authorial

Marie Polakova

As we discussed with George before I had changed the topic of my paper…Here is the new one…

ARTIFICIAL LIFE IN ART

Abstract

 Art had always reflected the knowledge of the world current to its time. Since few thousand years ago, when certain structure of human thinking which can be called science, emerged, its discoveries keeps providing art with source of inspiration.

In the recent decades, however, the reflection of scientific knowledge in art undertaken a significant change ; Art doesn’t only reflects the knowledge of science,it doesn’t use it solely as a source for interpretative imagination, but actually employs the very same methods that are used in science that inspired it. 

In some cases, scientific methods and tools became inseparable parts of the creative artistic process. A computer, nowadays widely used creative tool,that had been originally developed within military engineering research, can serve us as such example.

This paper is focused at the methods developed to simulate Life and their use within (especially visual) art. These methods  here mean wide range of processes -as algorithms used to generate form, models of metabolic processes, models of complex behaviours among “cells” or groups of “organisms” and genetic and evolutionary algorithms.

The first part of this  paper will provide the reader with a short overview of basic artificial life models. Second part will discuss the use of Artificial Life models within art. Case studies will be provided to illustrate the discussion.

Key words

Artificial life.  Art. Generative art.  Evolving art.

References

- McCormack John, Artificial Ecosystems for Creative Discovery
- McCormack John, Impossible Nature, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, 2004
- Whitelaw Mitchell, Metacreation , Art and Artificial Life, MIT Press, 2004
- Mignonneau and C. Sommerer, Creating Artificial Life for Interactive Art and - Entertainment. Leonardo, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 303–307,2001.
- Fry Benjamin Jotham, Organic Information Design, MIT, 2000

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jonmc/
http://www.interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent/
http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/en/que_hacemos/conocimiento/concursos/certamen_vida/que_es_vida.htm

Sounding popables : paper driven sonic narrative

Keywords: interactive book, arduino, paper-based sensors, real-time sound synthesis, narration, soft circuits, sounding objects, physical sound modelling.

Alberto Boem

Thomas – Mann Strasse 7/5

6040 Leonding, AT

boem.alberto@gmail.com

If books are objects that humans have used for centuries both as objects and vehicles of knowledge through words, books for children are designed and used to convey information and tell stories not only through words but through images, colors and materials. Paper creation and sketches were used in this type of book for increase engagement and create different levels of narration. There are some many examples like the pull-tab, lift-the-flap books, and even pop-up books, that encourage the partecipation of the reader through the interaction with materials.

In recent years it has been possible to include the possibility to reproduce and hear sounds from the books. The only limitation is that the reader can only play short samples of pre-registered sounds. This is a great limitation because the sound can contribute to amplify the participation and augment the interactive possibilities of the device. But today with the aid of smaller technologies, less expensive this became possibile.

In this article we propose the first synthesis of a work which wants to propose a new stragy for use interactive sound in childerns interactive books. This is made with the combination of: a) the new possibilities of physical computing and embedded technologies allow you to increase the experiences with everyday objects, b) the research about conducting materials c) the new and techniques of real-time physical sound synthesis. The aim of this project is to experiment a new way to increasing the experience of a reader through a real-time auditory feedback that responds to their interactions with paper. We have choose to focus our attention on the sounding objects like every-day sounds like friction, impact, bashing, walking that requires direct, physical, and continues interaction: the same occurs in the interaction with the physical parts of the books mentioned above.

This experimental work presented here is the first implementation of a research that involves the SaMPLe Lab of the “G. Pollilini “Music School of Padua and the Interaction Research Group of the IUAV University of Venice.

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a overview on non-linear structures of artistic examples from ancient to today in cultures. For the research, we have defined the structure in art and searched it; then we could find remarkable thoughts, activities and works, and get chance to represent the overview in today’s art projects.

KEYWORDS; non-linear; art; theory; history

Daichi

People like to break things, I enjoy it and I enjoy watching it. It is a creative and constructive process.

Breaking is defined variously with words such as ‘smash’, ‘split’, ‘divide into parts’. To reduce to pieces or fragments. ‘Violent’.

Perhaps this sends the wrong message.

In the field of New Media things very often break, and things are regularly called broken when they are in fact merely down, wrongly configured, or not doing what they are supposed to (but sometimes something more interesting). Breaking is not destroying.

Breaking can also have intent. As in the case of techniques such as detournement, décollage, deconstruction, subversion, derision. These techniques have all been highly pointed, highly critical and highly effective strategies used in the past within the context of Art, Politics, Science and entertainment. Children learn by breaking things, simply to see what happens, when I get smarter perhaps I can learn to break more complex things.

My primary interest lies in the digital domain, ruining things works different when there are backups and save-states. The technology is flexible, bendable, and getting increasingly so.

Lately I have been accidentally backing up rapid fire auto-saves I didn’t know were happening onto a cloud account I forgot I was tethered to, and it was happening every ten minutes.

In the New Media (with the “with the interactive power of computer and communications technology”1) , a networked environment- breaking one thing may also effect systems connected to them, networks of the social , political, economic or digital order. It can have interesting and unexpected effects. [insert picture of Zuckerburgs kitchen ]

The methodology or the effects of broken Media are used by Hackers, Crackers, Artists, Musicians, Researchers and a surprisingly large base laypersons: Gamers, Hobbyists, Pranksters. The outcomes range from Glitched Pictures, thought experiments to scientists bashing particles together like vary small cavemen.

This paper will describe what they people are finding, and what they are looking for in this practice. It will probe the advantages and downfalls of this process in contemporary, digital world.

Keywords: Breaking, Deconstruction, Experimentation, Learning, Creation

Paper proposal

Maša Jazbec

Art as a hybrid product of new paradigms of contemporary technological advances

Necessity of proving our own existence trough an evolution of intelligent machines in the beginning of 21^st century is leading Homo sapiens toward a decadence. Today technology is no longer seen purely instrumental, but is a way of living entity. Important paradigm represents a symbiosis of biological and technological principle.

Liberation from material is ironically taking place trough the embodiment of physics trough the materialness of technology. The world is becoming nothing more but an image of virtually manipulated information, which fascinate the mind trough the eye. The image of visual world is melted with the screen on the psychological cornea. The eye thus becomes a sensor, from which new media take away the principles of empathy and emotional intelligence. Contemporary people are becoming more and more passive while machines are ever more alive (according to Donna Haraway). Human becomes ever more inert.

„Digitalization has given humankind extraordinarily powerful tools – without digitization, the great advances in medicine, biology, environmental science and above all in communications, would be unthinkable. But as a result, human beings have become dependent on these technologies in almost every area in life.“ [Bernhard Serexhe]

In my paper I’m analyzing the working principles of inter - media artistic practice. I’m describing connections between various scientific practices which are essential for inter-media art production. These same connections of different scientific practices present new dilemmas and questions to people today from which new knowledge and new disciplines are born.

Dealing with contemporary visual practice carries an important social responsibility, which itself is a subject of exploration of contemporary visual artist.

Keywords:

Inter-media art, interactivity, technology, evolution, new media art, manipulation, empathy, emotional intelligence  

Keywords: embed, computing, system, display, material, places, interaction, interface, information, everyday life

⁃ Pervasive computing is an environment what enables embedding digital systems into real world scenarios which means the technology will be there for everyone, everywhere and at any time.

⁃ Nowadays we live in an information and tecnology driven society what fills our life’s with gadgets and services to get the latest bit of intormation as fast as it’s possible. The boundaries of the real and the digital world seems to disapear. What pervasive computing aims is to be an oracle and deliver everything what technology can deliver to the user without any thinking from the part of the user. Of course this can sound obscure maybe even frigthening but what it really does it is simple and we encounter it every day we just simply don’t relize it. If you go to your favourite place to eat or drink it’s very plausible that they already know you and your habbits so instead of handing you a menu first they will ask you if you want your regular or something else. Pervasive computing is the same, there is a simple learning protocol behinde the scenes what can learn users’ habbits and adopt to it to offer the user what (s)he wants without anythinkig from the part of the users.

⁃ Pervasive displays are basically just tools for expanding this field of human-computer interaction. But it’s more about developing the technology to be able to make the displays more adaptable and to find ways, to creat displays from everyday objects such as windows and mirrors. Of course there is an another big question with displays.

// Peter Eszes

Making barrier-free living possible is still a big topic, especially in the public area. Building ramps, navigating thru the Internet and the public transportation or specific laws that a business concern has to employ a certain amount of disable persons.   Still, disabled people are still excluded when it comes to certain areas, like art or culture events. Shouldn’t artists be a kind of pioneer in that field and try to open their art pieces also to people with diseases? Can other senses be used to compensate the lost one? This paper focus on deaf people and how artists can produce also sound installations for them?

“Hearing is basically a specialized form of touch.” [Evelyn Glennie]

Disable people found a way or treated their other senses to be more sensitive to reproduce the lost one, that for example deaf musicians, like Ludwig van Beethoven, got really successful without hearing.  Evelyn Glennie was the first deaf solo percussionist in the 20^th century. The disease never stopped her from playing music. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music and played in the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and in 2005 the movie “Touch of Sound” was produced about how she sense music. During her performance she gets rid of the shoes to hear the rhythm, the vibrations, better.

2001 Dean Shibata demonstrated, that people could hear vibrations, in an experiment where he observed and compared the brain activities from deaf and hearing persons. Hearing people activated only the area of the brain, which is used to listen, but deaf people also used the area, which also decode vibrations. Can vibrations be used to open sound installations also to deaf people? Which technique transmits deaf people the same, without disturbing the artwork for hearing persons?

As a result of this research, the paper will present technical possibilities for the artists to communicate with deaf people thru other senses. Not only the theoretical part, also prototypes, their usage and pros and cons will be described.

Keywords: disease, sound, deaf, vibrations, music

In the society we live in, definitely photos, videos, audios, tweets, blogs, websites profiles,… all these digital data, this information, represent us, form a part of ourselves. One part, increasing, which spreads into the nonmaterial world that not only shows some of our personal characteristics, but also allows us to interact with other people. Having a meeting with friends in a pub, asking someone out or completing an official document while waiting in a queue is becoming in chatting, friendship requesting in a social web or filling online forms while sitting in our chair. The border between the material and nonmaterial world is becoming more and more diffuse, harder to notice.

Like waves that expand when something falls into the water, an action or event in a world or another may have consequences on the other. Following this idea to the last action both of a human being in the material world as a technology in the nonmaterial world, I will try to research the surroundings of the death digital. Analyze what are the consequences of the disappearance of a technology and how it can affect the material world. By other hand, find out what happens in the nonmaterial world both bureaucratic and social or spiritual level when someone dies.

As a result of this research I pretend to create a protocol or model of digital mourning ritual. A ritual that, from an artistic point of view, fits and covers the largest number of possible technologies and, in turn, is consistent with the spirituality of the deceased person. Also this ritual must have features that include it within actual society.

Keywords

digital death, ritual

Oliver Kellow, born 1989 lived and studied in Australia, where he completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Curtin University of Technology focussing on Sculpture, Performance and virtual-environment. In 2011 Oliver decided to further develop his skills at the Interface Cultures department in Linz, Austria where he is now living and studying for his Masters Degree. Oliver’s work to date has primarily dealt with Australian Mythology and Culture in todays world.

*/

Abstract:

Reverence in Ravine is a cycle of one minute installation. Expression of the artwork is incomplete, plural and probable, and recurs and re-constructs itself per minute in realtime, which represents artist’s animistic experience.

—

Reverence in Ravine is a cycle of one minute installation with realtime computer processing, plural display monitors and parametric speakers, which represents artist’s animistic experience at Japanese old place of Nara. Reverence in Ravine is a artwork that recurs, and will continue to recur in itself time and space.

In the artwork, each parameters of audio visual data are calculated and manipulated in realtime, and construct a cycle for the installation of one minute. So, expression of the artwork is always probable and incomplete. The artwork recurs in similar form to previous itself. The end of installation’s cycle means time to recur and re-start next installation with bells. The sound of bells are signal for the recurrence and opening.

Furthermore, the artwork uses multiple monitor displays, which enables us to experience a pluralistic and relative expressions. They are all connected to computers and synced as well.
Also, the artwork involves parametric speakers, utilizing ultrasonic wave. Parametric speaker has very sharp directivity with the energy traveling straight, and can send a sound to the limited distant area. The parametric speakers try to create acoustic structures like sonic grid in the time and space, which enables us to imagine 3D acoustic formation of invisible entities.

These intentions is made to represent artist’s animistic experience in summer of Nara in Japan.
Animism encompasses the beliefs that there is no separation between the spiritual and physical worlds, not only in humans, but also in all other animals, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment. Nara is a historical place with primeval forest, and collectively forms a UNESCO world heritage site. We can see many temples, shrines, ruins and tombs at that place.
When the artist was on a way to ancient tomb of Ishibutai in Nara enclosed with trees and mountain, he had a fear because he thought he’s lost possibly, but actually that was not only fear, but also reverence for somebody and/or something spiritual like guardians and/or spirits who seem to surround, watch and protect the artist.
After that, the artist could arrived at Ishibutai soon in safe, but that reverence in ravine was a unique and animistic experience for him, where were green leaves, streams, sun shines and winds of summer.

Conclusion, Reverence in Ravine presents a cycle of one minute installation that recurs and will continue to recur in a self-similar form, which represents animism.

Daichi