Cosmogramma

One of the artists I will be researching, Leigh, J. McCloskey

Silencing the Sounded Self

A few months ago I found a book called 'Silencing the Sounded Self - John Cage and the American Experimental Tradition' by Christopher Shultis in a second hand Art bookshop in Malta. I bought it after skimming through a few pages because I thought it might be useful for my research. I started reading it this weekend. So far it has helped me see the difference between a Coexisting experimental artist, and a Controlling experimental artist - it also explains in detail what is meant by experimental artists (musical artists in the case of this book - but it can also apply to visual artists). Essentially something that has no goal; something open to the unintentional. The beautiful thing about it is that it encourages exploration of the unknown, and I think that having no precise goal and no tight restrictions will result in a much more organic and genuine project.

I have also come across an artist that I had not heard about before; Christian Boltanski. I haven't read a lot about him so far, but I am currently looking at some of his work on youtube.

What I am reading...

I am currently reading "Contemporary practices - Art as Experience" by Paul Ardenne, Pascal Beausse and  Laurent Goumarre (translated from French)

Although I am finding it slightly difficult to read, I can understand what the authors are trying to say. I guess the final paragraph of the books sums it up quite nicely:

"By putting himself in a position of not knowing, of learning- and not of refusing to know- the artist treats the fragile conditions of 'initiation' and 'reception' together on the same level." Thus the dynamic, project, issues and subject of the deceptual work are to be found in this relation, and not only in a reception and response that occur after the event."

The book talks about the constant struggle of the contemporary artist to try and innovate - however reminds the artist to not forget about the very essence of art - communication with the audience - involvement and interaction of the audience. The audience will be of major importance, in fact, the focus of my project. I must avoid the very tempting trap of appearing to be an all-knowing artist, and instead involve my audience, show them I am still learning, and give them as much flexibility in the project as possible (yes, even if this involves more programming - it must be accomplished).

Today I have also started some research on Brion Gysin - I am almost embarrassed to say I have only started looking into his works today, as he was a huge influence on the Beat Generation (especially having created the Dream Machine). In an Interview for 'The Guardian' in 1997, William Burroughs said that Brion Gysin is "the only man that I've ever respected in my life. I've admired people, I've liked them, but he's the only man I've ever respected."

So now I have a copy of a 1982 RE/Search Magazine on William S.Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Throbbing Gristle.. and I'm going to try and read it all by the end of next week. Will post more reflections soon.

In the meantime my proposal has been shifting and changing. Evolving, I'd like to think.

More After Effects

Using an inverted black and white water colour scan - multiple layers (set to soft light mode) and coming together in a 3d Space. The beginning is boring - the middle I find exciting - the end is ok.

What is Interaction?

http://hci.sapp.org/lectures/verplank/interaction/

Had my first one to one tutorial with my tutor today and what followed was a manic research session on 'interaction'. So the first thing I did was go on wikipedia and typed 'Interaction' and proceeded from there. Found many sources and listed down a couple of annotations and topics which I thought would be of interest to my proposal:

Augmented human interaction - The Wii, the Kinect, constantly evolving so might feature in my research - however my project will not be based on this. I want to focus on aesthetics as well not just interaction.

Interaction as an experience - This will definitely feature in my research as this is what I want to create.

Human computer interaction

Donald Arthur Norman - wrote 'Emotional Design' a type of Affective Interaction Design - but he doesn't really focus on aesthetics. He puts emphasis on the needs of the user (User-centered design).

Affective Interaction Design - A type of Interaction Design used to influence positive emotions / reactions from users - great! Except I want to do the opposite - can this type of Interaction therefore, be utilised to get 'negative' responses from the user...

My title has developed into "Can affective interaction design be employed to influence a user-directed Dionysian experience?"

User-direction has now taken a new meaning in my project - I want the user to have more control. I'm looking at my project as a 'Responsive Environment'. I do not want the user to merely do something with the program. I want the program to adapt and change depending on what the user does. So if the user chooses a type of experience, the program will react in one way, and if the user chooses a different experience, the program will react in a different way. This will also lead me to research HCI. Today was a heavy day for my brain - but also very exciting. I'm eager to see where this is going to take me.

Some sources I have looked at today (need to look at some of them in more detail)

http://www.id-book.com/chapter1.htm

http://arielwaldman.com/2010/08/23/a-semantic-exploration/

http://www.dubberly.com/articles/what-is-interaction.html

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/introducing_interaction_design

http://www.orangecone.com/d3_2010_information_is_a_material_0.2.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_interaction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_design

http://www.designinginteractions.com/interviews

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/

http://hci.sapp.org/lectures/verplank/interaction/

Proposal, Processing and After Effects

**Updated animation with audio**


This week I was trying to put together my Proposal and it's proving to be quite frustrating. However I did finish a work plan and a finalised title. I've also started Processing - I am finding "Processing, Creative Coding and Computational Art" extremely enjoyable, yes for the first time in my life I'm actually enjoying programming :)

I have also done a little experiment in After Effects with the illustrations posted previously. I tried to give some 3 Dimensionality to the flat watercolour illustrations by using 3D layers and a camera with Depth of Field.