information shadows - a brief digest

updated as of : 2015.06

2015_01_install_wall

where is the interface? why can't a wall be an interface? how about a space, a void? is that not an interface? things are unfinished. some patterns seem to be emerging. talk is not about the things, object/images or otherwise, that occupy the wall but more about the ideas which surround them. the embedded meaning or rather the residual value which they impart. their place in the context of greater meaning or whether they even have a place within the space they temporarily inhabit? how to transport a viewer elsewhere? i enjoy encountering a space and making decisions in the moment. how much content to include? where should they be positioned? what is their relation to each other? is there one? a minimalist aesthetic? can one object/image carry that much weight? ...

... i was told to wait ...

images below from 'global / local' summer seminar whitecliffe college of arts and design mfa mid-course submission : 2015.02.16-22 : install at Pearce Gallery and SGBR Studio, 130 Georges Bay road, parnell, auckland

Information shadows

Our thirst for knowledge and our appetite for understanding is what has propelled humanity forward. As we continue to broaden the knowledge based economies of our interconnected lives the data and information we manufacture acts as a conduit where the content we exchange contains a new form of labour. This ‘user activated labour’ results from a transaction where the value of exchange is not immediately one of economics but rather an exchange of information ripe for harvesting. Objects and resources are embedded with an information shadow and as we engage with our data driven society we extend the value of any given resource beyond its sole purpose as a commodity. The information presented here acts as a mediating point and seeks to explore the possibilities where concepts and ideas might exist beyond the boundaries of their function and intent. The accompanying QR codes link to a digital space where ideas exist in another dimension. These black and white cryptographs act as an interface between a physical world and the digital universe.

You will need to download a QR reader to your device to scan and follow the links.

blended-theory

update: 2015.06

This project began as the Data Syphons project.01 on blended-theory. It has since been absorbed into the transparency in exile: eighty-eight or there abouts project. They straddle the same subject matter and as these projects continue to be refined they will migrate into more specific lines of inquiry.

stretched vistas

shape / colour / modular

stand-ins / and other thoughts

data /

modular /

chatter /

fractured /

in search of data

For centuries humans have been collecting data. Ever since the first scientists, cartographers and philosophers began to question the boundaries of their existence and to explore the possibilities of the unknown, humans have been collecting, classifying and documenting their observations.

Today we continue to explore the possibilities of pushing our boundaries further outward where we extensively collect the bits and bytes of our interactions. In a series of online projects, blended-theory aims to open up a dialogue around the function of data in the contemporary; who is collecting it, what is it being used for and how might it shape us as we unknowingly participate in a world immersed in the shift to a digital existence.

dataSyphon_03

/ project . 01 encouraging a culture of : remix / sampling / sharing / zero copyright.

non-logical axioms / machine images ...

a pair of skis

2014.09.13 – 17 

recomposited : from code to cortex to cognition

As we navigate the contemporary our reliance on our devices to mediate between our reality and imagined environments has become more and more evident as we shift from an analogue interaction into a digital interface. Our new devices facilitate a transaction whereby they operate as the inputs and outputs to our everyday life. They function as both a gathering device and as the transmitters of information which not only manifests itself through the vast amount of data we consume but also through the treatment and proliferation of images in our contemporary media.

seeing machines

[gallery type="slideshow" link="file" ids="1361,1358,1357,1359"]

In navigating the social milieu of data and information we are prone to the loop of our own desires, ignoring the events that mark time, define our present and shape our past. Our archival data driven societies act as the registrars of our narratives and as we traverse these topologies we inevitably leave traces and fragments of our existence behind ... /

These bits and bytes of residue manifest themselves within the digital space, which embodies a divergent reality in that we become obsolete in the volume of its existence yet simultaneously define its very being through our participation. This bifurcation can be compared to the horizon which marks the boundary between grounded reality and the unseen future, expressing itself as an imaginary line, one that reflects the uncertainties of discovery, like Columbus searching for new lands, Cartesian maps or the genesis of mathematical formulae ... / Increasingly we are becoming reliant on our digital devices to interpret space, light, colour, and events for us and through this technology, which reframes and reinterprets what and how we see via a network of pixels, data and code, we are engineering the ‘seeing machines’ of our circumstances which not only defines how and what we see but also challenges our perception of the present and continually reconfigures our approach to the future.

As part of an ongoing research into the social and technological shift occurring within contemporary culture, these installations act as a form of documentation that investigates the transference we are enacting as we continually move from an analog existence into the digital interface ... /

cval12_seraching_cover

debris : flotsam and jetsam

What is it that we leave behind? the emotions of sorrow and loss? the physicality of presence, a smell? a touch, an embrace? ... / how do we know what it is that we leave behind and how do others resurrect those discarded bits, bytes, functions and intentions? ... / time erodes and memories fade  ... / some things are no longer wanted, exiled from our blithe consumerist attitudes, banned, abolished, replaced ... / some things, like events and occurrences move from our fundamental reasoning to the periphery of our understanding, where connections are marginal, where our synapses carefully choose which bonds to make, which modules should be inserted and which should be discarded ... / a bit like space junk or residual matter that echoes Cauchy’s theory of complex analysis, a holomorphic function mapped under stress ... / or maybe, precisely that ... far too complex ... /

but... what of the data we leave ignored, that has no visible function, no commercial gain? where do those pixelated social couplings reside? .../ how do we aggregate a digital space to act as revealers of truth, the space where the machine and I, me and you, us and them coexist? ... / does this ‘virtual reality’ remove, neglect, disregard the need for responsibility, facilitate and defer rationality and compound understanding? ... / does the augmentation confuse or does it allow us to hide behind a code, a syntax, a digit of ideology, a hyperlink which offers us the promise of elsewhere?

Science, religion, philosophy, and politics have all attempted to reveal our truths for us ... / digital technologies attempt to democratize knowledge, to placate our need for acceptance and to insinuate where truth might be found ... / it also becomes a source for commodification and provides the illusion of wealth which further expands our concepts of hope, of our desire for acceptance and our need for homogenization ... / the digital space can also foster our ambitions for a more egalitarian existence and act as a companion, a catalyst for revolt and for dissent .../ it can be a subversive voice echoing millions of disenfranchised, a witness to the uprise ... / it represents itself in the hyperreal, the gloss of perfection, the glow of the screen and the flawless world of software, digital enhancements and predefined filters ... / it mirrors a conflicting environment, one which not only represents the oppressed and the objector but one that also acts as a conduit for the abandonment of liability and the deferral of accountability ... /

But maybe, things are far more innocent than they appear? like the sign that’s no longer there leaving a question as to why it was removed or what it may have said / or the condensation of air trapped inside a community notice inviting us to participate in an initiative which is no longer legible ... / or the discarded boxes, bits of wood, the off-cuts of structures which have lost their function ... / or maybe they mimic society’s flotsam and jetsam, a hello, a goodbye, a conversation, the hope for something new, something more immediate ... / or are these things far more real, like the scars that never heal or the words which linger long after the battlefield ... / or possibly a broken bit of code or the cadence of eloquent voices crushed, subdued ... / or the truth which lies in a sea of mistrust or the imagined which evaporates in the deserts of our minds eye? is it a mark of intent, a symbol of progress, a pixel exploded, a fragment of time? or perhaps it is just another image, just another byte for consumption, just one more bit of repetitive commodity, just one more digit that implicates us in our relation with the here and now ( / )

a gap between rationality and obscurity

[gallery type="slideshow" size="full" ids="1101,1102,1103,1104,1105,1106,1107,1108,1109"]

How to preserve anonymity amongst social circles and some observations on social networking within online art magazines : A reinterpretation of Kiss and Make-up BRUSSELS 05.06.14 <#> artist I think I should know or think I would like to know, curators who I think I would like to know but will never know, art consultants who I would like to know what they do and others who know artists and curators and consultants whom I will never know. Doctored portraits of individuals from events I was never at but think I should be at or possibly think I just might like to be at. <#> Basel 2014. Images retrieved from http://www.artforum.com/diary/. All photo Julian Elias Bronner, unless stated otherwise. In collaboration with all participants whether they know it or not.

experiments in motion :

abandoned technologies : a lonely construct acts as a sensor, receiving inputs from an invisible source, air and wind activate its function . do these unseen forces intervene? if so, in what? are we complicit? what do we do with the things we leave behind? the things we have ignored? the objects which have been infected, lost their function? ( # )

a critical self analysis of process, intent and outcomes ...

Capturing images from the interface intrigued me and the possibilities that came from those investigations led me to think more about digital corruption/debris and the loss of clarity and intent; of the role of the artist as voyeur and documenter/observer and the possibilities that the screen provides, to not only extend and alter reality, but to also act as a catalyst for dissent and a vehicle for transporting change. // These moving images serve as a platform for further explorations into the interface and the unseen. They require further inquiry and they raise more questions than providing any tangible answers. The space that resides between intent and action, code and cortex is complex and within there lies a mass of unknown and untested possibilities which pass us by without a register or a trace.

preliminary research ::

A Scalable Image Processing Framework for Gigapixel Mars and Other Celestial Body Images, Mark W. Powell, Ryan A. Rossi† and Khawaja Shams, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, {Mark.W.Powell, Ryan.A.Rossi, Khawaja.S.Shams}@ jpl.nasa.gov : http://ryanrossi.com/papers/SIPF-Mars-JPL-IEEE.pdf ( | )

Scalable Pixel-based Visual Interfaces: Challenges and Solutions. Mike Sips, J¨orn Schneidewind, Daniel A. Keim1, Heidrun Schumann2 1{sips,schneide,keim}@dbvis.inf.uni-konstanz.de, University of Konstanz 2 schumann@informatik.uni-rostock.de, University of Rostock . Germany https://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/xmlui/bitstream/handle/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-69112/Scalable_Pixel_based_Visual_Interfaces.pdf?sequence=1

IDL Reference Guide: IDL Direct Graphics Devices http://northstar-www.dartmouth.edu/doc/idl/html_6.2/Devices_with_Scalable_Pixels.html

Toolglass and Magic Lenses: The See Through Interface – Eric A. Bier, Maureen C. Stone, Ken Pier, William Buxton†, Tony D. DeRose‡, Xerox PARC, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304 †University of Toronto, ‡University of Washington : http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=166126

Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. (ACM). / CHI '95 Proceedings : http://www.sigchi.org/chi95/proceedings/top.html

pause / reflect ::

It is generally accepted that a perceived negative experience is what holds the most weight; those contradictory thoughts that challenge an intent and question a result. In turn, this conflict might then take up residence in the realm of memory and as it is analysed, categorised and positioned within a framework of reference, it begins to expose itself to reveal its true intent. This disclosure can take ideas beyond the opaque which helps to initiate a continuum that compliments a practice and expands thought. These observations can also be the spark that propels ideas forward, in new directions. These challenges form part of a network which constantly relies on the surge of cause and effect, the connection of inputs and outputs, flows of information and flows of existence. These relations can be perceived as being organic, technological, ecological, economic, or relational and they can be placed just about anywhere within a systems of taxonomy; they are the threads, the nodes, the elements, the modules, the constituent parts of a whole.

As the artist becomes a scientist, the filmmaker a painter, the collector a writer, the student an educator, the performer an observer, the sculptor a dancer, the actor an activist, or the conductor a musician, ad infinitum, artists can learn to enrich their practice with the knowledge that nothing is static and all things are forever intertwined. This process of self-knowing allows them to inform every project they take on and feed the need for a line of enquiry which is dedicated and focused and allows for a convergence of ideas through a process of synthesis.

Synthesis is a way of thinking and doing, of providing a vision, in which an idea or a thing, imagined or real, is seen as a coherent whole; often consisting of parts, from which thought can be developed, action can be rejected or taken, and the thing made, assembled, or constructed; either as a new creation or activity or as a duplicate or substitute of known substances. (Hall, 1997, p.18)

In 1993 I worked with the author, philosopher (although he would not consider himself one) and engineer, Carl W. Hall. His book The Age of Synthesis – A Treatise and Sourcebook would become a significant piece of writing for me. This work confirmed a myriad of thoughts which had been muddling around in my mind. It helped validate my position in relation to the shift that I believe humanity needs in order to move forward in an intelligent, thoughtful and purposeful way.

References:

Hall, C. W. (1997, Summer). The age of synthesis. The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, 17-19. Retrieved from http://www.tbp.org/pubs/Features/Su97Hall.pdf

The scalable pixel. v.2

Within these complex interrelated interactions the image is mediated by our screens, where it is no more than a ‘front-end’ abstraction of its ordinal ‘back-end’ persona. Where “the real is produced from miniaturized units, from matrices, memory banks and command models”4 and the manufacturing of perception is shaped by human hands in order to broker the socialisation of images

. connections with digital objects allows us to extend our presence into a new dimension, an encounter of occurrence and phenomena. It enables us to replicate our existence and to generate a continuum that exists well beyond the animate; an electronic mimesis, a genus of digital procreation ... // here images represent a type of 'de-coding' invoking a sense of decomposition like a corrupted glitch or a digital aberration. They express the invisible or unseen, those moments and places where activity is present and intent is purposeful but we are unable to understand their mechanisms or true outcomes ... // ready-made and found objects act as an initial reflection on the over consumption of objects in society. Some of these objects have been abandoned and superseded by newer technologies and I have re-purposed them to express the analogous nature of humanity.

4. Baudrillard, J. (1983). Simulations: The precession of simulacra.

post hoc : //

Following are some notes from meeting with David Cowlard at Whitecliffe Parkyn Library 2014.03.17.

• Co-lab collaborate with sensor tech. / contact ‘g’ :: Consider unseen spaces more / eg fm modular activated by human form :: Look at more contemporary issues/technologies. Eg missing plane/tracking etc :: Possibly move away from analogue perception / or ‘objects’ / inhabit digital space :: Watch ‘Our daily Bread’ movie of mechanization of food manufacturing :: Big data. Guardian blog. Further exploration needed :: Consider my role as artist and outcomes. / journo? / commentator? / documentary? :: Adam Westwood :: Zeega.com / animated gifs video had no searchable data where gifs DO. :: Jessie Shapin :: New American suburb x ? / Doug Rickard :: Michael Wolfe :: Jstore :: Be more open to sharing ideas :: Be less defined in outcomes :: Allow for exploration / new path ways

Earlier thoughts and further thoughts

project very much in progress... Capturing stills from video footage of attacks from CCTVs. Photographed video from web » photographed screen of camera with phone » digital corruption » voyeur

* Relating to thoughts about data loss in jpeg files. Also the auto destructive art of Gustav Metzger, digital corruption through use : the artist as voyeur / more research to do

Covert: the artist as voyeur

Carolyn McKay – University of Sydney, Australia. carolyn.mckay@sydney.edu.au

Abstract

An engagement with the aesthetics, rhetorics and methodologies of surveillance presents a canvas on which visual artists can critique, subvert or just play with emergent technologies. This paper probes artistic methodologies that implicate surveillance and the ethical tensions of appropriating the surveilled lives of strangers for creative pursuits.

Retrieved from: http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/covert

Variations: collects events from around the world / public information / transparency ? who polices the cctv and dissemination of info. Note sharing links!

error 404 :: exploratory 'sketches' investigating imagery related to individual, technology and interface ....

View fullsize

cval12-MFA-journal-01

recent   ( :: )

• the interface / connections / events / the screen / media / pop-culture >> Jack Burnham : shift from object to system // Rahaman and Tan : shift from object to experience

• the self / re-configures / Patricia Piccinini / perception >> artist as voyeur // digital procreation

• the unseen / transparency vs privacy / schleiren photography / shadowgrams / EMF / Brin

• data culture / tracking / surveillance / tools / objects / red-dot theory / movement / consumerism