete’, he suggests that the human body is limited in its potential and must be combined with technology, he explores ways in extending the human body and mind. One of his famous works was ‘the third hand’ where he had to train his body muscles and nerves to control his robotic third hand.
The third presenter will explore a photography artist Sajsa; creates representations of the living and the dead through doll bodies using technology. Through digital simulation of the human body the subject is lost and through dolls, the human body is turned into a technical simulation. In her life-size digital photo prints, Inez van Lamsweerde also produces artificial humans, who at first glance appear to be real, but at second glance are perceived as construed bodies with doll-like characteristics. They are indications of perfection and beauty mania, much like we encounter them in the mass media, whose potential feasibility is promised to us daily by plastic and non-invasive surgery and, not lastly, biotechnology.
The fourth speaker will present an installation artist – Lee Bul, the futuristic installations explore how the notions of beauty and the monstrous are at play in contemporary culture. Her deformed bodies and cyborgs suggest a world in transformation and the possibilities of bio-technological innovation. She pulls apart and re-engineers the body, questioning our faith in technology and its claim to right human imperfection.
In conclusion, after seeing the examples of different artists’ perception of the modern cyborg, where are we? In our everyday lives, where has technology stretched us modern cyborgs today?
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