NMD 430 Lecture 12 Final in process critiques class end bits and more

This is our final interactive live discussion looking at the in process work of Stephan and speaking with Brian about his work and the final project in general. Please watch and post a short comment.

vision'R Review Special iPodU Session Response

The vision'R festival like the Mapping festival presented a broad variety of digital time-based artists, theorists, designers and much much more. Both of these events were dense in experience and rich with information. There is not enough time for you to watch and comment on everything at this point in the semester. What I'd like you to do is to review as many of the special "Special iPodU vision'R" iTunes video posts as you can and post your response in general or in specific to the vision'R blog. The vision'R videos are found under the NMD 430 iTunes section.

vision'R Edwin and Bart on Resolume Special iPodU Session Response

At vision'R there was a range of artists, visual performers, hardware and software designers. It was a great opportunity to meet first hand designers of many different products available for the live time-based visual artist and performer. Of the many people Bart and Edwin, the creators of Resolume, gave a nice talk about their history and process. Please watch and post.

vision'R Claire on her project Alice Special iPodU Session Response

One of the many artists and performers from vision'R Claire talks about her process and the concept behind the work "Alice." Please watch this talk and post your response.

NMD 430 Lecture 11 Online Live with VJTheory

Online with artist, author and editor Ana Carvahlo of "VJTheory .net" and "visual-agency.net."

"VJTheory intends to develop a community actively discussing and reflecting on philosophy and theory related with Vjing and realtime interaction.
It is apparent, during workshops and discussions at Festivals and symposia, that practitioners of both VJing and Interactive Installations will quickly move on from problems with the practicalities of production to more complex ideas of how and why the process has, for example, significance for the viewer.
There is a lack of written texts on the philosophies and theories related with VJing and realtime interaction.
This project and the associated book, aim to bring together work by some of the foremost practitioners and academics in the field.
We aim to produce a body of work which, for the first time, will address these theoretical issues and place the practices of VJing and Interactive Installation, into a useful context.
The website is a growing collection of articles, references and art projects in collaboration with contributors from the book and the growing community.
This is phase 1 of the project. New sample material from the book and complete texts specifically for the site will be available online as the work progresses."

Visual Agency is a multidisciplinary collective of people interested in visual communication. Projects developed are at the blurred and merging border between art and design, these can be web design solutions, visual performances, installations, theoretical and fictional writing works and participation in the development of other collectives and events. Visual Agency has a strong emphasis in the process, visible in the relationship with partners and clients, where personal approach to work is of major relevance.

NMD 430 Lecture 10 The Decadance of Simulation

Please post your comments here

Mapping FestivalSuguro Goto Special iPodu Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing both parts of the performance and the site: http://suguru.goto.free.fr/

Mapping Festival Batman Zavareze Special iPodu Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing the interview and the site for the festival he hosts: http://multiplicidade.oi.com.br/

Mapping Festival Yroyto Special iPodu Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing the interview and at least one of his many sites: http://www.yroyto.com/

Mapping Festival Akira (ARG) Special iPodu Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing the interview and at least one of his many sites: http://www.kikencorp.com/

Mapping Festival Liliane Schneiter Special iPodu Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing and looking at any information on the net you can find

Mapping Festival Raul Berruec of Meneo Special iPodU Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing the interview and at least one of his many sites: http://www.entter.com

Mapping Festival Rigo Pex of MeneoSpecial iPodU Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing the interview and at least one of his many sites: http://meneo.blip.tv/

Mapping Festival Ilan Katin Special iPodu Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing the interview and at least one of hs many sites: http://www.ilankatin.com/ http://mappingfestival.com/

Mapping Festival Roel Verlinden Special iPodU Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing the interview and looking at the site of
collaborators Olga Mink and Scanner http://www.videology.nu http://www.scannerdot.com/

Mapping Festival VJTheory Special iPodU Session Response

Please post your responses after viewing the interview and looking at their site
http://www.vjtheory.com

Bootlab Berlin Special iPodU Session Response

Please post your Special iPodU Session response here.

NMD 304 Lecture 9 Raphael Diluzio Building out Installation

Today we discussed the project I am installing in Tacheles. I asked that you use this blog post to present your final project ideas to one another. Please post an initial statement of your idea, refer to the lecture "part two," for specifics.

Katrina McPherson SSpecial iPodU Session Response

Please post your Special iPodU Session response here.

NMD 430 Crit Assignmnet 3: Simulacra: Reality of Context: Context as Reality

Please watch the posted full critique of all your works. And then take the time to review each others work and reflect on what your class mates have done. Then in one post write a paragraph (minimum) comment on each others work. Please do not say "I agree with sos and so that..." or simply that you like this and this and this and not that and that and that. Be considered in what you say trying to give good guidance and feedback.

Kevin Henderson Special iPodU Session Response

Please post your Special iPodU Session response here.

Dan Norton Special iPodU Session Response

Please post your Special iPodU Session response here.

Peter Richardson Special iPodU Session Response

Please post your response to this special iPodU Session

NMD 403 Lecture 8 Interactivity with Pjotr at Tacheles in Berlin

So for the last two weeks we have been at the Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin Germany (see http://super.tacheles.de/cms/ ). At the house is an artist and hacker and Dr. of Philosophy who goes simply by the name of Pjotr. Originally from Vienna Austria Pjotr has been making highly conceptual works that involve reality hacking as well as machine and computers. He works with other artists to help to realize interactive elements in their works. He is a deep thinker involved with theories on interactivity from pure ontology to ideas of collective intelligence. We had a good talk with him but sadly lost some of it. We were able to do a short re-take that nicely presents his ideas in a more compact form. Please read and post your comments. Also he mentioned a site for MAX patches which is http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~jovan02/cv/objects.html
along with several important authors and ideas which include: Jacques Lacan, Steven Johnson, Paul Virllio, ontology. Please add your comments.

NMD 430 Lecture 7 Martin Reiter at Tacheles and Critique 3

Today we are in Berlin Germany at the Kunsthaus Tacheles. Students who cam e live had the opportunity too meet with Martin Reiter the current director of the Kunsthaus. Martin is also an accomplished artist, curator and reality hacker. As an artist he has created interactive media, performance, reality hacks and "uncontrollable robots." He has been working at Tacheles as an artist and later in other roles since 1995. He is originally from Vienna Austria where he studied electronics and electrical engineering before beginning his career in alternative art.

Conversations in New Media Art Communication and More

We had the opportunity to have a discussion with students, artists faculty in Liepaja Latvia at the newly forming program in New Media at the Academy in Liepaja. Sadly the was not able to be recorded as our connections speeds were quite poor. But Stephan Crowley and Kory Boulier were able to participate and they give their reflections. Carl and Kristina form Liepaja gave some wonderful comments to questions asked. They are both working and developing k@2 (http://karosta.lv) as well as programming for the growing program. So, Stephan and Kory take it away...

NMD 430 Lecture 6 Narrative Temporality

Please each parts one through four on temporality and narrative, Post your initial response then as usual wait and post a follow up response to a post from someone else.

NMD 430 Please post comments on Lecture 5

"At Home," with John Phillips

John Phillips, is an artist and professor living in Philadelphia, best put he is an "sound and vision," artist (in my own words). He has worked extensively with sound as a medium and in multimedia looking at intersections and "collaborations" between sound and vision (again my own words). His work spans the spectrum from live musical and video performance to complex multi channel audio and video installations. His work has been well received on an international level form China to San Francisco and he has been a resident artist at the Experimental Television Center in Oswego New York.

(Still on this page: from a video performance with perpetual mvmt<>snd at Mascher Dance Coop , Philadelphia, PA)

LINK to John's website
http://terragizmo.net/

LINK to Experimental Television Center
http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/

NMD 403 Lecture 4 Simulation Narrative and Montage

We know the difference between fantasy and reality, don't we? How does montage function as as a tool in time-based media. Can the use of montage blur the lines between the real and the imagined? Please respond to last weeks lecture.

The Simularca Hyper-reality and Simulation

On Thursday kenneth Feinstein Professor of interactivity from Nangyang Technical University's Art Design and Media Department participated in the critique of student work (for those present online) and held a discussion on Jean Baudrillard. I feel that this was one of our most successful classes so far as we are becoming more and more comfortable using technology that while good and extensive is not really designed for the uses we are doing. Yet in pushing it to the limits we are really doing some exciting stuff. Overall it is getting better and better I hope we can continue to raise the bar with each online session. I would encourage each of you to try to attend one or more in the future as in future as the opportunity for direct interaction iis always best.

Please post a combined response to the lecture as well as the reading (PDF) that was sent, yes you had to read it.

Performing in TIme

Tomorrow we will be meeting with performance artist Milan Kohout see:
http://www.mobius.org/mobius_artists.php?id=milan

We will be meeting live with him and I am asking you to look at as much of his work (extensive portfolio on Mobius and youtube) as you can find before commenting on his talk and work.

BIO from Mobius:
Milan Kohout (now a US citizen) is originally from The Czech Republic. Here he got his M.S. in Electrical Engineering. He was an independent artist in so-called "Second Culture". Later he becomes a signatory member and art activist of the dissident human rights organization CHARTER 77 (group of mostly artists was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1985 and initiated non violent Velvet Revolution which toppled totalitarian regime in 1989). Following many interrogations he was forced by CZ security police to leave his country in 1986 due to his political art activism. After several years in a refugee camp he was granted asylum in the United States. In 1993 Milan received his Diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Since 1994 Milan has been a member of the Mobius Artists Group (www.Mobius.org). Here he has created many full-scale Performance Art pieces (both collaborative and solo) His work concentrates mostly on the subject of human rights (recently rights of Roma/ Gypsies) and politics (critique of totalitarian capitalism and fundamentalist religions) As Mobius Artists Group member he has participated on numerous international art exchange programs and festivals around the world (China, Croatia, Taiwan, Czech Rep, Poland, Cuba, USA etc). and has been the recipient of number of awards, grants, residencies (Grant from The Fund for US artists at Intern.Festivals, Tanne Foundation Annual Award, First Prize at Intern.Theater Fest.in Pula, Best National Czech.Independent Film Award, Arizona State University residency,PSi conference in London 2006 etc.) He has been teaching Performance Art& Politics at TUFTS University and Massachusetts College of Art and video at The New England Institute of Art and Newbury College in Boston.

1/24/2008 Lecture Notes

[[This is Matthew Leavitt]] I took notes in response to the lecture; they have the basic details of the entire lecture. I also put in some of my own comments as I was not there and they are indicated by a RED BOLDED "SIDE NOTE:"

Notes for Lecture // Jan. 24^th , 2008

• Humans are obsessed with communication since the earliest times of oral tradition.
  
• Each person (even if you are on a webcam with each other) experiences differently and therefore interprets differently.
  

SIDE NOTE: I had a conversation with a friend a few days ago while we were having a three way phone conference about how I could hear my own voice echoing after I had already spoken, which meant that she was receiving the message a few moments LATER, therefore experiencing it in a different time than I was, even if it was just for a few moments with any communication the perception and reception of data almost exists on two different planes of existence: transmission and reception.

• As humans we use our skills of communication to collect data and then communicate the data to other people. (I.E. – scientists to formulate experiments, artists to express emotion, politics to make generalization about a populous)
  

Early history of Time Based Media

• Venetian – earliest forms of writing, creation of the alphabet, which was used mostly for recording trade information (2 sheep for a 10 vegetables, etc.)
  
• Greek and Roman – theater, plays, a specific beginning and end to a performance.
  
• Began to record different types of information, which formed narratives (historical and cultural)
  

SIDE NOTE : In a sense when talking about the history of the Roman empire, you have to understand that it is true that ALL history in one sense is a NARRATIVE because it is a retelling, but digging even deeper into that portion of the argument, each person experiences life differently based on their experience, therefore always a bias, which makes no history 100% (even if it is 99%) because of that factor alone, making it the ultimate invisible time based narrative.

Narrative

important for time-based media. Does not have to be super instructive, but in this class we will let narrative become FLUID. Needs to start and end. Viewer needs to ENGAGE, and need to be introduced to the narrative. Paintings and Photographs cannot have this. Beginning of a story – "once upon a time" and the Ending "they all lived happily ever after"(time-based media CAN have this) . Time-based painting can have a refolding effect where it has a narrative, yet not a traditional structure.

• Computer as a form of gathering, storing, transmitting data, whereas the written word is the ultimate form of this same process (cannot just lose a book in the same way). Best forms of archiving information, but problematic due to accessibility and spacial restraints.
  
• Stratified cultures – experience narratives through theater due to social structures (low-class illiteracy)
  
• Guttenberg and the printing press (reproduction of written word) important to become literate for everyone. After that historical transition, narrative opens up in the culture so people can produce and create (write a book, print and distribute).
  
• Photography – on e point in time in light, capture history in time in that moment (time travel).
  

SIDE NOTE : Microfiche is an older technology that allowed the same thing, it allowed a string of images of written words to be distributed across libraries for periodicals.

• Spoken word becoming important (such as the internet) – moving into a culture of image and sound. Cinematic experience (film, TV, records sequences) are dominant.
  

Interactivity

• Cognitive interaction is one of the most important forms of interactivity (nodding heads, etc.). Computers do not INTERCT (pre-determined responses), but are unable to make cognitive assertions based on experience or synthesize new responses.
  
• In New Media, when we say "build something interactive" , we really mean build something interesting that RESPONDS to human interaction.
  
• Film can be interactive – as a system (contains a narrative, information, time-based, experience). Turn off body, and experience a film in time. Willing suspension of disbelief – viewer becomes a participant in the narrative (stop believing their life, and they start living the life of the film). Go Hidalgo, Go!
  
• Psychokinetic (physical responses – moving forward, jumping) experiences. Mind is sending signals to the body, which is the reason a cinematic experience can be interactive. "Continue living a story that a person tells" – can happen in books as well.
  

SIDE NOTE: to expand on what Stephen said in the lecture about horror movies, I think they are a great example of this kind of response. I know I have been watching horror since I was about 6 years old, but a lot of my friends are not as familiar, so when we see a horror movie, sometimes they go as far as to scream. Some of my friends are so scared they won't watch it because they get anxiety attacks (I know, intense!), so that shows the amount of INTENSITY that just putting in time based elements into a piece of film can cause a person to react.

• Well done meaning can engage the view (viewer participation), unlike wallpaper and ambient music (not meant to engage). Engagement goes from view to participant QUICKLY.
  
• Stopping narrative is truly interactive
  
• Websites can have fields of information that generates new information (but it is responding in you, and is not participatory). System of response.
  
• Difference between the web and TV is "real time" (direct experience vs. response).
  

Modern Day

• Digital Cameras (no more cranking, production, expensive – not everyone could participate)
  
• New Media - technology that is changing , not the narratives (cinematic, written). Gathering, collection, organizing, distributing are the modern paradigms of new media. New Media is not the technology but the process of engaging information (constantly changing).
  
• We can all be speakers, writers, time based artists, and musicians.
  
• Raphael is going to the moon in a couple of months
  
• Multi-tasking systems on the computer
  

Edit on 12 Frames (A2)

• Thing of cognitive interaction and change viewer to participant. Open up what narrative can be (story, emotion, etc.)
  
• Create a time-based information system that interests others (not response driven – mental /emotional response/psychokinetic response)
  
• Visual creation – color / light / volume all matter in a composition. Aesthetically engaging is an act of seduction (non-long term relationship).
  
• Accomplish 12 frame edit , but also create an engaging system.
  
• How do you create a visual system that will engage the viewer enough to make someone stop and think about the piece? (6 senses – intellectual sense as an additive) Think, reflect, and respond.
  
• Multiple Distribution systems (does it look good on 3" and 14')
  

SIDE NOTE: Over break, I was in Seattle and went to a show. The opening band was called "Awesome", and they came out in tuxedos with red ties, and starting doing all sorts of weird things. When they first came out they all had red balloons they released, and throughout the show they had weird objects like doorbells they were playing with, and one guy pretty much did a seizure dance. It was ENTERTAINING to say the least, and I thought "I like these guys". I got home and listened to their CD's and I said to myself, hm.. I guess they are more of a performance band because I didn't really enjoy the music outside of the show, but I would see them in concert again for sure!

WELCOME TO THE UMAINE IPODU NMD430 BLOG

Hello,

I had Matt Leavitt set this up so there is a kind of virtual meeting space for the class you all can interact with each other and post comments and we can use this for non-linear discussions

cheers all-