Re: [-empyre-] interactive video as error

[Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

I don't see why performativity and/or intentionality depends on error, or 
how error is equivalent to misrecognition or mismatch. Performativity as I 
understand it references statements that themselves are actants, as in 
taking an oath or possibility interjections. It also references _any 
computer command, from clicking a link to typing and hitting return on 
'date' in a terminal window. Likewise interactive video is a discursive 
field with perhaps live performance near one 'node' and the standard 
network newscast near another. There are any number of possibilities. As 
pointed out, even live audience participation is a form of performativity 
for more than the performer/creator his/her self. It's always a wager.

Re: Virtual - I'm nervous about posting here, but I think there are issues 
relatively important at stake. I find the concept of tremendous use, and 
can point to for example Merlin Donald's work on external mind as a good 
example. One can deconstruct constantly, but there's a basic (not essen- 
tial) difference between an equivalent avatar in Poser and being-in-the- 
world a la say Merleau-Ponty or Alfred Schutz. The difference however 
isn't technologically-based; Tibetan 'ghost traps' or kami-residentces in 
Shinto Shrines also embody the virtual. It's the liminal that's fascina- 
ting here - something that Talan Memmott has worked on extensively - the 
distance between screen and participant - a skein of projectivity / 
introjectivity (since there are other loops as well I use the term 
'jectivity' to reference this entanglement), that works within an uncanny 
among real/virtual/physical-material/representation and so forth. Most of 
my own work's in this area; I certainly see Talan's as well here.

It's very unclear to me that the Furtherfield Studio is 'closed.' It's 
'closed' the way any venue is, even the Agora. But anyone may enter and 
participate, and when I've been in/on/within it, it's been full of 
surprises - just like IRC, newgroups, etc., all equally open and closed.

- Alan



On Mon, 14 Mar 2005, Barbara Lattanzi wrote:

> I have used the hiatus in my participation in this discussion to absorb the 
> insights of Komininos, Adrian, James, Simon, Ed, Jim, Alan and others. 
> Thanks for numerous valuable insights and references... e.g., Michael 
> Polyani, whose work I was completely unfamiliar with.
>
> Also, there were detailed discussions of actual interactive net projects by 
> Marc Garrett and Chris/babel.
>
> I am interested in the fact that the conversation about specific works spun 
> into a discussion of the virtual.
>
> Is this side-stepping intentionality?  What about performance in interactive 
> video for the web?
>
> For example, the performativity of users is foregrounded in Furtherfield's 
> Visitors Studio.  As I interpret Marc's words, the purposes of interactive 
> video on the web - as experienced at Furtherfield - is activist:
>
> "It is not only the people that invent/make the platform and sculpt it, it is 
> the community that changes its manner and shape as well, in demanding that it 
> changes for their own creative needs."   -- quoted from Marc's post on march 
> 7th.
>
> I take this to mean that a group of people sees itself taking shape around a 
> more or less stable pattern of possibilities, grounded in a dynamic process 
> rather than in a group identity.  The benefit of this collaborative 
> intentional process is the ability of the group to morph itself over time....
>
> ...that is, as long as the group remains within the closed environment of the 
> Visitor Studio.
>
> So, I would not necessarily call this "community-building" because of the 
> closed system.  Yet Marc invokes community as integral to the Visitors 
> Studio.
>
> How does the public-space dimension of the web shift the performativity of 
> the viewer?  Is it only between these 2 alternatives:
>
> Alternative 1. -- "reflective" interactivity (Nicolas Clauss' collaborative 
> works, including "Pianographique", being a powerful example)
>
> Alternative 2. -- collaborative interactivity, where a community is presumed 
> and integral (as in Furtherfield)
>
> In contrast to these, "C-SPAN Karaoke", and downloadable interactive video 
> software such as "HF Critical Mass", depend on a pre-existing group that is 
> familiar with several overlapping conversations/discourses.  "CSPAN Karoake" 
> and "HF Critical Mass" are performative, just as dependent upon social 
> context as the Visitor Studio at Furtherfield, yet share neither the desire 
> to do community-building nor the alternative attention to "reflective" modes 
> of interactivity.
>
> Performativity (and intentionality) depends on error.. e.g., it is "wrong" to 
> sing pop tunes as accompaniment to public-policy videos (as in cspan 
> karaoke); or it is "wrong" to open-source an aesthetic that is by-definition 
> open source as soon as it is embodied in a work of art such as Hollis 
> Frampton's film "Critical Mass" (as in the interactive video software "HF 
> Critical Mass").  The performance is in the error, the discursive mismatch.
>
> The pursuit-of-error as performance of intentionality - this is what will be 
> "interactive" about anything technologically-characterised as interactive 
> video on the web.
>
> Barbara
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> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre



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