We gather the quantified sound data of one environment representing its spatial information, which is embodied as an object in a second environment. The character of the quantified sound data determines the scale, density and shape of the object. Then we extract from it the sound data of our most noticeable everyday life, human footsteps and human vocal, to trigger the choreographing process of a sound piece from different sound layers of our daily live. There are three sound layers simulating events, movement and space in the piece. The spatial information of this piece is then embodied as a second object.  It is in the second environment where people experience the different spatial quality from the sound piece; the differentiated affect and inter-playing relationship of the two objects.

Video ( with sound piece )

Photos of 3D print model

Reviews of project from invited guests:

-Approaches of memory toward the surface: at the moment the surface is reacting to people’s actions, but may be should consider the other way around i.e. having the surface as the activator and affect people’s actions

-Should define the definition of memories and narrow down the area of exploration on memory

-Imaginations: it can be a project to explore the possibilities of opening up our imaginations to a new way of approaching the architecture discipline

Responses / brainstorming:

- I thought about the approach of having the surface as an activator to affect people’s actions. What will then be the differences of it from having people’s actions affecting the transformation and motion of the surface?

-Definitions of memory:

Etymology: Middle English memorie, from Anglo-French memoire, memorie, from Latin memoria, from memor mindful; akin to Old English gemimor well-known, Greek mermēra care, Sanskrit smarati he remembers

1 a : the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms b : the store of things learned and retained from an organism’s activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behavior or by recall and recognition
2 a : commemorative remembrance <erected a statue in memory of the hero> b : the fact or condition of being remembered <days of recent memory>
3 a : a particular act of recall or recollection b : an image or impression of one that is remembered <fond memories of her youth> c : the time within which past events can be or are remembered
4 a : a device (as a chip) or a component of a device in which information especially for a computer can be inserted and stored and from which it may be extracted when wanted; especially : ram b : capacity for storing information <512 megabytes of memory>
5 : a capacity for showing effects as the result of past treatment or for returning to a former condition —used especially of a material (as metal or plastic)

Source from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/memory

-Memory in more developed sense:

Memory and Timescapes

http://urbantick.blogspot.com/2009/12/memory-timescapes.html

-imagination = yes

Some references for ideas:

Multiple ways of playing the idea of memory

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~infoarts/links/motion/motartists.html

Computing an identity

Delayed reflection of self of the participant overlayed with previous those of previous participants. When the space is not occupied, the installation started reconstructing from images of previous events into series  interpreted events like those in dreams.

http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/computing-an-identity-tetsuro-nagata.html

Travel in Light

- light and shadows on stilled images of different landscapes played out the illusions of participants being in different places.

http://www.mediamatic.net/page/17238/en

Pockets full of memory.

Collection and arrangment of vast memories from the globe. The Participants inserted  images of possessions through internet to this central computer. The program set out for the images to move around and search for others with similar characters. The installation became a self organizing map through the whole duration of installation.

http://www.mediaartnet.org/works/pockets-full-of-memory/

Protozoagames

Interactive installation having human to follow the act of protozoa and vice versa. An very interesting installation.

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson/art/protozoagames/protogames10.html

Video of protozoagames:

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson/art/protozoagames/proto.playmov.html

Realm-1

Collection and arrangment of vast memories of people or events. A model of the processing of incoming images: storing, naming, ordering, structuring, experiencing, sedimentation and erosion. It is a (re)construction of memory, built from 266,144 photographs, taken over a period of 4 years, on different levels of being handled.

http://videomedeja.org/en/realm-1-part-1

Silicon Remembers Carbon

http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/src.html

“… the video source is made up from 2 streams of MPEG-2 compressed video, resident in RAM on a computer. The live mix between the two video sources is defined by a third video stream composed in real-time by a second computer. This mix-defining stream is made up in various ways of cross-frame dissolves (as in the first version) and silhouettes. The silhouettes are derived from the images of 4 video cameras positioned one on each side of the projection as though looking over the shoulders of people standing around the image. The sand/screen is lit with infra-red light by 4 infrared illuminators and the cameras have infrared-pass filters. Thus the sand is seen by the cameras a brightly lit back-drop against which people’s shadows are dark. Instead of casting shadows of darkness, people cast shadows of video, cutting the hidden layer of video into the visible one.”

Watch

http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/watch.html

“The video processes both present distortions of the perception of time. In one, the only things visible are things that are standing still. The effect is that of long-exposure photography, except that the image is truly live, changing subtly at every video frame. People that are moving are blurs or fogs across the image. People that are still are seen clearly.

The second process is the conceptual inverse of the first. People are only visible if they are in motion. They float as outlines of themselves in a dimensionless black void, and disappear again as soon as they are still.

The two images are projected with the first image beside the second, and with the second image flipped horizontally to mirror the first image.

There is the sound of a watch, a clock, a heartbeat and light breathing.

When the images are in this state, they are mutually exclusive. A person cannot exist in both images at once. The relationship between the two images may in fact be difficult to discern.

There is a motion sensor detecting motion in the installation space. At key moments (for example at the start of movement after a period of stillness), the processes are changed. Accompanied by the sound of a camera shutter, the two images become, for a moment, the real live video images so that the mirroring is properly established. Then the upper image starts blurring increasingly across time until it returns to its “long exposure” state. The lower image shows the outlines of the static aspects of the space as well (a sort of schematic of the context in which that motion exists.) then returns to only showing motion. These effects will happen only occasionally since I want the dominant relationship between the public and this installation to be one of “watching”, not acting.”

Hallucination

- virtually put people’s images on fire and an image of a non-existing woman were projected onto the “burning” images

http://www.jimcampbell.tv/

Via parallel projected environments, A & A’, we’d like to register and re-inform activity within the real world.  People within the physical environment will activate an energy network through sound and motion.  This energy will affect variable surface characteristics (tension, scale, color, etc.) within the environments and ultimately result in a sound output back into the space.  By incorporating the ideas of delay, fading, and repetition we aim to simulate the metabolic factors of people’s mind state, perception and memory as they exist in the networked energy between the physical room, virtual environment A, and the analogous virtual environment A’.

We perceive our surroundings, process them and react to them through our experiences, memories and intuitions. In turn, the surroundings change our perceptions and actions. Every element within these interactive relationships and their ways of interaction with each other has a major or minor significance in generating our behaviors.With the gradual recognition on philosophies of Hume and Deleuze regarding continuity in time and space, non-linear relationships between parts (inputs/outputs) and possible capacities of self-organization from parts to whole, architects strive to create new architecture to generate new sensations and meanings through new methods, styles and forms. My interest is to create a space that has the capacity of change based on human actions and senses, this will provoke human transform their role from passively to actively involvement; andto explore the possibility and effect of morphosis within the virtual realm of architecture.

]]> http://mediascapes2010aliceyingleung.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/121/feed/ 0 alicey2010 troudever iftomrf1_300x180 http://mediascapes2010aliceyingleung.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/reading-critique-on-philosophy-emergence-and-simulation-by-manuel-delanda/ http://mediascapes2010aliceyingleung.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/reading-critique-on-philosophy-emergence-and-simulation-by-manuel-delanda/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:49:32 +0000 alicey2010 http://mediascapes2010aliceyingleung.wordpress.com/?p=116 ]]> The book explored the mechanisms of emergence and the scientific methods of its research in the philosophical realm of current time. Delanda built up his opinions and theories on the occurrence of emergence accumulatively from microscopic aspects in molecules to macroscopic aspects in social communities. He also related simulation, a scientific method of studying emergence, to computer automata technology.

There are three emergent elements within any agents and they are properties, capacities and tendencies. Properties refer to appearances and they are emerged from their composite elements. Capacities refer to the abilities, which have infinite emergent possibilities based on their actual realizations. Tendencies are similar to capacities but have finite emergent possibilities. Delanda explicated the mechanisms of emergence by using different structure of possibility spaces. As my interpretation from Delanda’s definitions on emergence, we can use graphical representations, applying onto one dimensional to three-dimensional spaces to connect these three elements based on their relationships and characters. These relationships are non-linear but in series of interlocking manners. The relationships can be applied to all things in our world as a way of research.Delanda emphasized the importance of using simulations as the method of examination and philosophy as the mechanism of explanation for emergence.

The part where he talked about emergence in languages caught my attention. What is language? He explained that the process of emergence in languages primarily began with biological evolution. The development of languages was not the purpose of evolution but a result of sexual selection, which led to development in our vocal organ and eventually our linguistic ability. This linguistic ability allowed human culture to develop, which in turn led to our cultural evolution.

According to Delanda, there are five stages in linguistic evolution. It started out when human recognized the surrounding matters through symbols, as Delanda put it “monolithic symbolic artifacts “. We, being a form of agents or medium, received the stimulations of direct experienced events whether they are objects or actions, recognized them, and generated related labels or symbols. Then through repetitive occurrences of these events, we associated events and labels in a cause and effect relationship in which events are considered as inputs and labels are considered as output. The relationship between labels and events are in linear manner. Afterwards, we developed the ability in organization and categorization due to accumulation of increased information. Our languages become complicated. One word can have several meanings. The relationship between inputs and outputs is not in linear manner but networks.

We have come to a period where we are realizing and exploring the emergence of our language leading to our cultural development is based on network connections. An input generates many outputs, several inputs generates many outputs and several inputs can generate same or similar outputs. In order to understand the meaning of an output or event, we must have a concept of the input or label. These concepts are passed on from one generation to the next as knowledge. Not only that we acquire languages from our parents and teachers but we also interpret different languages through series of parts which self-organizing themselves through pieces of our memories into greater parts and a whole, the meanings are altered from our experiences and in turn our experiences are also altered by our acquired languages. This intertwining relationship between languages, experiences and knowledge promotes emergences in individual thinking and in turn promotes our cultural evolution.

This got me thinking about how our memories and intuitions are brought into play with the emergences in human languages and cultures. I understand that our memories are collections of our experiences from the surroundings or knowledge being passed onto us. These collections of events contain some facts and some altered facts. They are transformed inside our brains before and after they are stored inside our minds. The transformations may be due to our existing knowledge about the world or they may be due to the differences in our five senses i.e. visual, audio, olfactory, touch and gustatory senses. Intuitions on the other hand are certain abilities that are being passed on genetically for generations. We possess some sorts of intuitive ability within ourselves ever since we are new born. Yet they continue to emerge throughout our life, which are then passed on to next generation. Memories play a big part in this emergence as well and in turn our intuitions affect our memories. So all these parts, languages, memories, intuitions are affecting and being affected to each other in the process of our cultural evolution as a whole.

Languages can be also applied to computer programming languages. Automata theory in computer programming language is based on the emergence theory of human languages mentioned above.Now we are able to use automata systems to produce computers or programs with artificial intelligence. Through processing and scripting, they can self-organize, interact and perform after just a trigger of a command and generate complicated patterns of actions. Yet is it possible for human to invent an automata system for AI to posses the emergent abilities of human memories, intuitions and generate a cultural evolution without any instructions? There is huge difference between language emergence of man and that of computers. We receive stimulations from the surroundings through our five senses to our brains. The receptions are quite different among each individual since we are all uniquely different genetically. Thus, we think differently and behave differently. Yet can we develop AI to do the same thing?

The visuals and the sounds corresponded to each other and coincided in the same space and time. They switch from left to right and vice versa simultaneously to create a virtual three-dimensional space.

Cecile le Prado
“Triangle” 1996, 1:41mins
“Nocturne 3” 1996, 5:16mins
“Le triangle de L’incertitude” ircam

An environmental sound piece composed with sounds from the nature such as wind. The sound of wind was the continuous element that tied up the whole piece generating a sense of space, volume, distance and movement to its audiences. There were strong and sudden alien sounds added to the continuous sound of wind presenting some events occurred.

Pauline Oliveros
“Nike” 1989, 10:36mins
deep listening

This piece was performed in a abandoned two million gallon water tank. Due to the physical character of the water tank, the existence of echo was throughout the whole piece. In the beginning, there was sound of metal scraps falling on the ground followed by the echoing, created a sense of hollowness, which also gave out hint of the sonic environment. The gradual fading of the echo and the sound of falling objects provided an interpreted depth of the space. Then there was a faint human cry followed by a sudden appearing of blowing horns, which resonated from loud to low and vice versa. All these sounds filled up the space leading to an endless imagination of events occurring constantly.

John Cage
“Imaginary Landscapes no1” 1939, 8:45mins (for 2 variable-speed phono turntables)

A slight sharp sound from the left introduced the beginning of the piece. This sound acted as a string for the whole piece kept resonated in sequences throughout. This can be a representation of the imaginary landscape. Jumpy notes that sounded like footsteps were introduced from the right as if someone was walking pleasantly on it. The sound that acted as a string suddenly became a very sharp and dramatic sound as if something or someone triggered the string. Sound of drums joined in and followed by the reappearance of footstep sounds. Some dramatic events were happening in this imaginary landscape that altered its original character as indicated by the drum sounds became more dramatic and footstep sounds became more like sound of radio broadcast.

“Imaginary Landscapes no4” 1951, 5:00mins (for 12 radios)
hatart imaginary landscapes

This piece composed of several sequences with the noises from tuning radios. In between each sequences, there was a complete silence. The noises from tuning radios were like our fast changing and complicated daily lives. We can only rest and reflect on ourselves during the moment of a complete silence. Yet this silence is not a void but solid and on the other hand, the noises from tuning radios are not solid but a void as in the hollowness of our daily lives. This can also be thought in architectural sense in which the silence is a gap while the noise is anything else. However, a gap can have a more profound significance and have more solid meaning. It is a space encouraging movement, communications and connections. Therefore, it can be seen as a tunnel connecting different stages of mind and body.

Alvin Lucier
“Music on a long thin wire” 1979, 6:43mins
OHM+, early gurus of electronic music

The sounds started from right to left while gradually increased in loudness. Even though it started out in a stereophonic format, the use of similar range of sound frequencies created a sense of plane instead of space. There was a sense of progression but also a sense of being stuck as if it was limited to only this plane. The continuous increase in loudness and vibration of the sounds indicated an effort of escape and / or step up from this plane. Quietness took over and the piece came to a sudden end. It could mean an end to all efforts but it could also represent a temporary recess, before generating next part of a series.

Brian Eno
“Unfamiliar Wind” 1978-1982, 5:21mins
OHM+, early gurus of electronic music

This piece created a sense of space or situation right from the beginning through playing two different types of sounds simultaneously in a stereophonic format. On the right was a weak humming sound gradually increased in loudness while on the left was the sound of nature gradually weakened. A sudden appearing of drum sounds struck in between presenting a profound event has happened. The humming sound became even louder while the sound of nature faded into the background. The humming sound could be interpreted as the evolution of human history in all aspects and the striking drum sounds as human interference to our nature. We increasingly invade our nature with our advanced technology and artificial products and in turn, the nature would eventually be eaten up.

Steve Reich
“Pendulum music” 1968, 5:52mins
OHM+, early gurus of electronic music

Pauline Oliveros
“Bye Bye butterfly” 1965, 8:02mins
OHM+, early gurus of electronic music

Weak ringing sounds suddenly became loud as if in a quiet fantasy space something was about to happen. Other alien sounds joined in followed by sound of opera and then there was sound simulated crying for help. Then the last note was reverberated for a while.

Rogelio Sosa
“Vinylika” 2003, 7:02mins
an anthology of noise & electronic music / 5th a-chronology 1920-2007

Starts with a simulation of the sound of fire, which gradually invaded the whole void as the sound, resonated from weak to strong, giving a sense of motion from far to near. Then there was the sound of explosion and followed by moments of weak jumpy notes. The sound of fire continued throughout the whole piece as a continuum of space while the sound of explosion was repeated in sequences and the jumpy notes acted out as a sort of start/pause or gap in between. During each sequence, more noises were added.

Tati choreographed all the working people to walk in straight lines, which was even more obvious when they turned corners. They followed the straight lines of the fabricated environment. They walked upright strictly without any excess motions, much like robots. As opposed to nature, where curvilinear exists and straight lines exists only in man-made environment.

The whole film was based on a made-believed futuristic Paris and Tati stressed this point by making the backgrounds in a grayish metallic color. Every building in this futuristic city was tall and box-liked forms constructed of steel, glass and concrete. There were occasional appearances of colors in the flower kiosk, on tourists hats and clothes; occasional appearances of Paris historical landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower from reflections of glass from buildings which symbolized the residues from our previous humanity.

The film was connected through switching scenes between two main characters, Monsieur Hulot who was Tati’s trademark film character since his film “Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot” and a female American tourist. There was not much of a plot here but more of different events happening in a day for these two characters. Yet these events have brought about Tati’s main theme of how technology advancement had affected our daily life into a twisted and ridiculous way.

In that particular day in which the film evolved around, Monsieur Hulot went to an office building to meet with the American officials. He was asked to wait in a waiting room on the ground floor of the building. Three sides of the room were large full height glass windows and through these windows, Hulot could see out to the adjacent street and observe every movement of people and traffic on the street. Tati skillfully applied long shots, which were his only type of shots he used in this film, to provoke a sense of visual accessibility but physical separation or connection from Hulot to the outside. The new box-liked buildings were in fact cages encaging people within. The large glass windows were an illusion of man connecting with the outside but in fact, they were barriers. Similar play outs also occurred during scenes when he bumped into his old friend from the military and was invited into his apartment that night. It was just like any apartment except that it was on ground floor next to a street with a large full height window allowing them to see out but at the same time, people on the street could view their activities inside the apartment. It was a condition where one being the observer and the observed simultaneously. Normally, the apartment should have been a shelter for them and separate them from outside. However, due to the unusual large size and transparency of the glass window, the people living inside became displays like those in shopping windows. Tati pointed out that man were blind by the new technologies and materials and created everything in a very similar manner without considering needs of different individuals and conditions.

The development of new architecture from these new technology and materials had created a monolithic man-made world which were cold and brain washing our sensitivities. Hulot got lost even within the office building. He tried to find his way back to his meeting place with the official only to find himself lost in a maze of identical maze like cubicles. These cubicles were enclosed with low walls on four sides but with open tops. One was only able to distinguish the different cubicles from above as the people and their motions were seen. However, once at the same level as the cubicles, they looked identical and there was no way to distinguish them. Not only architecture but also everything within the city was monolithic as well. They drove exact same models of cars, dressed the same and moved in same manner. There were no differential elements or own characters among them. The loss of sensitivities was played out wittily in the scenes in which Hulot got on a bus but mistakenly grabbed hold of a lamppost as a support bar not realizing throughout the whole bus ride.

The excitement of modern technology led people blindly created more impractical gadgets as those displayed in the exhibition scenes, such as a broom with two headlights, bendable glasses and silenced doors. Not only these products deferred from serving their purposes but also impractical additional gadgets had complicated human lives. The last portion of the film happened in a restaurant which was supposed to be well designed, modern and high-class but the owner opened the restaurant while it was still under construction in which all chaotic events happened. What we thought as a thoroughly calculated, well-designed space was in fact impractical.

These two films belong to Reggio’s triology series. Koyaanisqatsi was the first one and Naqoyqatsi was the last one in the series. Reggio used the same filming techniques for both films. There were no plots for both films. The themes were brought about through visual effects and music. Koyaanisqatsi was about life out of balance from the development of new technology and Naqoyqatsi was about violence as a way of life. Fast-forward scenes practically were Reggio’s main technique for both films. Two still elements, one mobile element and the time duration were the essences to produce the dramatic and profound effect of these fast-forward scenes. This brought out the relation between space and time. In fast-forward scenes of cities and traffics, there was not any spare space available in contrast with those of nature. Even though they were taken under same time durations, the movements of nature elements such as clouds and water were pleasing to our eyes and senses whereas the movements of artificial elements such as cars, machines and city crowds were suffocating. If the time durations and space were the same, could it be that the fast speed of our daily lives and modern technology leaving human no space to breath? Could it be then the beauty of nature overcast that of artificial products to which they just cannot match up? These two films led us to question the reasons behind all.

Two major differences between these two films. One was that in Naqoyqatsi which produced twenty years after Koyaanisqatsi, was more or less in the format of a computerized visual presentation. This was an interesting method Reggio took on, that was by using technology as a tool to support his theme of the ability of modern technology to destroy humanity. Naqoyqatsi led viewers to enter this virtual world of disturbance and confusing state of real and unreal. The other difference was playing out of sequences. In Koyaanisqatsi, it was sequenced in a orderly manner but in Naqoyqatsi, the sequences were more random. This randomness provoked a sense of networking and interweaving in a three dimensional manner. It is because the randomness arrangement of sequences led the viewers jump from one time frame to another and from one space to another.

http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/

http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/films/naqoyqatsi.php

The film started with shots of flashing screens with calls of help about danger of humanity. Then there were sequences of shots showing Booboo being out in her mission and Yogi in his laboratory coordinating the whole operation of rescuing humanity. The sequences changed from Booboo’s where about to that of Yogi’s alternatively. The screens on Booboo were in color and those on Yogi were black and white. The interchanging of color to black and white screens correlated with the changes in time and space and at the same time as a way of representing movement or journey verses stability. Booboo was in a journey back to her father’s lab while finding ruins of human civilizations on the way while Yogi remained in his lab searching for ways of rescuing humanity.

Throughout the whole film, pieces of documentaries and TV episodes on news, scientific discoveries and new media from different times in human history were played out in fast speed. It was like a flash memory of human history extracted from our brains and being shown in front of our eyes. The fast forward method that the director used here brought us through decades of time within the duration of the film. It had led us travel through different times and space within a flash of a second. This led the audiences to experience what has been ignored or forgotten, that is our living styles and ways of thinking are hugely influenced by the change in technology without realizing it. To Baldwin, these changes are decaying our humanity and it was what the film was about. The New Electromagnetic Order represented the mass technological influences on our brain and was going to destroy our humanity. The plot of going back in time and space to search for the hidden solution in the Science in Action was a way of saying that we can still save our humanity by looking back through history of changes and technology. In the film, Baldwin clearly stated his purpose of the film in which he believed the media was ruining our humanity, as stated in the film “ …free the imagination, damn the media world…” Also the last part of the film, the rising and enterprising of internet in 1990s by Bill Gates. Not only brought decays to our global world but also individual.Baldwin believed that there is still hope to humanity as the film ended with Yogi finally found the hidden clue in the “ Science in Action “ and that they were able to save the humanity.