Taxonomies

The author uses taxonomication in order to create a framework to diagramize the different variables of interactive performances. Diagrams show the possible connections between different elements and makes it possible to break into steps. The article is a good source to learn about the media usage with key terms in order to distinguish the purpose of different channels

“For example, we might chart the array of interactions associated with a single dramatic function, such as dramatic media or coextensive media; or, alternatively, we may sort the interactions according to time and space and treat dramatic function as a subsidiary variable. The taxonomy is entirely nonhierarchical. No combination of variables is more fundamental than any other, and none of the variables or perspectives is privileged.” (pp. 123)

The taxonomy provides a clarification to finalize the endless possibilities of interaction. Therefore, it is possible to define the hierarchy of variables, in order to break the work into steps. Also the role of the audience (and performer) within the work can be defined in various ways.

Use of media as an autonomous object or instrument is a choice of the designer. Being aware of the distinction between the channels and consideration of time and space brings an advanced level of consciousness to work.


Pressure Project 1 __ Taylor

Under Pressure, dun dun dun dadah dun dun
Alright… so I got super frustrated fiddling around in Isadora and my system ended up being what I learned from my failures in the first go round. Which was nice because I was able to plan based on what I couldn’t and didn’t want to do, leading me to make simpler choices. It seemed like everyone was enthusiastically trying to grok how to interact with the system. It felt like it kept everyone entertained and pretty engaged for more than 3 minutes. ? Some of the physical responses to my system were getting up on the feet, flailing about, moving left to right and using the depth of the space, clapping, whistling, and waving. Some of the aesthetic responses to my system were that the image reminded them of a microscope or a city. I tried to use slightly random and short intervals of time between scenes and build off of simple rules and random generators (and slight variations of the like), in an attempt to distract the brain away from connecting the pattern. For a time it seemed this proved successful, but after many cycles and finding out the complexities were more perceived than programmed enthusiasm waned. I really enjoyed this project and the ideas of scoring and iterations that accompanied it.
Actors I jotted down, that I liked in others processes: {user input/output/ create inside user actor}{counter/certain#of things can trigger}{alpha channel/ alpha mask}{chroma keying/ color tracking}{motion blur / can create pathways with rate of decay ? }{gate / can turn things on/off}{trigger value}
Reading things:
media object- representation
interaction, character, performer
scene, prop, Actor, costume, and mirror
space & time | here, there, or virtual / now or then
location anchored to media (aural possibilities), instrumental relationship, autonomous agent/ responsive, merging to define identity (cyborg tech), “the medium not only reflects back, but also refracts what is given” (love this). “The interplay between dramatic function / space / time is the real power — expansive range of performative possibilities …< <107/8ish.. maybe>>

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RSVP Cycles

“Scores are symbolizations of processes.” I’ve been taught that process has a crucial importance in design education. Documenting and reflecting the process help the student and instructor to understand the possible improvements of the design piece. Therefore RSVP cycle of each project will affect the learning process and future work. For instance, the main focus of an MFA thesis is getting a documented score as an outcome. It might be a project, research or both but it should be documented with thesis writing. Resources should be analyzed through secondary research. Scores should be documented in order to show the process of getting the actual outcome and valuaction of process enhance the possible revisions of outcome. Finally performance is the documented thesis work and possible solution or the project itself. Learning from the process and also reflecting process is possible through RSVP cycle.

“Scores face the possible, goals face the impossible.” Also scores make the impossible possible because success requires time and improvement of process.

“Scores are ways of symbolizing reality of communicating experience through devices other than the experience itself.” Then I assume that the software is a score. Very interesting.


SVRPVRPSV cycles

Resources/  Scores/ Valuaction/ Performance

The fact of understanding many activities and everyday components of our lives as a set of Scores, to me is a curious possibility.  From our shopping lists to class schedules, to bar menus, phone contacts and directions on Google maps, the cues that drive the direction of our daily processes can be seen and triggered as cue-based instances.  As if we were playing the visuals of our daily performances controlled by the resources of our body-driving decisions.  I agree that all parts of the process constantly interact having no specific order.  How else would art creation happen if not?  There are no specific rules for this.  At least on my opinion.


RSVP

Resources: human& physical resources and their motivation& aims.
Scores: process leading to the performance. Plan. Code.
Valuaction: analyzes the results of action and possible selectivity& decisions. Action/decision oriented. Feedback.
Performance: resultant of sources and is the “style” of the process.

I liked thinking of the scores as “symbolizations of processes which extend over time.”
Scores/Process derive essential qualities from a deep involvement in activity. Scores communicate process, making it visible.
Feedback. Analysis is needed before, during, and after for growth and change.

ICEBERG!! This concept is important to me. How do we read the bottom of the ice berg in works (performance/art). “9/10 invisible but vital to achievement”

Dichotomy between score/performance has been on my mind and in my work for a while. Still figuring it out, maybe it’s not a dichotomy, but simply plan/instance – still, there is so much embedded in the instance of performance and all that has proceeded.
“human communications – including values and decisions as well as performance – could be accounted for in process”

Scores – it’s about what the score controls and what is left to chance; what is determinate and left indeterminate / variables of foreseen and unforeseeable events; and to the feedback process which initiates a new score.
Scores are ways of symbolizing reality — of communicating experience through devices other than the experience itself.

first score, then performance – inextricably interrelated

Space / Time / Present / Future
Inner and Outer Motivational Worlds

“When the word as a scoring device becomes a generator of feedback between people rather than an ordering or injunctive mechanism” “Vast new areas of understanding open up…”
“Valuaction in the cycle is operating to the exclusion of the score itself. New understandings of how “active listening procedures” and “congruent sending messages” can “open up” dialogue are at the core of the new view of words as communicative rather than controlling devices.” (emphasis mine)

Ongoingness *relationship to the future
-Multiplicity of input as our guides.

“The established scoring techniques determine what the limits of the art form can be.”


There is Only Software Response

I understand what is being said by Manovich.  However I refuse to accept this answer.  I think that a more accurate statement is that in this day and age only software and hardware in tandem can achieve success.  Software relies upon the physical realities of a machine.  This is why new hardware is constantly being developed.  For example attempt to run the current iteration of itunes on a generation 1 ipod.  Very little success will be had.  However hardware is only successfully implemented in tandem with software.  A kinect while sensing images cant communicate that to anyone without software to analyze and synthesize the data.


Reading Responses Week 4

The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991-1995)

The part that stuck out to me the most in this reading is what Davis said at the very end. “Separated from each other by space and time, people find themselves able to say what often cannot be said face to face.” The way people treat the internet these days is a form of self-expression. It’s easier to show your true colors when you have the ability to block anyone who has anything negative to say about it. Being able to express a loss through some form, even if it’s the internet, is freeing. I actually just had an experience like this for myself when my grandmother passed away. Not only was it nice for me to say what I needed to say, but to see the amount of positive feedback is heartening.

An Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Education and Research Initiative for Experiential Media

I’m a fan of designing things with purpose and not trying to create something that could possibly relate. This research is specifically geared towards research problems. This seems like a great approach to help people in need, but not in a boring way. I would assume feedback from whoever is in need would be much stronger, thus a more complex evolution of the system.

The RSVP Cycles

This reading is a little all over the place for me. I don’t think I quite grasp the RSVP cycles. Mainly because I don’t understand the purpose of “S” and “V.” The line “one of the gravest dangers that we experience is the danger of becoming goal oriented” is somewhat agreeable. Designing without a purpose seems wasteful if you’re designing for others. If one is designing for themselves, and themselves alone, then I can see how that can be applicable.


Some notes

RSVP Cycles – Lawrence Halprin
Scores

  • as symbolizations of process e.g. musical, grocery list, calendar, this book
  • as method of making process visible
  • can communicate processes over space-time
  • Hope for socres as way of designing large-scale environments
  • Must allow for feedback
  • as potential communication device

Environment + dance-theater

  • non-static
  • process-oriented (not result-oriented)
  • values present, but not demonstrable

Resources
Scores
Valueaction
Performance

Order can be any. e.g PRSV

Cycle works at two levels: self, group
– meant to be free–making processes visible

Danger: becoming goal-oriented… scores are non-utopian; they’re idealistic, hope-oriented

Score: system of symbols to convey/guide/control interactions between elements: space, time, rhythm, and their sequences, people and activities, and the combinations that result

 

An Arts Sciences, Engineering Educational Research Initiative for Experiential Media by Rikakis, Spanias, Sundaram, He (2006)

Summary: training approach f/ integrating computation & media in physical human experience

  • driven by research problems
  • based on interdisciplinary network
  • research and application
  • transdisciplinary training

Experiential Media: systems that integrate computation and digital media in physical media experience

Three trends in computation:

  • novel embedded interfaces e.g. gesture, movement, voice, sketches, etc
  • human e.g. computing communication at level of meaning (rather than level of information)
  • participational knowledge creation and content e.g. generation frameworks

Research model 5 areas

  • Sensing: human word & physical activity
  • Perception and modeling
  • Feedback
  • Experiential construction
  • Learning and knowledge

Expertise needed:

  • sensing: engineers
  • media communication & experiential construction: artists
  • perception, cognition, learning: psychology & education experts

Arizona State University has Arts, Media, Engineering (AME) program

Application of this training-research: health, education, social communication, everyday living, culture, arts

Need new folks trained in this

 

The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction by Douglas Davis (1991-5)

No longer clear conceptual distinction between original and reproduction – both states are “fictions”

Not “virtual” — actually, virtual is “RR”: Realer Reality

The World’s First Collaborative Sentence ….

Digital reproduction is without degradation: always same/perfect

Empower imagination, not reason –> new tools e.g. printed word invented led hundreds of years later to Ulysses

Reader becomes author on internet –> information is decentralized

We can walk, think, feel virtual world same as human-made world

Deconstruction itself has its own value

When live performers leave the stage and there’s a “live feed” of them backstage, we are unsure whether it’s taped for live e.g. Blue Man Group

Status of first person is still valued

“poststructuralism” “postmodernism” “post-avant-garde” “appropriation”…

* aura resides “not in the thing itself but in the originality of the moment we see, hear, read, repeat, and revise” (386)


Davis, ASU and Halprin Thoughts

ART IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL REPRODUCTION- DAVIS

First of all, Davis, do not cast against an age when you claim original art is vanish(ed)ing and then refuse to distinguish ‘The Queen of Touch” who’s identity you claim you “don’t need.” Interesting choice to lead with a dash of hypocrisy.

I found his train of thought around transferring his own work from analog to digital as a revisionist tool interesting. The ‘post-original original.’ I think the ability to reflect and change is not so much indicative of the technology but the time he lived in where there was a major shift of technology. Nothing before was stopping an edit but the transference caused him to reflect.

2 out of 4 stars

ASU READING:RIKAKIS, SPANIAS, SUNDARAM, HE  

This article was a great read for me and aptly timed as I am struggling to finding where to engage at the forefront of my Graduate studies. The organizational axes was a great way to visualize where I can cross train in my own strengths and where and how to outsource.

The article was helpful (for me) to engage with a more clear language of what I am looking to attain by studying experiential (and all medias) outside of my discipline or current skill set. Especially the three key trends:

  1. Novel embedded interfaces (interaction through meaningful multimodal physical activity)
  2. Human computing communication at the level of meaning
  3. Participational knowledge creation and content generation frameworks.

3 out of 4 stars

THE RSVP CYCLES- HALPRIN

“… free the creative process by making it visible.”

This could be effective if one feels creatively blocked but opposite perhaps by defining and restraining the possibilities/order.

“Science implies codification of knowledge and drive toward perfectibility…”

No? Science is hypothesis, experiment, posing questions  and attempting to try and find answers to them?

This article was incongruent and kind of repetitive for me, 1 out of 4 stars. 


Dialogue with Machines- Krieg, Response

Cognitive systems do not record data but generate it as an emergent result of their operations.

So, in a perfect world (according to Krieg), a computer can become a cultural probe?

I like the idea that ‘user friendly’ is not a suggestion of more advanced systems but a gimmick. It opens my view finder a bit to what is possible in my own set of skills/languages to create an EMS.  If these ideas don’t ‘change the underlying architecture’ what happens to a system when we approach it from a design aesthetic side then see what technologies and systems are available to actuate it. This is kind of that antithesis of the article because I no longer need a reasoning dialogue with the machine, but nonetheless it was a train of thought.

Plus, don’t all robots (fictional of course, well maybe not… WHOA)  die just as they were learning to love?