Re: [-empyre-] networked_performance 2

Chris Byrne <chris@crowriver.net> · Wed, 13 Jul 2005 16:30:27 +0300

Like some others, I'm currently engaged on multiple other tasks, but  
this thread is thoroughly stimulating. Perhaps also vast in scope!
This may mark me out as a member of the 'old guard', or perhaps I am  
just slipping into a customary habit. When questions emerge about new  
forms and how a tradition will move forward given new technologies, I  
often feel that interesting perspectives are gained from looking at  
early uses of the technologies which are entering new (and different)  
phases. As Fluxus, EAT et al were cited, I guess it's okay...
Two important markers for me along the timeline for "telematic events":
The "Slow Scan" telephone/TV experiments between Vancouver and various  
locations in the world, from 1978 (?) onwards I think. Particularly  
memorable for me was a performance by Mona Hatoum, "So Much I Want To  
Say", 1983 was the date if I remember (it was recorded on video and  
shown widely in this form). The limits of the progressive scanning of  
the "live" image were used as a very effective performance constraint.
"The Mashed Potato Supper", a live Internet performance between New  
York and Edinburgh in 1996. It used webcams and CU-SeeMe, the  
video/audio compression pixellation giving a presence similar to the  
slow scan events in some ways. Participants included Cary Peppermint,  
Simon Yuill and Pernille Spence.

http://restlessculture.net/peppermint/exposures/mps/
Despite the different technologies, and the post-"Electronic Cafe"  
status of the latter event, the performances seem similar to me in  
certain aspects. The use of geographical distance: the foregrounding of  
this aspect lent a wistfulness to proceedings despite the use of humour  
by some artists; and the exposing or hiding of visual elements, used to  
add ambiguity or mystery to the characters/personas/avatars invoked by  
the performers.
Obviously the interface for both events was televisual in form, which  
in itself formalises and distances the performative gesture. For me the  
use of telematics in itself seems to point towards a difference in the  
possible levels of intimacy for the performer/user/audience, at least  
when comparing telematic events to forms/spaces in the other  
categories. There are different implications for telerobotic forms, and  
the spaces currently possible via haptic interfaces. More intimate and  
unexpected/informal experiences could be possible (if that is the  
intention). I wonder though if the layer of technological mediation  
still necessary in most interfaces is another kind of distance? When  
does the 'real' give way to the 'hyperreal'? 'Live' to 'programmed to  
react'?
Chris

On 2 Jul 2005, at 02:48, Helen Thorington wrote:
Hello again.
Surveying the blog we identify four areas of networked performance  
practice

which current work explores in various combinations. We have  
categorized

these as (1) telematic events, (2) locative media, (3) wearables, and  
(4)

active objects and responsive environments.
Telematics connect people to people or people to objects through a  
network,

such as telerobotics or haptics; locative media provide location aware

engagement; smart environments enable architecture and objects to  
respond to

environmental changes of state generated by occupants/inhabitants; and

wearables extend the body's senses through technological prosthesis.
We see lots of overlap and combinations in the works we survey, so  
these are

not to be considered rigid categories but an effort at broad  
representation.

We’re keenly interested in the commonalties across emergent  
art/technology

practice with attention to artist/audience/object/environment,

performativity and the open work.

1. TELEMATIC EVENTS
To date this has been the most prolific, comprehensible/understandable  
area

of practice, encompassing the exploration of networked performance by  
the

traditional performing arts where new technologies are integrated into

existing forms (dance, music, theater). Examples of this would include  
the

musical performance. InteraXis with Jesse Gilbert, Mark Trayle and  
Wadada

Leo Smith and dance performances such as those created by AdaPT, an

interdisciplinary association of artists, technologists and scholars.

       http://www.turbulence.org/Works/interaxis

       http://www.dvpg.net/adapt.html

Others move us onto new terrain. Jeff Mann and Michelle Teran, for  
instance,

create performance events that explore new ways for computers to  
support

social experiences in the physical environment.  Their objective is not

performance for an audience but creating a shared experience in which

everyday social spaces become “electronically activated play  
environments,

capable of transmitting the physical presence and social gestures that

comprise…human interaction” across time and distance. No longer  
dependent on

the work-based screen and keyboard, in these environments ordinary  
goods and

wares – furniture, cutlery etc. – “come to life as both kinetic art and

telecommunications interfaces”.
      http://www.lftk.org/tiki/tiki-index.php
http://www.lftk.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Telepresence+Picnic
http://www.interaccess.org/telekinetics/template.php?show=intro

2. LOCATIVE MEDIA
Locative media practice has exploded since the public availability of  
GPS

and its consequent inexpensive and ubiquitous availability in mobile

electronic devices. Some of this practice makes urban areas into game  
boards

and city infrastructures into play spaces. Blast Theory, a London-based

group, is renowned internationally for their contribution to this  
genre with

works that make a public space ‘playable’ by participants in the  
street and

online.

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000221.html

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000033.html
Others create “geo-annotation projects.” This involves assigning  
geo-spatial

coordinates to media content so that it can be accessed at a specific

geographical location with an enabled device. While the “true”  
location of

the content is a database, by making it possible to access that  
content from

a particular location, its place (so to speak) migrates into the  
physical

environment, making urban streets and the landscape “programmable.”  
Urban

Tapestries and the Aware Platform are examples of this.  Both are

location-based wireless platforms that allow users to access, author  
and

share location-specific content (text, audio, pictures, and/or movies)  
– But

there are many more:  Yellow Arrow, Grafedia, MapHub, and, as Anne  
Galloway

says, “ and oh, about a million others now.”

 http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000151.html

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000555.html
There are also projects specifically designed to enable communication  
and

shape transient networked communities. Yuri Gitman’s Magicbike turns  
common

bicycles into WiFi hotspots that broadcast free WiFi connectivity to  
their

proximity. And Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki’s  
UMBRELLA.net

develops ad-hoc networks based around the haphazard and unpredictable

patterns of weather and crowd formation. The system consists of a set  
of

umbrellas as nodes that can spontaneously form a network when unfurled.

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000114.html

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000051.html

3. WEARABLES
Wearable computing enlarges the use of computers to include wearing  
them on

ones body—much as eyeglasses or clothing are worn—and facilitates

interaction with the user, and between users, based on specific  
situations.

Fionnuala Conway and Katherine Moriwaki’s Urban Chameleon, for  
instance, is

comprised of three skirts: 1) “Touch” changes visual properties upon

contact; 2) “Speak” reacts to urban noise; and 3) “Breathe” visualizes

pollution and urban exhaust as it travels through the garment.

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000146.html
Tina Gonsalves’ Medulla Intimata is responsive video jewelry. The  
overall

function of the piece and its video content is to reflect the full  
character

and content of the wearer’s emotions and thus present a fuller living

portrait: the wearer as he/she is in unmediated interaction and the  
wearer

as he /she feels at that moment.
http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000137.html

4. ACTIVE OBJECTS AND RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
Increasingly, through ubiquitous/pervasive/ambient computing paradigms  
and

wireless sensing, artifacts, objects and physical space itself are  
being

charged with properties traditionally associated with living bodies.
In their recent Benches and Bins, Greyworld creates furniture that is  
able

to roam freely through the new public square in Cambridge, England and

respond to its surroundings and ambient movement.

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000335.html

http://www.junction.co.uk/HTMLTemplates/our_work/news/digital/ 
Bins___Benches

_to_be_Unleashed.htm

http://www.greyworld.org/contact/index.html

While Chris Salter, in the environment-inhabitant interaction

Suspension/Threshold, focuses on the theme of thresholds or bardo (in

between) states, and creates a body responsive environment where the

aggregate breathing patterns of the collective audience/participants  
lighten

an otherwise dark environment.

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/000053.html

Much of this work is conceived to provoke interaction between people,  
and

between people and their spaces. More than not it encourages people to  
be

performers within the work and thus to enable or realize the work. This

calls into question the accepted nature of performance and introduces a

shifting relationship between the artist, artwork and audience.
We locate this practice within an historical continuum (Kaprow’s

“Happenings,” Galloway’s “Electronic Café,” “Experimental Art and  
Technology

(EAT),” the Situationists, Fluxus, etc.) and suggest that this  
trajectory is

redefining the performative as a socially networked, collaborative  
model for

artistic and cultural practice.
The overarching question, then. is:
“How do we understand performance in relation to these new activities  
that

are between the existing and the developing, and what can we learn by

stretching our understanding of performance in light of these  
perspectives”?
Other questions we are interested in include:
1. How is performance changing in response to networked computing
technologies (mobile, satellite/GPS, internet)?
2. What is the relationship of 'real-time' computing to liveness and
performativity?
3. What is the relationship of agency and authorship to  
performativity? Is

performativity synonymous with being an actor, agent, or author? Is

“performer” another label for the user/viewer/visitor/ of an  
interactive

work?
4. As the use of the network becomes more social, adopting the  
peer-to-peer

model, what does this imply for performance and net.art as  
performative?
5. How are network processes (algorithmic, procedural rule-based  
systems,

generative) influencing or being investigated by performance?
6. How are networked concepts as modes of communication (granularity,  
open

source, emergent behavior, affordance, latency, ubiquitous computing)

impacting performance?

-- Helen and Michelle

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