Re: [-empyre-] Text, VR, sound, brainspace

["Ollivier Dyens" <odyens@hotmail.com>]

Hi everyone,

a few thoughts on the recent interventions:

>From barrie:

I've been exploring http://www.chairetmetal.com/oeuvre.htm and enjoying the
statements and links. Some of the text is in French, it would be nice if it
could also be provided in English as well.

One of the things I find limiting about the current web is that it is
largely presented to us as a linear, branching world. It is an 'enchanted
loom' as someone has said about our brains, but this vast electronic loom is
not really 'visible' to us. To be able to apprehend this world with a 3
dimensional structure, VR, VRML and manipulate and navigate it, with touch,
with sound, as another almost parallel world to the one we live in would be
most intriguing. Char Davies (http://www.immersence.com/) created a VR world
called Osmose in which she created layers of meaning that included a
substrate of text - the code that generated her VR world, floating beneath
everything.



>From Patrick
But this idea of getting beyond language is full of limitations. Although
Chomsky's early linguistics had it's problems, I think that as soon as one
maps a discursive structure of any sort, a grammar is created, and reflects
either a global or local sense of deep structure.  Humans are symbolic
manipulators; that's the way we're wired.  To assume that there can be
spaces without TEXTUAL language may be an interesting thought, but it will
still have a sort of grammar in the way it is arranged and represents
meaning.  To go beyond this is to suggest a space without communicative
power or structure, tha this is not interesting to me.

Secondly, any computational 'space' as field of information cannot escape
language, for the whole of the Net is constructed of languages as digital
codes. So if you create a space without language, you create it with codes,
which are part of another type pf language and grammar.



Yes, translation is one of my main goals. In a perfect world, Metal and
Flesh would be completely bilingual (even trilingual) but time, money and
the energy to do it are quite limited. I don't think I've told the list
before, but I've been running Metal and Flesh alone since its inception a
little more than two years ago (In the last year, the great theorist and
artist Richard Barbeau has joined me and helped me tremendously. He's the
one behind the Vigil of Planetary NetArt, the virtual net art exhibition we
launched in September http://www.chairetmetal.com/vpar/. What's particular
about this exhibit is that we did not select artwork but only a series of
jury members, each of whom had to select an net art work on the web
(anything was acceptable. Some have selected computer viruses) and explain
his or her choice). Finding texts, discovering artwork, editing (which I
haven't done perfectly, far from it) designing, etc, takes a huge amount of
time. On top of that, MF runs on a limited budget (my own). I'm not making
excuses, nobody forced me to do all of that, but I have to make a few
choices and even though I think translation is crucial, it's always pushed
back.


Char Davies:
Funny that you would mention Char Davies, I have seen Osmose and was
profoundly affected by it. Her way of representing things, of representing
text in particular, of making it tangible and translucent, sort of like a
huge curtain floating in the wind, is exactly what I'm referring to. I'm not
trying to negate language, to deny syntaxical structures, to ignore symbolic
meaning, what I meant to say was that we need to use language differently.
Being French (where language is, foolishly for sure, the ultimate reflection
of one's culture and one's intelligence) and working in the university
system (where the printed word is the ultimate fetish), I find myself
immersed in a strange cathedral of printed words, surrounded by priests for
whom the word is the ultimate expression of human thoughts. This is all good
and fine but FOR THE WRITTEN WORD, for the immobile and clearly delineated
word, which belongs to a clearly defined and navigational space (a space
which cannot navigated differently by the way. No texts are ever read in the
opposite direction). These are not limitations of course, but specificities.
My problem is with using those same specificities on the web, where space,
shapes, symbolic meaning and authorship are all quite different. As Patrick
said, a text cannot be free of symbolic, alphabetical and syntaxical
meaning. But a web-text's cannot be the same as a written text's. What was
so fascinating with Osmose was the way the text was used: as a sort of
textual, symbolic and even emotional space. If I remember it well, Char
Davies's text in Osmose was, at some point, meant to represent a huge cliff
in the sea. Her text could still be read but it also became both an
emotional space and an overwhelming object (this huge, dominating textual
cliff). You could also, in another tableau, fly within thousand of words and
sentences, which were all excerpts from well-known poems. This, I believe,
represents the direction that web-text should take: not deprived of meaning
but used as a plate form for the building of different symbolic and
syntaxical spaces, used as a launching pad for the emergence of different
emotions. Most web sites have not done that yet (yes, the limitations of
actual technologies is a big part of that), but even in 3d sites, text is
rarely used as part of the navigational space, as something above or beyond
normal text, as something that is not meant to be read but felt. Regular
printed text is our cognitive prison.




----- Original Message -----
From: "barrie" <adhocgraphics@bigpond.com>
To: "empyre mailing list" <empyre@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 9:46 PM
Subject: [-empyre-] Text, VR, sound, brainspace


> Greetings Ollivier,
>
>
> There is a lot of interesting material being discussed on the list that I
am
> not familiar with. Looks like I've got some reading/research to do.
>
> I've been exploring http://www.chairetmetal.com/oeuvre.htm and enjoying
the
> statements and links. Some of the text is in French, it would be nice if
it
> could also be provided in English as well.
>
> Re your discussion/reply 17 Jan 2002
>
> Text, VR, sound.
> It is hard moving from one area of practice to another or trying to, ie
> traditional arts practice to digital, nevertheless this is being done by a
> huge number of visual artists and other creatives. I hope you don't mind
me
> illustrating this discussion with my own experiences.
>
> In my own case I have been practicing in digital media for 18 years or so
> and traditional media for much longer (drawing). The thing that I really
> found difficult was to start to move into sound and music which I did
> recently in my Masters course. I am not a composer and do not think like a
> one, so that when I started to put together my online interactive AV
> instruments (see users.bigpond.com/adhocgraphics/) the issue of how to
> handle the sound was very challenging.
>
> I have a friend who is a performer/composer (Colin Offord) and who has
been
> very helpful at this time and not necessarily in ways that perhaps he is
> aware of. Simply by watching him work, improvise, and discussing
performance
> etc I have learned a great deal. I found myself listening differently. The
> interesting thing about Colin is that he is also a visual artist and he
> makes all his own instruments. He can turn an eagle feather into a flute
and
> play evocative music on it. We can discuss things as visual artists, this
is
> helpful to me but at the same time I became aware of the huge universe of
> musical and sound ideas and how much there is to learn about it and from
it.
>
> Deciding how to integrate/make-work-together, the visual and sound
elements
> in my AV instruments was and is a challenge. Should I think of the
> instruments as primarily visual or audio? Of course this combining of
audio
> and sonic elements has been been considered before by film-makers, opera
> composers/producers etc, but I was intrigued by the idea of when is an
audio
> visual work/idea more a visual work or more an audio work and most of all
by
> the idea that audio and visual can be both at once or inseparable. Perhaps
I
> am barking up a blind tree, but out of this challenge to my
conceptualizing
> came the idea that it might be appropriate to write code based works for
the
> web where the same code is used to produce both sound and visual results.
> There is a bit of this around but it is difficult to work out how it has
> been done. Java as no sound engine and both Java and Actionscript only
> handle sound clips. There must be something ...
>
> With your seeming difficulty working with text/sound/visual material and
> trying to conceptualize with these modes of expression in combination
there
> is this matter of integrating your thinking, which is always a challenge
for
> one's wetware. To integrate different media, ways of conceptualizing, in
> order to bring into existence some kind of meaning ...
>
> One of the things I find limiting about the current web is that it is
> largely presented to us as a linear, branching world. It is an 'enchanted
> loom' as someone has said about our brains, but this vast electronic loom
is
> not really 'visible' to us. To be able to apprehend this world with a 3
> dimensional structure, VR, VRML and manipulate and navigate it, with
touch,
> with sound, as another almost parallel world to the one we live in would
be
> most intriguing. Char Davies (http://www.immersence.com/) created a VR
world
> called Osmose in which she created layers of meaning that included a
> substrate of text - the code that generated her VR world, floating beneath
> everything.
>
>
> May I be so bold as to suggest some reference material that I think you
> might find interesting and perhaps useful where textual representation and
> computers are concerned.
>
> These works are theses from students who have studied for the degree of
> Master of Science in Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts
Institute
> of Technology.
>
> Defining Digital Space Through a Visual Language by Axel Kilian
>
> Rethinking the Book by David L Small
>
> Computational Models for Expressive Dimensional Typography by Peter Sungil
> Cho
>
> System Models for Digital Performance by Reed Kram
>
> They can be found at http://www.media.mit.edu/mas/
>
> If they are no longer available there I have copies that I can send you,
> they are about 1 to 2 MB each.
>
> Cheers, Barrie
>
>
>
> ::: every day, computers are making people easier to use :::
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Barrie Collins, Carl and Lillian Frieden-Collins
> 7 Blaxland Avenue, Leura NSW 2780
> Tel + Fax: 02 4784 1224
> Mobile: 0409 449 138
> adhocgraphics@bigpond.com
> http://users.bigpond.com/adhocgraphics/
>
>
>
>
>
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