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YASMIN-list > Cybernetics Serendipity Redux |
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from frieder nake who exhibited
in cybernetics serendipity
Dear Ranulph, dear Jasia, dear Roger:
here is another note I would like to add to the current redux discussion.
Frieder
After some while of exchanges in this Cybernetic Serendiptiy
discussion, Roger Malina has written to a number of artists whose works
were part of the 1968 ICA exhibition in London. He has asked a specific
question:
“If this exhibition were re-organized today, what kind of art work would it include?"
I would like to answer to this, very briefly and coarsely, with keywords only, without arguments.
All the parts mentioned below would be represented with only very few pieces. They would stand to show principles.
Oscilloscope drawings (1950s)
Concrete art
Kinetic art
Op art
Concept art
Video art
Computer art (better: algorithmic art) from 1965-1969
The Senster
Vladimir Bonacic
Otto Beckmann, the hybrid computer
Algorithmic art today
Software art
Net art
Games as art
Animation, movies
General graphic design
Scientific visualization
Interactive art
This is all visual. Clearly. But an extra small chapter should be
devoted to music. Music should be present somehow all over, as a
backdrop or thread. Music has always been much more advanced and
accepted. This could be an important topic to discuss.
It is clear that The Algorithmic Revolution and Digital Media would
constitute the focus. There must be 1, 2, or 3 strong guiding
statements. All the exhibits would be selected and organized to
demonstrate this. One example could be:
“Interactive computer graphics and computer art of the mid-1960s are the roots of digital media today."
Others: “Computer art is executable concept art." “Interactivity is
liberation of computational art." “The aesthetics of unfinish"
Frieder Nake
--
Prof. Dr. Frieder Nake
Informatik, University of Bremen, PO Box 330440, D-28334 Bremen, Germany |
let me be blunt, in hopes of contributing to conversation about issues
that i think are fundamental
i understand, but i don't want to understand, that there is a
correspondence between 'cybernetics' and 'cyberspace'
it may be the case that the CARP project, set in SecondLife, has
cybernetic components and it may be a new media type for cybernetic
art. but i have no way of knowing from the description below, and
instead, i see the continued, unfortunate, and confusing connection
between 'cyberspace' and 'cybernetics' perpetuated instead of qualified
invoking famous names in an introduction about cyberspace is fine but
ought to be done in a way that expands perspectives or at least
restates history, not conflates or confuses. i don't recall von
Foerster having contributed to the development stored-program,
symbolic machines. if CARP is cybernetic, it is irrelevant that
'modern computerechnics and the programm-architecture' are its
'container'. to condemn artists who don't use cyberspace as not being
'avantgarde' smacks of self-promotion
there, have i riled anyone?
On Sep 12, 2008, at 10:41 AM, richardb wrote:
>
> In response to the artwork examples given by Stephen Jones, I would
> like to propose that a "new media type", the "metaverse" and other
> on-line user programmable 3D(/nD) virtual spaces are potent
> locations for "cybernetic art in the now".
>
> One example is CARP - Cybernetic Art Research Project, set in Second
> Life.
>
> lQuote from http://www.gallery-diabolus.com/CARP/carp-06.pdf
>
> "The word: �Cyberspace� is known now as an artword, its born from
> the word �Cyber� (a shortform from the english word �Cybernetic�
> that again comes from the greek word �Kybernetike�; �The art of
> navigate� and the word �Space�. On the world famous Macy-Conferences
> in the years 1946 till 1953 Cybernetik was something of high
> interest. Wellknown and famous scientists as Alan Turing, John von
> Neumann and Heinz von Foerster started here from scratch the modern
> computertechnics and the programm-architecture, today the basics for
> the Cyberspace. The real Cyberspace was opened by Secondlife. So you
> speak of web 3-D or so called Metaverses. The Metaverses are
> Internet-based virtual time-space-infrastructures. The miracle that
> we are experiencing today: the Cyberspace, the dematerialized
> virtual time-space, the worldwide webbed society. where we �surf
> around� with lightspeed. An artist that is NOT using this virtual
> universe as a challenge and a goal doesnt!
> deserve the name �Avantgarde�
>
> This e-book dedicated to the pioneer of the Cybernetic Art
> Nicolas Sch�ffer.
> He was one of the most important artists of the second half of
> twentieth century. Father of Cybernetic Art, thus of so-called
> �interactivity�, he wanted to bring a prospective and non-backward-
> looking vision of Art, which could help mankind to develop itself
> with a good hold on true creative and liberating possibilities of
> our times."
>
> See also their ning : http://diabolus.ning.com/
>
> --
>
> Artist/Experimentalist
>
> MSc Computers and Cybernetics, MA Fine Art.
>
> http://www.mimetics.com
> artsinformatica.blogspot.com
>
>
> --------------------
> To become a member & Yasmin list archive: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/
> To join Yasmin-map: http://haystack.cerado.com/yasmin
> To post: yasmin@estia.media.uoa.gr
> To unsubscribe: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/unsubs.php?lid=1 |
>This is all visual. Clearly. But an extra small chapter should be devoted
to music.
>Music should be present somehow all over, as a backdrop or thread. Music
has
>always been much more advanced and accepted. This could be an important
topic
>to discuss.
good discussion.
and nice to bring in music in this Frieder.
music from what i know has a long go
and involvement with machines of any kind:-)
i think many aspects of creating music
relate to cybernetics and the ideas of feedback,
interaction, continuous transformation and various
degrees of control
algorithmic or algorythmic:-) music with various degrees of
randomness can be traced from the '50s-'60s
to the most recent stuff of real-time programming
in performance (i'm not sure about it though music-wise),
generative soundscapes and computer interaction
with musicians.
music as it has many aspects of a collaborative art,
for example, the interaction and feedback loop between
composer-performer and the continuous
open feedback communication between improvised musicians,
can easily relate into how various systems work and
constructed. no?
I'm sure Joel -and some others- can step in and say more!
Thanos |
I want to express my agreement with Paul Pangaro over the cyber this and cyber that matter.
Cybernetics, as I understand it (as a practitioner), has little to do
with all those more recent cyber things, and the use of the cyber
prefix is, to my mind, really rather unfortunate. I feel that some of
those who do the cyber this and cyber that stuff and promote it as
somehow cybernetics are doing quite a lot of damage!
Ranulph |
Hi,
I am one of the topic participants, an artist. I am a hybrid Polynesian
and live in New Zealand but prefer to think of myself as coming from
the South Pacific Ocean, as that is the body which joins the diverse
affiliations to places I have. Like many today, I utilize diverse
media. In regard to the list topic, projects have explored a range of
what are called interactive media. The project I’m currently working
on, Haiku robots, uses the context of integrated systems as a platform.
What makes cybernetics particularly of interest is the clear reference
to a notion of integrated systems. The integrated systems line has
diverse reference points: complexity, and post-structuralism (in the
sense of Deleuze and Guattari) are two, and have both been mentioned in
the discussion here. A third reference point is knowledge and beliefs
systems outside of the Western framework. Asian, Maori, Polynesian,
Indian belief systems all involve notions of integrated systems. This
is an extraordinary unity.
There has been much interesting discussion of the past on the list
which I am really thankful for, and the future I see is one where the
multiplicity of ideas is acknowledged and forms a bridge across
cultures and belief systems.
To that end I am currently involved in a symposium February 7th and 8th
2009. The theme is Interconnections. We are calling for papers and
artist presentations which interrogate, examine, tease, put forward,
discuss, postulate, propose, analyze, synthesize, combine, hybridize,
expound and tickle ideas around the following subjects:
Interconnections
Chaos theory, Complexity, Cybernetics, Post-structuralism
+
Pasifika, Aboriginal, Indigenous, Indian, Asian, Polynesian and Maori Knowledge and Belief systems
Abstracts are due October 15th 2008. See http://www.intercreate.org/scanz/symposium.html
We intend producing a peer-reviewed publication from components of the
symposium and related residency. I hope the moderators do not mind me
posting this call information here but if anything is coming out of
this discussion, it would be that there is much to talk about.
Ian M Clothier |
I agree very much with Paul Pangaro and
Ranulph over Second Life and other “cyberspace” things. They wrankle
mightily if only for the brash commercialism. If any artists wants to
be making avant garde work they should get out of 2nd Life completely,
frankly.
But the question, beyond the crassness of them is why do we object? For
me: to say that they are in some way cybernetic is to say that going to
the pub is cybernetic, which reduces the interesting stuff to the
trivial point that in fact all our life activity is cybernetic and
couldn’t be any other way. And of course alcohol actually has the
effect of blocking one’s openness to the feedback. As I pointed out in
my second post, interaction and its conversational aspects is a basic
part of all living things.
If somebody working in 2nd Life were to think about actually
constructing an avatar that was able to be self-modifying and
generative – that is not just some sort of script object with simple
pre-ordained response structures or somebody behind a keyboard then it
might start to get there.
As for the Carp project, given that it exists as a .pdf it offers no
means of undergoing self-modification and the pictures contained in it
seem to be classic design objects and I’m afraid not of any great
interest, but I didn’t get very far through it as it is of undefined
file size.
I want to read about more artworks.
It seems to me that the keys are self-modification through the
incorporation of feedback from entities outside the objects' boundary,
artworks that behave (a la Roy Ascots’ original 1967 paper) and in
particular, works (visual, musical) that through interaction with their
audiences develop some sort of third thing which is the collaboration
of the two, be that an object jointly constructed, a conversation, a
musical performance (Thanos is right when he talks about the role of
feedback in musical performance and it is especially important in
improvisation). It’s this conversational thing that Pask emphasised, to
the point of calling his theory conversational.
Video art had it when it was involved with installation and micro-term
memory systems (video feedback) or in its use as an activist tool but
it’s lost it as it has become mainstream, trying to emulate film with
narrative and documentary. Sadly I think video art has lost its way.
I live on the wrong side of the world to have been able to see “Pask
Present” though Ranulph kindly gave me a copy of the catalogue.
Methinks there are two things going on in that show – self-organising
machines and observer effects. These can be two quite separate
activities. For example Jasia’s interest in machines that only desire
to satisfy themselves or their own kind vis-a-vis their output is a
kind self-organising machine but she sagely asks what would be the
function of the observer in that context? I think Richard Brown’s
electrochemical machines are something of this ilk, in that they seem
to not care a fig about what the audience sees/knows/thinks about their
slow evolution. But observer effects are for me more interesting.
Glynn’s performative robots seem to have a rich life and are I suspect
of the same realm as Rinaldo’s autopoietic sculptures and Velonaki’s
wheel-chairs (mentioned in my third post), and as the artist indicates
they revisit Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles from CS-I
I’m rather drawn to the notion of rooms in which neural nets are
embedded and that their training depends on the behaviour of an
audience but first we have to specify some sort of output and then the
means by which that output can be varied. This is Ashby’s requisite
variety problem. The Davis/Haque work in Pask Present is a possible
example of this responsive room notion. I think some of the ubiquitous
computing work comes in here.
Elsewhere I have proposed a museum with a self-organising data-base
that enters into conversations with its visitors, both exploring with
them the things they come in wanting to explore and introducing them to
new things based on what the data-base already knows about itself and
has been able to learn from its guest’s previous requests and the
“conversation” between the museum and its guests. (Sadly when I
proposed this, c.2000, it was laughed out of court, so I didn’t pursue
it.)
but it’s late here so that’s it
cheers
Stephen |
from mf252@cornell.edu
Hello all,
I am urgently trying to find two contributors to
Cybernetics Serendipity : John Ravilious and John Billingsley. If any
one on this list knows how to contact them, their
heirs or the holders of their estate, I would be
grateful if you would let me know.
Mar�a
--
Mar�a Fern�ndez
Associate Professor
Department of the History of Art
GM08 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853-3201
Tel: 607-255-7050
Fax: 607-255-0566 |
I suggest people look
at the SL avatar of NYC digital poet Alan Sondheim. I am not sure if it
is an instance of a cybernetic other, although it has aspects of
cybersex. What I like about it is that it is the very opposite of the
worrying perfection most other people strive for in their avatar
design. Sondheim’s avatar is composed of a mash-up of several bodies
(or their bits), animated by motion-capture data that is similarly
incomplete and fragmented. The outcome is something resembling several
people involved in a car crash where with their bodies have been
inserted through one another, residual neural activity animating the
mashed flesh in a twitchy and involuntary manner. Deeply disturbing. I
imagine that when this avatar enters even the shiniest parts of SL the
lights dim and everybody feels the chill distopian wind that is
Sondheim’s implied presence. However, if they listen very carefully,
they might be able to hear him laughing.
Regards
Simon
On 15/9/08 19:01, "Stephen Jones" <s_jones1@bigpond.com> wrote:
If
somebody working in 2nd Life were to think about actually constructing
an avatar that was able to be self-modifying and generative â•„ that
is not just some sort of script object with simple pre-ordained
response structures or somebody behind a keyboard then it might start
to get there.
Professor Simon Biggs
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk
simon@littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201
|
first let me admit difficulty in finding the right 'voice' for this post. now, i'll have at it:
the
description of the avatar of Alan Sondheim from simon's post below
neither conjures 'cybernetics' nor anything i'd like to view. but i say
that knowing that i've not seen it, so i don't know what i don't know, and yet am aware of the limitations of my comment because i know that i don't know. [that, at least, is 'cybernetic']
i'd like to return this thread to its topic
'cybernetics' is the name of a field
if something is 'cybernetic', it is we who say so. as ranulph might say, we should distinguish between 'properties' [of, it is claimed, an object] and 'attributes' [which, we say responsibly, we give via our point-of-view to object]
if
i say something is 'cybernetic', i minimize the energy of
distinction-making but elide crucial distinctions. i think of this as
short-hand for 'my understanding of the system under observation
benefits from perspectives brought from the field of cybernetics,
specifically, models of feedback [first-order], reflection and learning
[second-order], and collaboration [conversational] systems.'
so,
is there benefit in viewing an 'art piece' in cybernetic terms? well, i
think so, and certainly if it uses feedback, learning, or collaboration
to fulfill some intention, which may be direct or indirect,
on the part of the artist or participant
the
works in Cybernetic Serendipity often yield the answer 'yes' to the
question above. Colloquy of Mobiles, which i'm more familiar with than
other pieces in the show [Pask's article about it yielding a detailed,
if not complete, prescription as to its workings], certainly does
would
i exclude any piece of art as being un-cybernetic? depends on how
insistent you want to be about the agency of the dynamics of the
observed systems. in a painting, e.g., the loop of feedback and
learning occurs if only because the human participant provides dynamic
elements
but i confess a deep interest in
those 'works of art' that possess a dynamic of their own, while
realizing this is a special case. live performance always does, of
course, part of their joy. but, as we have from an early [if diverting
and incomplete] definition, when applying the lens of cybernetics we
care less about whether it's 'in the animal or in the machine', than we
do about 'what's in[side]'
it's always and only about meaning-making --- is that phrase ok? --- and the cybernetics of that is endless
-paul
On Sep 16, 2008, at 2:57 AM, Simon Biggs wrote: I
suggest people look at the SL avatar of NYC digital poet Alan Sondheim.
I am not sure if it is an instance of a cybernetic other, although it
has aspects of cybersex. What I like about it is that it is the very
opposite of the worrying perfection most other people strive for in
their avatar design. Sondheim�s avatar is composed of a mash-up of
several bodies (or their bits), animated by motion-capture data that is
similarly incomplete and fragmented. The outcome is something
resembling several people involved in a car crash where with their
bodies have been inserted through one another, residual neural activity
animating the mashed flesh in a twitchy and involuntary manner. Deeply
disturbing. I imagine that when this avatar enters even the shiniest
parts of SL the lights dim and everybody feels the chill distopian wind
that is Sondheim�s implied presence. However, if they listen very
carefully, they might be able to hear him laughing.
Regards
Simon
On 15/9/08 19:01, "Stephen Jones" <s_jones1@bigpond.com> wrote:
If
somebody working in 2nd Life were to think about actually constructing
an avatar that was able to be self-modifying and generative ╄ that
is not just some sort of script object with simple pre-ordained
response structures or somebody behind a keyboard then it might start
to get there.
Professor Simon Biggs
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk
simon@littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201
|
Dear all,
its a pleasure to read your exciting contributions. Until now i have
only been lurking on this list. As a result of general busyness i'm
usually 100 mails or so behind and simply out of touch with the
current discussion. Apologies for that.
I have met quite a number of you personally at conferences during the
last years. I completed an interdisciplinary, practice-based Ph.D.
between Fine Art and Computer Sciences with a "telematic immersion"
project in 2007 and now am a Research Fellow in Art & Design at the
University of Hertfordshire.
I believe CS functioned as a flexible bracket/concept for what then
was considered radically new and upcoming.
The sixties were only anti-technology on the outside but gave birth
to the counterculture and the subversive and creative sides of how we
view networks and computers today (Fred Turner, Counterculture).
What would be up-and-coming, radically new and subversive today?
Today this notion of "radically new" would probably also have to
include bio-art, genetic-art, locative media, Surveillance and IMO
especially social network projects. Very much the trajectory that,
for example, Eduardo Kac's practice developed: from communication art
to other telematic projects, interactive poetry, bio art, transgenic
art.
The area where i see potential for fundamentally new things happening
is in visualisation technologies (visualising live remote,
indiscernible or complex data), together with social networks, or
harvesting data from social network sites such as facebook. Golan
Levin (et.al.) did a project there a few years ago, or Twittervision
3D from David Troy. The mundane character of live twitter messaging
is placed into a geographical relationship creating new meaning
through this juxtaposition.
All this was not possible only a few years ago and still we adapt
fast to these technologies utilitarian usefulness (visualisation
technologies, algorithms creating new "methods" we cannot comprehend
any more (Simon's earlier posting) and social data such as twitter
and facebooks "friends news feed"), before we have the chance to
critically examine it.
So CS 02009 would probably have to consider these too? Critical
examination of the before mentioned technologies?
Regards, Michael |
hi all and Simon
i see a problem first hand. 2nd life - is as linear as things get and
when "able to be self-modifying and generative" concepts were proposed
new media institutions blocked and programmers ignored
commercial platforms will always block progress as those were built
with the interest of gathering statistical and personal information.
such as msn google etc are getting the gov funds to track life down to
the the bone while bloggers talking about what is wrong while major
support for privacy is missing along with funds for art
if headway is to be made looking back and supporting 10 year old projects may be the right way now
two examples http://piletech.org / and http://www.pilesys.org (revolutionary addressing) and http://oman.berlin.heimat.de independent artist machine
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://uco.org.il http://web.archive.org/web/19990224021436/uco.org.il/index1.html
- -
regards from thailand where freedom excel art
francis
> On 15/9/08 19:01, "Stephen Jones" <s_jones1@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > If somebody working in 2nd Life were to think about actually constructing an
> > avatar that was able to be self-modifying and generative â•„ that is not just
> > some sort of script object with simple pre-ordained response structures or
> > somebody behind a keyboard then it might start to get there.
>
>
>
> Professor Simon Biggs
> edinburgh college of art
> s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
> http://www.eca.ac.uk
>
> simon@littlepig.org.uk
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk
> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
>
>
> Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201
>
> |
Although I am
familiar with Alan Sondheim’s work from elsewhere I became aware of
this particular work of his at a recent conference in Bergen in a paper
about ‘noise’ in art. Given this context I think one could argue that
his work is relevant to a discussion on cybernetics, as the concept of
‘noise’ is essential to information theory, that being closely related
to cybernetics.
My understanding of what Sondheim might be trying to do with this
artwork is to introduce ‘noise’ into an environment composed primarily
of social interactions. His objective would appear to be to disrupt the
usual communicative acts that occur in this environment so as to reveal
certain aspects of the environment and the interactions occuring within
it. Sondheim is one of the most highly regarded contemporary American
authors working with poetry and digital media and this sort of
disruptive and deconstructive tactic is typical of the approach he
employs. It isn’t my ‘style’ either, but I enjoy it. I guess his is a
Sadean view of human nature, where entropy is relentless and eventually
always successful. Again, I think this makes his work relevant to a
discussion on cybernetics.
I would argue that Sondheim’s work posits a critique of social
environments such as SL and the Cartesian world-view that underpins how
that virtual world has been conceived and the dualistic manner in which
many people comprehend themselves within it, in relation to RL.
Sondheim is not seeking to ‘shock’ his unsuspecting audience but to
invigorate and potentially illuminate their understanding of the world
and themselves and how these elements and relations exist as social
construct. His is not a reductivist aesthetic but one built on an
understanding of complex intertextualities. I would consider
cybernetics to be part of that play.
Regards
Simon
On 16/9/08 14:27, "Paul Pangaro" <pan@pangaro.com> wrote:
the
description of the avatar of Alan Sondheim from simon's post below
neither conjures 'cybernetics' nor anything i'd like to view. but i say
that knowing that i've not seen it, so i don't know what i don't know, and yet am aware of the limitations of my comment because i know that i don't know. [that, at least, is 'cybernetic']
Simon Biggs
Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
www.eca.ac.uk
simon@littlepig.org.uk
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201
|
There seems to have been some confusion over
this message. I tried to send it yesterday but could not get the site
to open. A asked Paul Pangaro to forward it because I was flying. He
did, but under a different heading so it doesn't appear in the
cybernetics redux stream. I sent a copy of the text to my wife, who
replied in such a manner that her (private) reply got mailed to
everyone.
Anyhow, here is the message I wanted to send, hopefully within the right stream.
Second Order Cybernetics
Paul’s message acts somehow nicely as a prelude to mine here. He points
to the strange way that cybernetics is understood (strange, at least,
to people like me: I justify calling myself a cybernetician because I
publish, go to conferences in, and am involved in the welfare and
development of the field, etc). He also points to the lack of interest
in the materiality of systems that is common in cybernetics. This of
course raises questions about where the materiality in cybernetic art
belongs. I think, here, back to Jasia’s original posting, the brief for
this discussion, and then to more recent messages including mine
mentioning embodiment and materials. It’s not, of course, that
cyberneticians don’t build things in actual materials, but their
machines are abstract, the actual built objects often demonstrations.
But that’s not what I’d really like to get to here. For me, the
strangest thing of all is the way that the big theoretical development
in cybernetics that took place between about 1968 and 1975, and its
consequences, seems completely unknown. Stranger still, it seems to
talk about exactly those things that so much work in art is currently
concerned with.
The development is called by the clumsy name, second order cybernetics.
I abbreviate this C2. Its origin lies in valuing consistency. Margaret
Mead, one of the Macy Group who founded cybernetics, asked why the
American Society for Cybernetics did not examine and treat itself
according to cybernetic insights and understandings. Heinz von
Foerster, who had actually briefed Mead and given her her title,
pursued this in considering the observer, that fictional creature
through whom, in science, our knowledge is somehow immaculately
generated. Foerster defined second order cybernetics in the
collaborative book “Cybernetics of Cybernetics”, which, following the
spirit of Mead’s suggestion, collected key cybernetic texts and
examined them using cybernetic tools and insights. In this book he also
distinguished two types of cybernetics:
First order cybernetics—the cybernetics of observed systems
Second order cybernetics—the cybernetics of observing systems
The importance of the observer is crucial, and cybernetic systems are
full of observers (eg controllers) that act in the system, instead of
remaining aloof. That’s what feedback means. For Foerster, the
traditional denial fo the observer is science was an absurdity. As he
later said:
“Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer”
I have recently come to depict the difference between the two in the
following way. First order cybernetics (C1) is concerned with circular
systems, or systems of circular causality. When the energetic strength
of one of the signals is relatively small, we call it feedback, but the
generalisation (specially when the interest is in information rather
than energy) is circularity. I even go so far as to argue that all
systems are circular: linear causality is, then, when the “feedback” is
so weak we don’t bother with it.
It’s very strange, however, that the circularity of the cybernetic
system is not, in traditional, C1 systems, reflected in the process of
observing: the observer observes according to Foerster’s delusion
(above). Herein lies the a great inconsistency, like to but not the
same as Mead’s cybernetics of cybernetics. In C2, where we accept that
the observer is “touched” (and touches) what goes on, there is another
circularity: the observed system is circular, but the observing system
is also circular.
This is the basic insight of C2, and is what radically differentiates
it from C1. It is not objective, in a traditional sense. It denies the
possibility of this sort of objectivity. It is about an account of the
world in which the observer is present and active. It was not invented
by Foerster, or Mead. Many people worked during and since this period,
on these insights, mainly in a sort of informal clustering around
Foerster.
Mary Catherine Bateson, daughter of Mead and Gregory Bateson, used to
deny there was any such thing as C2 because Gregory never mentioned it.
But he didn’t need to: he and Mead, and many of the other early
cyberneticians, were doing C2. That was how they saw it, how it was
powerful in social systems and such like. Catherine now graciously
agrees with this interpretation! It is also in this sense that Foerster
and Mead did not invent C2.
I am going to end this message here. I am about to get on a plane for
an extremely long flight, and anyhow, I dread overlong messages in a
discussion. I will return to the theme with an account of the other
early C2 cyberneticians: and I will talk about how I see this as
offering insights I would think could be crucially illuminating in the
arts, today. But maybe before then this will have produced some
responses. I hope so. Paul’s text could help, here!
Ranulph
|
>>> Michael Mosher 09/11/08 10:03 am >>>
YASMINisters,
Evidently this show decades ago, and its problematic Studio
International documentation, is of central importance and remains worthy
of discussion and analysis.
But what is the state of cybernetics and art/the arts today?
I'd like to see some lists offered here of the top five contemporary
practitioners of whom we should all be aware, and their key works.
Artists, feel free to include yourselves in your list if you think
you're doing important work.
This should illuminate differing definitions of what's "cybernetic"
too.
Thanks,
--Mike M.
Michael R. Mosher
Assoc. Professor, Art/Communication & Digital Media
Saginaw Valley State University
7400 Bay Road
University Center, MI 48710
>>> "JASIA REICHARDT" <jreichardt@btopenworld.com> 09/11/08 7:17 am >>>
Re: [YASMIN-msg] Cybernetics Serendipity ReduxDear Simon
A couple of points. The special issue of Studio International was
published for the opening, so it wasn't post event. I think that the
only work which is in the Studio and was not in exhibition was the
project of Gustav Metzger. There were also two issues of the ICA
magazine that related to the exhibition, and of course there were
lectures.
One day, collecting all the available material most of which is in
Kawasaki, it would be possible to make a chart with all the objects in
place.
If anyone were to be interested in such an exercise, one day when I
have time, I'd be happy to help.
with best wishes
Jasia
----- Original Message -----
From: Simon Biggs
To: YASMIN-messages
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 9:46 AM
Subject: Re: [YASMIN-msg] Cybernetics Serendipity Redux
Hi Mike
One detail. I was talking to somebody else who saw the CS show and
they commented on how the Studio International ‘catalogue’ wasn’t
so much a catalogue as a post-event edition of a regular magazine (I
also have a copy and it is sort of somewhere between a magazine and a
catalogue). They also remembered many of the works in the publication
were not in the show itself. As they put it, the show consisted mostly
of information sheets tacked on the wall and very few actual objects or
artworks. Is this your memory – or is your recollection different to
this?
On an aside, my partner dug out a video of the Nine Evenings event
and we were looking at it last night. Not a lot of work to be seen, but
a little (a Robert Breer ‘float’ with Deborah Hay draped across it,
Cunningham being pushed around in a box by somebody who may or may not
have been Rauschenberg, Lucinda Childs’ dancers posing on stage, etc).
Mostly there were scenes of what appeared to be crowds of very confused
people, craning to see what was going on, trying to work out what was
part of the show and what was incidental. Reminded me of many a
performance art evening of the late 70’s and early 80’s.
My partner thought it would be great if something like Nine Evenings
was to happen again – especially if it was as improvised as the
original seemed to be. Perhaps having attended one too many of those
performance art evenings I wasn’t so open to this idea.
Was CS at all like this? I have the impression it was a lot more
focused and ‘controlled’.
Best
Simon
On 10/9/08 08:58, "legart" <legart@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
My name's Mike Leggett and am new to the list - I'm currently
completing a PhD in Sydney concerned with hypervideo - but during the
time of the CS was making films and photography, so will contribute some
brief personal responses to the show and some contextual information
that hasn't surfaced through the previous contributions.
CS was an early, maybe the first, exhibition at the new Institute
of Contemporary Arts (ICA) premises in central London. The ICA
represented 'progressive' (somewhat retrospective) visual art practice,
its founders having organised the Surrealist Exhibition in London in
1936. The show that followed (?) â●?When Attitudes Become Formâ●?,
was another landmark show, though more attuned to the developing
contemporary visual arts scene. More on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Contemporary_Arts
But the new ICA space nonetheless initially addressed a demand for
â●?alternative practiceâ●? spaces outside the academies, such as
had been initiated by the Arts Lab (1966) and the New London Arts Lab /
Institute for Research in Art & Technology (IRAT) opening in 1969.
As a then recent graduate, my art and professional filmmaking
practice used electromechanical technology of course, so the addition of
the computer presented no great conceptual leaps. As filmmakers we were
familiar with the Whitney brothersâ●? film work with analogue
machines, and we had for many years practised the logic brainteasers in
job adverts on the Tube for trainee computer operators! But working
applications of the computer in the field was what the show promised and
delivered â●„ to an extent. It was like walking into the Science
Museum rather than an art exhibit (being before the days of professional
exhibition designers), with a â●?show-and-tellâ●?, work in progress
approach.
This was suitably refreshing for me â●„ the style of address
amplified process and system rather than expression or figuration,
though such areas were not unfamiliar at the time through the work of
contemporary painters and sculptors (some associated with the ICA). But
the Art in the show would have been of no interest to the traditional
art collector or connoisseur, who might have been taken by the elegant
framed plotter drawings, but not the objects, in particular the
sensor-based ones, on the floor â●„ clunky, mechanical and given to
fantastic abstraction. (Has someone checked the Press reviews? I expect
they were of the gee-wizz variety.)
The show intrigued me and I bought a copy of the Studio
International special issue â●„ a definite mark of approval - to keep
the ideas and the technology in view!
--------------------
To become a member & Yasmin list archive:
http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/
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Professor Simon Biggs
edinburgh college of art
s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
http://www.eca.ac.uk
simon@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland,
number SC009201 |
yasminers
here are some interesting comments
from pioneer Charles Csuri
roger
Chuck Csuri <csuri@accad.ohio-state.edu>
r
To All,
Somebody asked what does Charles Csuri, an artist whose works were in
Cybernetic Serendipidy, think about it today.This is when I remember Van
Gogh's statement "let the painting speak for itself". Somewhat too
romantic for this context.
Cybernetic Serendipidy was an interesting and provocative presentation
of possible relationships between art and science. It also brought
attention to a basic problem with this relationship.
I take exception to Jasia Reichardt's statement about the introduction
of new artists who happen to be scientists and engineers. Most of the
people in Cybernetic Serendipidy were scientists and engineers, not
artists. It takes years of a highly disciplined education to become a
research scientist. Many years of study and artistic production are
required to become an artist especially one with an interest in
innovation. It appears, if you want to say a scientist is an
artist,just redefine the problem. The process becomes the content or
meaning. Let's make the art object the algorithms or the information and
control systems which produce it. All of which becomes the artist's
signature. This gives the scientist the opportunity to say "I am an
artist". The scientist also can wear the mask of an art critic because
definitions have been changed. Now complexity and great art can be
determined by linear logic.
Cybernetic Serendipidy and New Tendencies encouraged this new
conception of an artist. Forty years later we now have new artistic
directions which are like media sound bites. Flocking theory, particle
systems, genetic algorithms, multi-agent systems, artificial life and
devices with behaviors and rules built into them to create art become
the order of the day. The focus remains upon processes and not the art.
Philosophy and science were the driving forces behind the exhibitions
Cybernetic Serendipidy and New Tendencies. They tried to make the case
based upon logic for a new definition of art. In the past it was the
artists who first provided us with the art. The definitions came later.
All has changed because we have this new set of rules. Our culture is
at the dawn of an new era. It is a signal for the impending appearance
of the hybrid human who is evolving into a new species of hybrid
artists. The logical brain has taken on the aura of beauty. The details
of the levels of complexity of the linear logic are just awesome! High
from a mountain top a brilliant light shines to reveal the new art. Such
concepts illustrate a naivete about what comprises an art object which
is truly surprising. It's art because they just say its art. The
arrogance represented by all of this is astounding yet in an odd way,
somewhat amusing.
I feel like a flower trapped in the middle of an onion patch.
Surrounded by prestigious and brilliant philosophers and scientists,
I've being told I'm not an artist. My signature is not clear because my
work looks like art. All of those onions are making me cry!!
Somewhere I read cybernetics has disappeared. It looks like these new
rules for art have shifted to the commercial world. Companies with mega
millions of dollars for research and development now have better
algorithms and information and control systems. These breakthroughs
represent many levels of complexity. The new toys, robots, interactive
devices and games are absolutely brilliant in their conception and
execution. Is this the new art?
Too late for an updated Cybernetic Serendipidy because now it would be
boring. You would need to include Damien Hirst's zebra posed in
formaldehyde to make it interesting.
Charles Csuri, Artist
http://www.csuri.com e-mail: csuri@accad.ohio-state.edu or csuri.1@osu.edu
|
In order not to send very long messages, I am
writing in sections. This is the second section on second order
cybernetics (C2). I apologise for my somewhat tutorial tone in these
messages: I am not quite sure how else to write to introduce such a gap
in knowledge of a field!
The intention of this message is to introduce the broad base of
questions that C2 first approached, which I believe are essential to
its viability.
In my earlier message I explained that C2 arose from a concern for the
consistency of self-application of cybernetic understandings, and deals
with the observing system (in preference to, and/or in addition to. the
observed system), giving some history and some argument. Here I shall
look at the way in which the early workers divided up (quite by
accident) the concerns of the field so that there is a wide coverage in
their work, when considered as an ensemble.
Consideration of the observer, and the reflexive use of a subject as
its own subject (in other words self-reference) make C2 not only
radical, but also a model for some sorts of activity we don’t normally
manage to model very well. In this message I will go through how some
key questions that arise from such a position as is taken in C2 have
been dealt with. By the way, several have suggested the advantage of
moving up from C2 to C3, and so on. I do not see this. The relation
between C1 and C2 is essentially complementaristic, not cumulative and
extensible.
C2 may be seen as an agenda, an unfinished revolution (as Karl Mueller
calls it), a different way of seeing. It gives presence and often
precedence to observing, and hence to the agent of that observing, the
observer (rather than trying to cancel and/or rule the observer out).
It assumes that, as each of us is different, each observer is
different, and therefore each observation, depending as it does on the
observer (and the occasion), will be different. This might appear to be
the antithesis of the scientific approach, an approach espoused in, for
instance, C1 (although I consider any C1 system to be a C2 system with
ignorably weak circularity), and with many contemporary approaches
which attempt to find the universal, or at least the universal meaning.
If this is so, there are some basic questions that need to be dealt
with. As it happens (and, I believe, just by good luck) those involved
in the creation of C2 seem to have covered these points. I will list
them briefly below. I have posted a much longer paper on our ning site
(see below). It is my opinion that this (C2) position is actually at
the heart of cybernetics, and was importantly present in the Macy
conferences, though less so in Wiener’s “Cybernetics”, a weakness he
attempted to alleviate in “Human Use of Human Beings”, a book I wish he
had written first!
Heinz von Foerster pointed out the importance of consistency in
approaching cybernetics, and hence of the cybernetics of observing
systems. He also showed how a chain of observations can stabilise on
some repeating value that does not change (an eigen value of an eigen
object). He acted as ring master to many of those whose work turned out
to form C2.
Gordon Pask, along with his colleagues, particularly the outrageously
ignored Bernard Scott, explained how we may communicate, when each of
us observes differently (and hence makes our won meanings): this is by
a form he called conversation. Conversation is the essential, simple
embodiment of interaction. It was also, in Pask’s view, how we build
understandings, and fields of knowledge, thus being the central act in
learning.
Ernst von Glasersfeld developed the philosophical/epistemological
position that is built on the involvement of the unique observer,
Radical Constructivism, which is often taken to be the Siamese twin of
C2. Radical Costructivism does not reject the notion of an external
reality, but denies that we can access it: it must therefore always
remain conjecture, and we should behave with that uncertainty in mind.
The question of Mind Independent Reality forms a conundrum that is
undecidable. Foerster puts the situation pithily:
“Only we can decide the undecidable.”
Humberto Maturaana, later working with Francisco Varela and Ricardo
Uribe, developed an understanding of “life” I have characterised as
living (ie, verb, not noun). Called Autopoiesis (meaning
self-generation), this work developed the notions of autonomy and
organisational-closure that are essential to C2 systems, and later
explained the lack of direct causal relationship between experience and
scientific descriptions of the nervous system. Maturana’s critical work
in neuro-cognition goes back to the late 1950s (“What the Frog’s Eye
Tells the Frog’s Brain”).
Lars Loefgren, Gotthard Günther and George Spencer Brown all provided
the essential mathematical and logical insights and developments that
admitted of the sorts of concepts (such as self-reference) that C2 is
interested in and considers important. Spencer Brown’s command, “Draw a
Distinction” became, for a time, a clarion call.
Finally, my own work, characterised by Scott as pre-ontological, sets
up a framework for the conditions necessary for the above systems to
function. In exploring what I came to call Objects, and, later, Black
Boxes, I isolated the foundational significance of ignorance, and
designed a system of Objects that allowed all of the above abstractions
room to grow. Out of the logic of Objects come notions of stabilised
behaviours akin to Eigen Objects, the relational logic that supports
not only self-reference, but relationships and conversational
communication. More recently, I have brought together C2 and design.
I will write shortly about some of the consequences of this work in C2
that I believe might have interesting outcomes for art. Then we will be
perhaps better able to reply to Chuck Csuri’s comments about the
timeliness of Cybernetic Serendipity, and how it’s out of time now. My
answer is that it isn’t. This new cybernetics is capable, I believe and
hope, of providing similar inspiration novelty to the old, today.
You will find references to the people mentioned above in the article on the ning site.
Ranulph |
Art is about expression and in my mind not
tied to a specific media type or particular philosophy or algorithm -
the post re Charles Csuri said this and more. Some of the points
reminded me of the many debates resulting from the Wellcome Trust
SciArt initiative.
Artists are magpies, we pick and choose, be inspired by whatever
Weltanschauung of the time. Bio/Tissue Culture, Neuro/Autopoesis,
MetaVerses, Baudrillard etc etc
We are living very much in the age of information, the networked
(surveillance, spammed, phished) society, artists are reacting and
reflecting on this creating many new forms of expression using
metaverse, machinima, Processing, Open Source, Creative Commons,
Arduino etc etc. There are communities of niched market experimentalist
artist philosophers sprouting-linking-creating-discussing at a scale
that is googlishly incomprehensible!
I am thus surprised by some the comments in this list dismissing Second
Life(and thus any other metaverse) as a potential artistic medium for
cybernetic expressionism - 1st or 2nd order. I am not an advocate for
this medium, but can see its future potential, especially as it is now
becoming an open source platform. It is a networked programmable
real-time 3D multimedia environment, supporting live music,
performance, kinetics, interactivity etc - why thus is it not a
potential medium for Cybernetic experimentation??
As with exhibitions it also reaches a much wider audience than those typically addressed by the Academic community.
Coincidentally an exhibition celebrating the work of Nicolas Schoffe
has just opened in 2L (there is nothing interactive or kinetic, which
is a shame)
See "The Arch" for more details:
http://archsl.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/nicolas-schoffer-gallery-opening/
--
Artist/Experimentalist
MSc Computers and Cybernetics, MA Fine Art.
http://www.mimetics.com
artsinformatica.blogspot.com
|
The full ning address for the second order cybernetics paper I mentioned (in a draft version, for copyright reasons) is:
http://api.ning.com/files/Q*xkaJ*eBgDqomFQEIRqhBNoAEO3I1WAXnwYu9y7nikpN6FhbqbTnWDfyVY49d9BgUuiOeYewoPZM6uHQGZxpZwzZ9xmgcC5/SecondOrderCyberneticsdraft.pdf
Please feel free to download it. There's lots of good material relevant to our discussion there, too.
Ranulph |
My intention in this message is to point to
some understandings coming from C2 that may have implications for
artists, either changing current views and/or practices, or perhaps
even leading to new ones. Here, I shall therefore reconsider the
operation of control and communication, talk of betweenness and
sharing, and consider interaction and interface, from the vantage point
of C2.
To start this process, I will make one final move in introducing C2,
which will act as a sort of multi-facetted bridge. Wiener’s book’s sub
title (often, but erroneously, referred to as the definition of
cybernetics) is “communication and control in the animal and the
machine”. Communication is a sine qua non for control, so control is at
least a, if not the central activity of cybernetics. There is no
mention of observing, the term I used, following Foerster, in
developing the difference between C1 and C2.
But control systems “observe”, in that abstracted, non-visual sense
beloved of philosophers and scientists. The controllers in cybernetic
systems observe (in this account) a state of affairs, compare it with
some (other) desired state of affairs, and calculate an action or
change in action that will bring the desired state of affairs nearer,
or will maintain it. So observing is a necessary aspect of control,
just as communication is.
Normally, when we speak of (cybernetic) control, we consider a circular
system in which there are 2 elements: the controller and the
controlled. Thus, to use the classic example, the switch mounted on the
wall controls the furnace which delivers heat to the room which has the
switch on the wall. In classical descriptions we talk in this manner,
but it is legitimate to ask what controls the switch, causing it to
turn the furnace on and off? The answer is the temperature which in
turn depends on the heat provided by the furnace. So the furnace in
fact controls the switch. Each controls the other. As far as I can make
out, the only reason we call the switch the controller (rather than the
furnace) derives from considerations of energy: the idea of a small
amount of energy controlling a larger amount, which in turn entails a
concept of amplification. But cybernetics, for all of Wiener’s initial
protestations, is interested in flows of information rather than
physical energy. It would be more accurate to say that control lies
within the circularity of the system’s form, between and shared by the
two elements. And that each element may be thought of as controller to
the other’s controlled.
This view is essentially a C2 view: it comes from considering both
observing/controlling and a consideration of cybernetic consistency.
What are the key words in this? Circularity, between shared. And these
are some of the central words of how we can understand the world
through C2 eyes.
These words imply a sort of mutuality and reciprocity. Instead of
considering one element as responsible for controlling and maintaining
either goal directedness of stability of some system, we now see that
both elements do this, acting together. Thus, control is not by one of
the other, and, if the system is judged stable the stability may not be
without movement when observed externally: it might be dynamic, as we
humans both change through becoming older while believing we are just
the same person we used to be. (There is much more to be said about
this, and about how we determine this stability, what the observing is
that does this, but not here!)
So my first challenge for art is to consider control not as an action
by one element on another, but as existing between elements which each
controls and is controlled by the other.
Another related concept is conversation. The old view of communication
in C1 was deeply rooted in Claude Shannon’s “Mathematical Theory of
Communication”, commonly called Information Theory. Shannon owed a lot
to Wiener, which may be why the two approaches are often seen as bed
fellows. Shannon’s sense of communication is passing coded messages
down channels. He is interested in capacity and accuracy, specially in
the face of both coding/decoding and noise.
The moment you take it that each observer (communicator) is different,
the passing of coded messages is not enough. Each communicator
constructs their own meanings from the messages they pick up, rather
than decoding them in a standard way (think of the “misunderstandings”
we have in ordinary discussion). But if each communicator makes
different meanings, what is communicated? The answer is that the act of
communication is one of building out own meanings (of other’s meanings
(or our meanings)) in a sort of recursion of circularity. I say
something, you listen, make your understanding, speak to me, I make a
meaning of your meaning and compare it to my original meaning: are they
similar enough for me to say you understand me? If you think of this,
possibly in a slightly less rigourous form, it’s what we call a
conversation. In C2, conversation is not via coded messages, but by
conversational construction. Are we making conversational art? (The
originator of Conversation Theory, Gordon Pask, was making
conversational are already in the early 1950s, before even Schöffer was
becoming the father of cybernetic art.)
A feature of a normal conversation such as is held between friends in a
pub, café or bar, is that you end up talking about subjects far from
your start point, often having had wonderful new insights and ideas en
route, usually with no concept of how this all came about.
Conversations spawn the new because of the differences in the
participants, and hence their constructions of different meanings. This
is a form of interaction, Interaction is one of a group of words that
has been seriously devalued by the computer industry, who have degraded
it to mean responsive or even just reactive: many of us have become
happy to call the merely responsive interactive. For me, interaction
must involve the working together of 2 or more participants such that
the outcome of their working together is not of one or of the other,
but of both together: otherwise there is no point in it. This is a
challenge for artists involved in interactive media, but may perhaps be
easier to aim for when the understanding of control that I argued above
is kept in mind. In the circular system that is a cybernetic
conversation, the novelty does not come from one or the other
participant, but from both acting together. It is shared and cannot be
divided into the contribution of one or the other element. For me,
conversation is the typification of interaction, a powerful mechanism
indeed, and full of artistic promise.
My last example derives from this understanding of communication as
conversational. We often describe the site where we communicate with,
for instance, a computer, as the “interface”. In fact, we’ve
generalised “interface” to cover all ways of meeting for communication,
even turning it into a verb (I’ll interface with you). The interfaces
we build today are largely interfaces that are flat, behind which we
cannot see, and on which we act. Many are, literally, control panels or
desktops: flat planes on which we click on (virtual) buttons that call
up commands. This is Shannon type communication between “the animal and
the machine”.
C2 would, I believe, require something different. If we are to
communicate by conversation, allowing room for novelty and imagination
(for the unpredicted and the unpredictable), we need a space in which
to meet, a space that is not full, that allows for others to enter and
which allows us to create novel inhabitants while in the space itself.
This is not so much the plane of the inter-face, as an inter-space. The
challenge is to create this interspace that will support conversational
interaction between both animals and other animals—presumably of the
human variety—and/or between animals and machines. Thinking back to
Jasia’s earlier comment, for machines and other machines, too.
My hope is that these insights, and many others that are waiting to be
created from C2, will prove challenging to art practice, and may lead
to a new form of art, based better in understanding the circularity of
involvement that is at the basis of all cybernetics, but specially of
C2. What I have directed attention towards above is but a tiny
smattering of what is there to be explored and constructed. But I must
also add the following: this is my version of C2, my interpretation,
not one I expect you to agree to but one I hope may inspire. Then, I
believe, we might have a Cybernetic Serendipity Redux.
My challenge in the remaining week of this online discussion is to
consider how understandings such as these (and others to be added by
different authors), emanating from C2, can come to, as it were,
converse with art.
Ranulph |
Having read Ranulph's C2 post, I would like to
suggest a work of mine, Alembic (1995), for consideration as an example
of a C2 artwork, although this is the first time I have contextualised
it in C2 terms.
The inspiration for Alembic stemmed from a combination of interests in
Alchemy and Dynamic Form (Charles Sirato The Dimensionist Manifesto,
1936, Branncussi et al). The C2 concept resonates with the Alchemical
idea that by transforming matter through various processes one becomes
internally transformed by those processes. (see also Carl Jung &
Alchemy)
In Alembic I set out to create a multi-user Alchemical experience of computer generated 3D Dynamic Form.
The interface used "Electric Field Sensing" (MIT Fish device), enabled
people to interact by simply moving around a central circular 3D floor
projection. Their circular position changing the temperature of the
simulated Alembic, their proximity acting as a gravitational field. The
work responded instantly to body or hand movements and one or more
people could interact with the work at the same time.
The computer produced a 3D simulation of Dynamic Form using a physics
based real-time particle simulation (C, WorldToolkit Library, OpenGL).
Each particle interacted with other particles, colliding, repelling and
forming elastic links according to temperature. The simulation coupled
with the externally governed variables of temperature and proximity
produced unpredictability and surprise.
The work alluded to matter rather than representing it explicitly and
set out to engage with the viewers imagination through behaviour and
responsiveness rather than realistic rendering.
Filtered white noise accompanied the changing temperature dynamic, suggesting the elements of fire, air earth and water.
The C2 aspects of the work I suggest are i)Dynamic Feedback between body action and reaction of Dynamic Form.
ii) Subsequent modification of behaviour in response to i.
iii) Three way dialogue, or conversation occurring between simulation and multiple participants.
iv)Unpredictability and surprise resulting from two or more participants.
v) Body Language - self and other. An awareness of body cause and
effect on the simulation and others in the space. A subtle human body
dialogue between other participants as well as that mediated by the
Dynamic Form.
vi) Psychological effects modifying interaction. The use of abstracted
imagery and the rich suggestions created by white noise encouraged the
imagination, thus having a psychological effect, which modified how
people behaved in the space. Many visitors returned for repeat
experiences, some reporting they found the work intensely calming,
whilst others spent significant amounts of time deeply involved in the
work.
For more information on Alembic see website (with 1997 aesthetics) http://www.mimetics.com/vur/alembic.html
--
Artist/Experimentalist
MSc Computers and Cybernetics, MA Fine Art.
http://www.mimetics.com
artsinformatica.blogspot.com
|
Dear YASMIN,
S
START
Video Proceedings of a 'Robots' Event organised earlier in the year
with the Science Museum, London became available over the summer.
Go to http://www.4d-dynamics.net/ddr7/
Alec Robertson of the ECiD2 (Embracing Complexity in Design) project
invites you to make a contribution as a 'Virtual participant' of the
Event - 'More is More 2: 4D Product Design for the EveryDay'. Online
video of Presentations, Exhibits, and Discussions provides stimulus for
your contribution.
To do this enter the website above, and then complete the online form
accessed via at the bottom of the Talks & Exhibits page after
viewing.
END
regards,
Alec R,
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yasminers
we are getting towards the end of our month of discussion about
Cybernetics Serendipity and hope a number of you can make final
comments this week.
I thought i would bring up a point about other exhibitions that were
being organised around this time and particularly Software organised by
Jack Burnham- he used terminology that was more related to 'systems
theory'= Software also liek CS featured the work of scientists and
engineers producing work in an art context and close links to industry
( this time american motors= where are they now as a sponsor of
innovation in art ?)
from wikipaedia
In systems art the concept and ideas of process related systems and
systems theory are involved in the work take precedence over
traditional aesthetic object related and material concerns. Systems art
is named by Jack Burnham in the 1968 Artforum article "Real Systems
Art". Burnham had investigated the effects of science and technology on
the sculpture of this century. He saw a dramatic contrast between the
handling of the place-oriented object sculpture and the extreme
mobility of Systems sculpture.[2] This systems art operates according
to Thomas McEvilley by "transferring an object or site from one
semantic system to another; it, like so much else, derives ultimately
from Duchamp, in this case from his example of transferring everyday
objects into the semantic system of art".[3]
One person who was in Software and was very much in the cybernetics
serendipity was Sonia Sherida who went on to run the Generative Systems
program at the School of the Art institute of chicago=she influenced a
whole generation of students there many of whom surely would be in
redux.
another artist that i think would fit into redux is chico macmurtie-
his work extending robotic systems to organic systems ( eg his proposal
for the climate clock in san jose california) is a good example
finally let me mention a good resources is the one by Steve Wilson
http://mediaartslinks.blogspot.com/
which includes links to many artists that would be good selection for redux
roger
here is a good resourced about Burhams exhibit
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=541
Catalogue published for the exhibition Software, Jewish Museum, New
York, N.Y., U.S., September 16 to November 8, 1970 [itinerary:
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U.S., December 16, 1970, to
February 14, 1971]. — Curated by Jack Burnham.
Participating artists: Vito Acconci, David Antin, Architecture Group
Machine M.I.T., John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Linda Berris, Donald
Burgy, Paul Conly, Agnes Denes, Robert Duncan Enzmann, Carl
Fernbach-Flarsheim, John Godyear, Hans Haacke, Douglas Huebler, Joseph
Kosuth, Nam June Paik, Alex Razdow, Sonia Sheridan, Evander D. Schley,
Theodosius Victoria, Laurence Weiner.
As a follow-up to The Machine at the End of the Mechanical Age (1968),
an exhibition presented at the Museum of Modern Art (New York, U.S.)
and organized by Pontus Hulten, Software took place in the interval
between the decline of the industrial machine and the emergence of
information technologies (computer, networks). To explore this
epistemological rupture, curator Jack Burnham presented the results of
scientific experiments, conducted by research teams and scientists,
alongside projects born out of the conceptual art movement. The
exhibition’s title is related to the true sense of the word software,
designating the flexibility of certain logical procedures and not
exclusively the interaction of data with the machine to produce
commands for executing specific functions. By shifting the concept of
program toward an artistic field, Burnham tried to draw parallels
between projects relying on devices for transmitting information (fax
machines, teleprinters, audiovisual systems), and those that used
language as material without resorting to technology. Fostering
collaboration and dialogue between scientists and artists, this
exhibition was also the product of an early exchange between the art
museum and industry (American Motors Corporation sponsored the
technical production and, at the request of the artists, several
companies lent technological components to produce the works). |
I do think this is an example of Richard's of the sort of thing that
C2 might bring to art.
In particular, the notion that interactions belong between the
participants, shared, not of one or the other (or even both acting
separately). The interaction is in the links! However, I'd want to
look carefully at the conversations and the dynamic feedback to be
sure they were not simply clever implementations of C1 mechanisms.
There's an ambiguous edge here: when we play menu and cation driven
computer games, the rate of change of choice is so fast that we
cannot chose in "restaurant" manner. At this point, no matter how the
game is "really" structured, the experience is of interaction, not of
action and reaction. this provides an interesting point of
transition, and might bring some illumination to the differences I'm
talking about. In this case, are we in a world of C1 or C2, and how
does the transition between them work?
Current limitations to my internet access mean I've not really
explored the video etc of Alembic, though I looked at it a year ago.
Thanks, Richard. I wonder if this is the only example people can
think of, and whether what I suggested as some of the benefits of C2
might be could inspire something remarkably new, and whether other
cyberneticians would like to add to my list.
Ranulph
On 25 Sep 2008, at 15:15, richardb wrote:
>
> Having read Ranulph's C2 post, I would like to suggest a work of
> mine, Alembic (1995), for consideration as an example of a C2
> artwork, although this is the first time I have contextualised it
> in C2 terms.
>
> The inspiration for Alembic stemmed from a combination of interests
> in Alchemy and Dynamic Form (Charles Sirato The Dimensionist
> Manifesto, 1936, Branncussi et al). The C2 concept resonates with
> the Alchemical idea that by transforming matter through various
> processes one becomes internally transformed by those processes.
> (see also Carl Jung & Alchemy)
>
> In Alembic I set out to create a multi-user Alchemical experience
> of computer generated 3D Dynamic Form.
>
> The interface used "Electric Field Sensing" (MIT Fish device),
> enabled people to interact by simply moving around a central
> circular 3D floor projection. Their circular position changing the
> temperature of the simulated Alembic, their proximity acting as a
> gravitational field. The work responded instantly to body or hand
> movements and one or more people could interact with the work at
> the same time.
>
> The computer produced a 3D simulation of Dynamic Form using a
> physics based real-time particle simulation (C, WorldToolkit
> Library, OpenGL). Each particle interacted with other particles,
> colliding, repelling and forming elastic links according to
> temperature. The simulation coupled with the externally governed
> variables of temperature and proximity produced unpredictability
> and surprise.
>
> The work alluded to matter rather than representing it explicitly
> and set out to engage with the viewers imagination through
> behaviour and responsiveness rather than realistic rendering.
> Filtered white noise accompanied the changing temperature dynamic,
> suggesting the elements of fire, air earth and water.
>
> The C2 aspects of the work I suggest are i)Dynamic Feedback between
> body action and reaction of Dynamic Form.
> ii) Subsequent modification of behaviour in response to i.
> iii) Three way dialogue, or conversation occurring between
> simulation and multiple participants.
> iv)Unpredictability and surprise resulting from two or more
> participants.
> v) Body Language - self and other. An awareness of body cause and
> effect on the simulation and others in the space. A subtle human
> body dialogue between other participants as well as that mediated
> by the Dynamic Form.
> vi) Psychological effects modifying interaction. The use of
> abstracted imagery and the rich suggestions created by white noise
> encouraged the imagination, thus having a psychological effect,
> which modified how people behaved in the space. Many visitors
> returned for repeat experiences, some reporting they found the work
> intensely calming, whilst others spent significant amounts of time
> deeply involved in the work.
>
> For more information on Alembic see website (with 1997 aesthetics)
> http://www.mimetics.com/vur/alembic.html
>
>
> --
> Artist/Experimentalist
>
> MSc Computers and Cybernetics, MA Fine Art.
>
> http://www.mimetics.com
> artsinformatica.blogspot.com
>
>
> --------------------
> To become a member & Yasmin list archive: http://www.media.uoa.gr/
> yasmin/
> To join Yasmin-map: http://haystack.cerado.com/yasmin
> To post: yasmin@estia.media.uoa.gr
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MESSAGE FROM ALEC ROBERTSON
Video Proceedings of a 'Robots' Event organised earlier in the year by
the Science Museum, London became available over the summer.
Go to http://www.4d-dynamics.net/ddr7/
Alec Robertson of the ECiD2 (Embracing Complexity in Design) project
invites you to make a contribution as a 'Virtual participant' of the
Event - 'More is More 2: 4D Product Design for the EveryDay'. Online
video of Presentations, Exhibits, and Discussions provides stimulus for
your contribution.
To do this enter the website above, and then complete the online form
accessed via at the bottom of the Talks & Exhibits page after
viewing.
|
This has been an extraordinary month, and one
where I have not always been able to keep up daily with the discussion
due to the number of things I'm working on, which includes being in
Japan right now. However I would like to ask the list for art works
that involve two things:
A. Feedback
and B.
Something Stephen Jones wrote:
"If an artwork or anything else is going to be cybernetic, then:
1. It has to generate something that something else outside of its boundary is set up to recognise."
I would like to acknowledge Ranulph's messages on the subject of the
notions surrounding C1 and C2, but must focus on practical works right
now: I'm looking for artworks that would meet the above criteria (and
have noted richardb's post) as this month I'm writing for a peer
reviewed journal on the subject of integrated systems and art works.
The one work of my own I would put forward is’ haiku robots’, a
collaboration with Julian Priest and Andrew Hornblow. In it 2 (or 4)
robotic cars swarm (flocking strategies) in an area defined by 8 (or
16) cylinders. Each cylinder is assigned an alpha-numeric number 2abc,
3def, and so on. The cylinder and robot recognise each other (ir) when
a robot approaches the cylinder; the cylinder identification is sent
(rf) to the project computer [feedback]. The computer then runs a
predictive text regime on the signal string [generate something outside
of its recognition boundary].
Best
Ian Clothier
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