Survey of Multimedia

Homework

Research Presentations begin next Monday, April 28. Sign up for a time slot (for either April 28 or May 5) on the list posted on my office door (Terra 1211a). Regardless of your presentation time, both the extended outlines and annotated bibliography are due in class next Monday, April 28 (hard copy, typed, double-spaced).

Lecture

Mudding: exploring LamdaMOO (connect via Telnet) or other… consider cyberspace, agency, persona, identity

The Art and Architecture of Cyberspace, Pierre Levy

Levy speculates about the utopian potential of cyberspace vs. the often dystopian, cyberpunk sci-fi conceptions of it…

Cyberspace: universe of digital networks… urban nomad, software engineering, liquid architecture of knowledge space

Cyberspace:

• Depends upon the individual receiver as cultural attractor (opposite of mass media)
• Forms a reading-writing continuum as distinctions fade between authors/readers, producers/spectators, creators/interpretersDistinction between message and work of art is fading… focus on means of communication, distribution, remixing, processes rather than on the message itself

Mutation: yet is there even a work of art to speak of in cyberspace?

“the artist now attempts to construct an environment, a system of communication and production, a collective event that implies its recipients, transforms interpreters into actors, enables interpretation to enter the loop with collective action”

Levy: one of the primary social functions of art: participation in the continuous invention of the languages and signs of a community

The structure and design of cyberspace will greatly influence social and cultural developments

Levy recommends:

• Promote development of social bonds
• Methods of communication that promote and restore diversity
• Systems that promote individuality and agency
• Exploit and enhance veins of data, capital of skills, symbolic power of humanity

Janet Murray on Agency

“Agency is the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices.” How so?

Forms of agency:

• Participation
• Interactivity (activity)
• Spatial navigation

Three kinds of narrative structures:

• Maze: linked to spatial metaphor
• Rhizome: postmodern hypertext narrative
• Journey: sequence of problems and places navigated

Authorship in electronic media is procedural: writing the rules for the interactor’s environment; creating not just a set of scenes but a world of narrative possibilities. The interactor is the author of a particular performance within the procedural author’s structure. This is agency.

Homework

Read: Multimedia, pp. 345-98

Weekly Writing Assignment #9: Using Allen Kaprow’s “Untitled Guidelines for Happenings” as a guide, write a score for your own Happening. Be as a descriptive and specific about your instructions as possible—remember, the participants in your Happening will most likely be unfamiliar with both the form and activities you are orchestrating. Also, take into consideration some of the key issues raised in today’s discussion and viewings: implosion/explosion of time and space, repetition and simultaneity, matrix and catalyst, non-sequential narratives, participation. And, as a nod towards Roy Ascott’s telematics, incorporate at least one technology into your Happening. (You may wish to refer to one of Kaprow’s scores here: http://www.ubu.com/historical/gb/kaprow_recent.pdf)

Lecture

Viewed (or attempted to be viewed) today:

• “Meshes in the Afternoon”, Maya Deren
• “Towers Open Fire”, William S. Burroughs and Anthony Balch, http://www.ubu.com/film/burroughs_towers.html
• “Sweet Light”, Bill Viola
• Carlo Zanni, “My temporary visiting position from the sunset terrace bar” , ttp://www.fromthesunsetterrace.com/
• Lynn Hershman, “Lorna” and “Deep Contact”, http://lynnhershman.com/
• Roy Ascott lecture: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5788781479735313265

Homework

Complete the following for next Monday, April 14:

• Read: Multimedia, pp. 303-44
• Multimedia Research Project Statement: Write a statement of about 1-2 pages (typed, double-spaced) that identifies the topic of your research, states what you find interesting about it, indicates your focus, and describes the status of your research. Also, append a preliminary bibliography (does not need to be annotated at this time).

Lecture

“The Myth of Cyberspace” by Richard Wise (from Multimedia: A Critical Introduction)

There is a great myth that is propagated about the unhindered, inherent value of technology and cyberspace as a democratizing, ahistorical force that benefits all (provided it’s development is not constrained by controls and allowed to flourish unrestricted according to the logic of market capitalism. In fact, digital technology—like all previous technology—is a product of humankind and reflects human socio-economic relations, political hierarchies, and values.

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Homework

Please complete the following for next week:

Read: “The Myth of Cyberspace”, Richard Wise (10mb)

Begin work on the Multimedia Research Project (detailed assignment description): Research Project Statement due Monday, April 14

Weekly Writing Assignment #8: Following from some of our discussion in class about virtual reality and immersive experiences, I’d like you to consider and write about some of the important questions in further detail. Why do we create immersive environments and virtual realities? What purposes do they serve, what needs and/or desires do they satisfy? Given that these experiences are human constructs, what are the rules of the immersive environment? Who makes them? In a general sense, what are the politics of virtual reality? Finally, Morton Heilig writes of the distinction between an outer world and inner world of experience. Within this spectrum, where does the VR/immersive experience land? Explain your position.

Lecture

We screened Tron (1982), which provides an early popularized representation of virtual reality and immersion, and also deals with a familiar narrative of the power struggle between man and machine/technology. (The Matrix trilogy is another more recent and acclaimed example of the same.)

Our discussion addressed some of the following critical questions for immersion and virtual reality:

• Why do we create immersive environments and virtual realities?
• What is the nature of architecture in VR (especially according to Marcos Novak)?
• What are the possibilities for VR/immersion to connect people via interaction?
• What are the rules of the immersive environment? Who makes them? What are the politics of VR?
• How has VR entered the popular consciousness? Why are so many popular representations of VR and immersion dystopian?
• Extrapolate the technological curve of VR. Where are we heading with all of this?
• Philosophically speaking, is “virtual reality” a misnomer? What is the nature of reality?
• Heilig speaks of the distinction between and outer and inner world of experience. Within this spectrum, where does the VR/immersive experience land?
• Char Davies hold an optimistic view of the poetic potential of immersive experiences. What was the purpose and effect of her Osmose project? How might immersive experiences inform our everyday lives, “being in the world.”

Homework

Please complete for next Monday, March 31:

Read: Multimedia, pp. 239-300

Weekly Writing Assignment: For this week’s assignment, I would like you to construct a document which records a hypertext journey on the Web. Your task is to browse the web as you would at any given time and meticulously record the path(s) that you follow as well as briefly summarize the content of the information. When browsing use the browser “back” or “forward ” buttons as little as possible—although you may backtrack, enter new URLs in the browser address, or search on something. The point of this exercise is to trace a line of thought(s) via hyperlinking on the Web. Please use this template when recording your hypertext journey (some examples to help you get started are provided in the document, which you should erase before you begin).

Homework

Study for Midterm Exam. I will be selecting three of the essay questions included in this study sheet.

Lecture

There were several readings from Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality to discuss this week. We began with a look at Vannevar Bush’s essay “As We May Think” (1945) in which the author addresses the problem of what the scientific community should focus on after the end of WWII.

Bush is concerned with the growing amount of research that is being produced, and that the “methods of transmitting and reviewing” it are incredibly outdated and sluggish; the ability to use these records is scant. He notes the arrival of cheap, complex devices of great reliability that hold great promise. Useful information, knowledge must be continuously expanded, stored, and accessed (“consulted”). Relief from repetitive, formally logical processes is necessary to free up the mind for creative thinking. The real problem we face, according to Bush, is caused by the “artificiality of systems of indexing”:

“When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.”

Whereas, the human mind works by matter of associations. Bush proposes a hypothetical device—the memex—which might assist researchers and record the various cognitive paths that one follows during the course of an investigation. This hypermedia desktop device relied on microfilm records, dry photography, audio recording, and other analog systems. It prefigured much of the digital technology that we are accustomed to today.

The remaining articles were then addressed by small groups of students, responding to specific questions for the benefit of the entire class.

No class this week.

Homework

Complete for Monday, March 17:

Weekly Writing Assignment: In “Cybernetic Vision,” Roy Ascott identifies a shift in art from the “field of objects” to the “field of behavior,” which we discussed in class. Important to understanding this emphasis on behavior and interactivity in an artwork is his explanation of the artifact as being both “matrix and catalyst” for behavior. Using this concept, write an analysis of an interactive, multimedia artwork that you have either experienced or are very familiar with. What is the matrix in the artwork? That is, what are the parameters, rules, structure of the field of behavior? And, what are the catalysts within the artwork? How is the interaction with the artwork provoked, encouraged, advanced, guided, etc?

Read: Multimedia, pp. 141-97, 225-37

Lecture

Class began with a screening of Ant Farm’s video work The Eternal Frame, which documents a re-enactment of the Kennedy assassination as it was captured in the Zapruder footage. (This work is available in the UArts library.)

Also, we screened these examples of interactive work:

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Homework

For next week:

Building on last week’s writing assignment in which I asked you to propose a re-purposed technology art project, create a one-page addendum which visually represents your proposed idea; use diagrams, renderings, drawings, etc to augment your written description. Submit both pages as a PDF document to me. The first page of your proposal should include your name, the project title, and the date.

Read: Multimedia, pp. 91-131, New Media in Art, Ch. 2, pp. 82-123

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Homework

Complete the following for next week:

Weekly Writing Assignment #4: Bill Kluver, co-founder of E.A.T., claims that technology and engineers need the artist’s vision of life in order to inspire innovation, and that, through the artist’s vision and ability to create disorder, he/she can use technology in its fullest potential. Keeping this in mind, choose a technology (or multiple technologies) which has a very practical and conventional function or usage – a device, system, software, for example – and write a proposal that re-purposes the technology for an artistic, poetic aim. An example would be creating a mechanical orchestra of several blenders, in which each blender is filled with a different material thus producing a unique “instrument” or voice for a symphony of sounds. (Your proposals will be more detailed and elaborate, of course.) In your writing, also consider the conceptual implications (meaning) of your appropriation and new use of the technology.

Read: Multimedia, pp. 47-94

Lecture

Preamble: Duchamp and the Readymade and his influence: opening up the field of art by emphatically and strategically posing the question: What, in fact, constitutes a work of art?

Watch a performance of John Cage’s 4′33″

Experiments in Art & Technology: Billy Kluver writes about the need to create artworks that are equal collaborations between artists and engineers; to close the gap between art and life requires the user of technology because technology is such an integral part of our contemporary lives,

Watched documentary on E.A.T.’s (Robert Rauschenberg) staging of Open Score. (Available in the UArts library)

Watched documentation of Dan Graham’s performance Performer/Audience/Mirror (1975) (from Surveying the First Decade, an anthology of video and media artwork available in the UArts Library - see Program 1 for this work)