Coding Complexity: A Collective Abstraction

Final Work

2009-12-02T14:38:00.000+13:00

"Sin_k" (2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmKwJXFzoaI

the notated abstract.

2009-06-20T14:13:00.004+12:00

"If the primary stuff of music is sound, which I believe, then notation, no matter how ordinary or idiosyncratic, is no more than a representation of the real thing.

Furthermore a description of notation such as this is a symbolic representation of a symbolic representation - twice removed from reality."

Lejaren A. Hiller, Jnr

[sourced from John Cage's Notations (link to PDF of book)]

Fractal Links + others

2009-06-10T14:43:00.004+12:00

FractalAbyss

P:0 / site

Genr8

LandonGray - fractal plugin

L-System Plugin

Voronoi Diagrams:

These kinda act like waves interacting with slightly submerged objects.
Mathematica

Voronoi Algorithms

Architecture Students:

Southern California Institute of Architecture

Notation as a Tool of Thought - Kenneth E. Iversion

2009-06-06T12:28:00.002+12:00

Notation as a Tool of Thought - pdf

This guy won an award for this lecture.

Ready to Go!

2009-06-02T00:12:00.002+12:00

OK. I think I am finally ready to begin experimenting from the research. I have narrowed the focus down to a few select areas, and shall start modeling and coding tomorrow.

Wish me luck! :)

The Architecture of Nature - ebooks

2009-06-01T23:55:00.003+12:00

Here are some of the books on mathematics in nature and architecture that I am looking into. Have been playing around with mel scripts from the first book.

Algorithmic Architecture - Kostas Terzidis - pdf - Brilliant book. Includes mel scripts.

The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants - P. Prucinkiewicz, A. Lindenmayer - pdf - From the guy who coined the term 'L-systems' [Linenmayer-systems] comes a book that decodes the creation of plants using mathematical algorithms.

On Growth and Form - D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson - pdf - Huge book that analyzes how organic forms are created in nature. Now in the public domain.

Enjoy.

Contemporary Dance Video Database

2009-05-31T03:33:00.001+12:00

Contemporary Dance Video Database

Field - a development environment for making digital art

2009-05-30T14:58:00.003+12:00

- Created by "The OpenEnded Group" -

Description taken from the site:
[link]

Field is a software project initiated by OpenEnded Group, for the creation of their digital artworks. It is an environment for writing code to rapidly and experimentally assemble and explore algorithmic systems. It is visual, it is hybrid, it is code-based. We think that it has something to offer a diverse range of programmers and artists.

Further description:
[link]

Field is a development environment for experimental code and digital art in the broadest of possible senses. While there are a great many development environments and digital art tools out there today, this one has been constructed with two key principles in mind:

Embrace and extend — rather than make a personal, private and pristine code utopia, Field tries to bridge to as many libraries, programming languages, and ways of doing things as possible. The world doesn't necessarily need another programming language or serial port library, nor do we have to pick and choose between data-flow systems, graphical user interfaces or purely textual programming — we can have it all in the right environment and we can both leverage the work of others and take control of our own tools and methods.

Live code makes anything possible — Field tries to replace as many "features" with editable code as it can. Its programming language of choice is Python — a world class, highly respected and incredibly flexible language. As such, Field is intensely customizable, with the glue between interface objects and data modifiable inside Field itself. Field takes seriously the idea that its user — you — are a programmer / artist doing serious work and that you should be able to reconfigure your tools to suit your domain and style as closely as possible.

I'm going to look into the software... see if it would be useful for my project[s].

Art of Limina: Ambiguity in Space

2009-05-30T14:48:00.004+12:00

This artist [Gary Hill] has created works which demonstrate spatial ambiguity.
Defining dimension and depth is difficult.

Links:

Slought.com exhibition listing, including audio file link:

Art of Limina: Gary Hill

An essay on Gary Hill's work:

Up Against Time - pdf

Movement Notation

2009-05-30T13:37:00.003+12:00

As I shall be choreographing motion, I feel it necessary to research what forms of notation for movement already exist.

Here are some links:

MovementWriting

Movement Notation - with free lesson upon sign-up.

Labanotation
- Laban Software

Action Stroke Dance Notation - brilliant codes for notating dance. Extensive descriptions and tutorials.

Benesh:

Benesh Open Source

Benesh main site
- Benesh Notation tutorial

And here's a brilliant thesis by Dr. Royce Neagle that appears to have extensive research in applying notation to animation or digital format:

Emotion by Motion: Expression Simulation in Virtual Ballet - pdf

Algorithmic Choreography with William Forsythe & Paul Kaiser

2009-05-30T12:31:00.005+12:00

An interview with digital artist Paul Kaiser talks with choreographer William Forsythe about the potential of computers and algorithms for the future of dance choreography.

Here's some excerpts:

William: So I began to imagine lines in space that could be bent, or tossed, or otherwise distorted. By moving from a point to a line to a plane to a volume, I was able to visualize a geometric space composed of points that were vastly interconnected. As these points were all contained within the dancer's body, there was really no transition necessary, only a series of "foldings" and "unfoldings" that produced an infinite number of movements and positions. From these, we started making catalogues of what the body could do. And for every new piece that we choreographed, we would develop a new series of procedures.

Some choreographers create dance from emotional impulses, while others, like Balanchine, work from a strictly musical standpoint. My own dances reflect the body's experiences in space, which I try to connect through algorithms. So there's this fascinating overlap with computer programming.

For Eidos, I gave my dancers and myself the following general instruction: "Take an equation, solve it; take the result and fold it back into the equation and then solve it again. Keep doing this a million times".

Paul: That’s where your focus on spatial procedures and the architecture of movement maps so well onto computer algorithms and virtual spaces. As you said before, it’s as if we’re all on the same quest.

William: How do you define that quest?

Paul: Shelley and I have spoken about it as the search for a new art form, which seems about to emerge from this odd confluence of the dance, visual art, and computer worlds. I imagine that in this new form, performance and recording and notation ‘ three strands of the performing arts that have always been separate ‘ will be fused. So that you can have the notation shaping the performance, the performance shaping the recording, the recording shaping the notation, and so on. Perhaps this new process, which builds on itself, can bootstrap a new way of making art.

William: Where I’d start is with the score. What’s been missing so far is an intelligent kind of notation, one that would let us generate dances from a vast number of varied inputs. Not traditional notation, but a new kind mediated by the computer.

I found the interview through this blog.

Rhythmic Subdivision

2009-05-24T21:19:00.005+12:00

I'm looking at ways in which I can incorporate subdivisions of rhythm

Pitch and Relational Anatomy

Subdivisions in Anatomy and Music Notation

Form-making Subdivisions

Emotion in Architecture

Metaphors on Death - Conscious Weather

2009-05-04T21:50:00.003+12:00

Observations on the weather and it's relation to my Grandmother's passing.

--

Saturday - Gloomy -

The Death of the Conscious Mind

Sunday - Pristine -

Visitations

Monday - Cold and Breezy -

The Death of the Unconscious Mind

Left Leaving <--- a poem I wrote in 2006.
It was a reflection on the past. The first piece I had written in 9 years.

Death - A Reframe On Transition

2009-05-04T21:43:00.004+12:00

Healing through Connections - strength in numbers

Death and the Ego - the ego's response to death. Experiencing loss.

Community Response - communal love and support

Change is Nature

2009-05-04T21:22:00.005+12:00

From Ratatouille (2007):

Django: [showing the exterminator shop to Remy with the dead rats in the window] Take a good long look, Remy. This is what happens when a rat gets a little too uncomfortable around humans. The world we live in belongs to the enemy, we must live carefully. We look out for our own kind, Remy. When all is said and done, we're all we've got.
Remy: [Django starts to walk away] No.
Django: What?
Remy: No. Dad I don't believe it. You're telling me that the future is - can only be more of *this*?
Django: This is the way things are. You can't change nature.
Remy: Change is nature, Dad. The part that we can influence. And it starts when we decide.
Django: [Remy turns to leave] Where are you going?
Remy: With luck, forward.

Source

Cross-Catalytic Architectures with Cecil Balmond

2009-04-30T17:09:00.002+12:00

Featuring Cecil Balmond, Peter Jones, Peter Davies, David Ruy, Jenny Sabin

Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at The Slought Foundation www.slought.org

"The architects and scientists featured in this event conduct research and design projects that join architecture, science, and pedagogy. Their work develops according to “cross-catalytic” relationships in which their practices affect and are affected by each other. In this sense, the interdisciplinary nature of the work is becoming more than just a metaphor. Catalysts accelerate the rate of change in a system; they intensify a process. Nobel-prize winning Chemist Ilya Prigogine has described catalysis as agents “that modify the reaction rate without themselves being affected.” Cross-catalysis slightly alters the role that agents play in the catalytic process, such that all parties are involved in a dynamic interrelationship. Feedback loops emerge as disciplines develop new methods of research and practice. This event has itself been organized to reflect new models for the organization and dissemination of information that are emerging today, and will feature a series of short presentations followed by a public conversation. The event will build upon recent work by the Non-Linear Systems Organization group at the University of Pennsylvania (under the direction of Cecil Balmond) and the Penn/CMREF Center for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Research at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (under the direction of Peter Lloyd Jones).A predominant idea in popular culture, and even within science itself, is that the DNA blueprint or genome can autonomously generate a complete, self-organizing being, with a distinctive form and function: here is the code; here is life, complete with all of its complexities. Models borrowed from architects--such as tensegrity structures--have led to radical new insights into how vivisystems, like the genome, are assembled and function, as well as to a new understanding of the extracellular matrix or cytoskeleton in the cellular structure. Similarly, models borrowed from biology, particularly regarding self-organization and the emergence of complex, non-linear global systems from simple local rules of organization have led to radical new forms and structural organizations in architectural design. Examples such as these demonstrate how attentive architectural and scientific practices can be to each other--particularly within architecture and biology which are constantly challenged to reinvent themselves in a manner similar to the historic avant-gardes or in the face of new technologies."

Blogs and Sites

2009-04-30T16:43:00.015+12:00

Architectural Design Students:

Digital Fabrication
Digital Fabrication - Summer
Deep Ornament as Assembly Process
The Size of Your Brain

Graduate School of Architecture

Blogs:

BLDGBLOG

Fractal Ontology: Politics, Cybernetics, Philosophy

Emergent Perspectives:

http://slought.org/content/11421/

Script Resources:

Script Editor
Scripting wiki
Script writer's website

Architecture Student Wiki:
Course Material Library

The Power of Symmetry:
SYMMETRY

INSPIRATION:

Pruned - check data structures

http://www.dataisnature.com/- brilliant articles and links to books.

We Make Money Not Art

Rice Gallery, Houston, Texas - Check the Rip Curl Canyon

The Shape of Music

Deleuze and the use of genetic algorithm in architecture

Biothing.org

www.colinkeefe.net

http://www.mh-portfolio.com/indexH.html

Ecology: Emergence in Form-making - Architecture and Biology

2009-04-30T11:25:00.021+12:00

Where Architecture Meets Biology: An Interview with Detlef Mertins (2007)

All indented quotes are from the interview (except where specified otherwise).

One of the ideas that comes to the fore at that moment is that form is not an a priori; it's not predetermined. Form is seen as the result of a process. That opens the door to the question of what kind of processes and media or means are involved in the making of form."

This reminds me of Alfred North Whitehead's ideas presented in Process Philosophy, where strings of 'actual occasions' or momentary events cause the illusion of an 'object', which suggests that in fact, there is no objective reality. Actual occasions of micro-phenomena (sub-atomic particles, atoms, cells) collect and self-organize to form 'societies' - rocks, human beings, trees etc - thus giving the illusion of the physical and objective.

I wrote on my other blog about nominalisations, where I suggest a rejection of the noun - which is static and uncreative (left brained motivation); instead opting for turning everything into a process, a verb. Thus, the rock becomes rocking; the tree becomes treeing; the life becomes living. This opens one's options. A question may be asked in two ways - the closed sort which influences one into giving a nominalised answer:

"What is your name?"

... or the process equivalent:

"How is your name?" (abstract, change this into more correct english...)

The brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor was able to witness a complete de-nominalisation of her reality processing (Deleuze/Guattari would perhaps describe this as a process of deterritorialisation). She had a massive stroke which allowed for her to observe her brain faculties shut-down systematically and sequentially. The left brain functions of beliefs, identity, form, Chronos and ego disintegrated leaving the right brain functions intact: creativity, oneness, freedom, eternity, interconnectedness... the universe as an interconnected organism. Humans as parts that make up the organism - like the rock is a process of connecting together snippets of time and space/form.

Whitehead argues that “organism” is a better term for things that exist. Whereas matter is self-sustaining, externally related, valueless, passive, and without an intrinsic principle of motion; organisms are interdependent, internally and externally related, value-laden, active, and intrinsically active. link

So likewise, any form that is created by an organism should be ecological to the system. A form that adjusts to ever-changing environmental conditions. The form as an ecological organism.

I think Mies [van der Rohe] understood the building as an organism that is at work within its milieu or environment. Just as life forms evolve, so too do architecture and technology. For Mies, architecture needed to achieve a new harmony with its environment, because the environment had been changing in historical and material terms.

So architecture that is caring for its environment and inhabitants, buildings that maintain both themselves and their surroundings. As humans maintain both their internal processes and consciously respond to external stimuli, architecture may also step into the role of consciousness. We are beginning to see this type of behaviour inside the virtual world - web applications and browsers that respond to behavioural themes of users. The web is showing evidence of organism-like characteristics. Internet communities emerge with rules that no single person created, yet the rules appear to be ecologically sound.

It is the phantom space between forms that create the order. The imaginary lines that connect two points; a neuron fires another neuron which creates a thought string; two bodies that come together to reproduce and create other forces, a string of actual occasions. An evolution through cross-cultural and cross-matter interaction. A fresh and creative universal harmony; the biosphere realised.

[Austrian artist-designer Friedrich Kiesler] defines co-realism as the science of the exchange of relationships and forces, which emphasizes the dynamics of continual interaction between humanity and the environment, in which there is little or no distinction made between the natural and the technological.

Forms that are created through genetic engineering.

And he says we shouldn't imitate how nature constructs things; we should be developing what he calls biotechniques that allow us to influence life in a desired direction. For instance, he wants to move from the assembly of structures to continuous construction.

To move beyond the potential of human form and expression, to a cybernetic type thinking of form-making; a creative, synergistic evolution:

Kiesler wants to develop "the potential of specific actions contained in any nucleus of human physiology, resulting in entirely new functions sustained by inventions." This set of ideas still uses the ecological model of the human organism in its milieu, but now stresses the interactive, dynamic, and inventive dimension of that relationship. Interactions taking place in society, technology, art, every sphere of activity - this is a holistic notion of interactivity. Through interaction, it's possible for us to expand.

Lissitzky, 1924:

"Every form is the frozen instantaneous picture of a process. Thus a work is a stopping-place on the road of becoming and not the fixed goal."

Interactivity produces form:

Haeckel is the person who coined the discipline of ecology, as the study of the interrelationship between organisms and their environment. Organisms are also understood to be building their environments. They're making the environment while the environment is making them.

Crystals - Self-Ordering - not Self-Organizing (organisms)

Form (previously concrete, with defined outlines) - now (in modernism), form is seen as ambiguous, open; conditioned by the environment and interactions/relationships within that environment. In this sense, the modern understanding of form is philosophically contiguous to Animism.

The modern form is non-egoic; it is empathetic and responsive - concerned with ecology and context.

Sculpture doesn't have to have uses, at least not traditional sculpture, other than to inspire and amuse and provoke in its reception. The reception of architecture is in its occupation and performance as well as in its perception. The challenge is to put aside either-or thinking and develop habits of mind that are inclusive. I think interactive art has many lessons for architecture in this.

There's lot of potential, also, in integrating intelligence to make buildings that are responsive. At Penn, Ferda Kolatan is leading an effort to do that, as he has in his own work. All this is on top of the more effective engagement with uses and programming that we've talked about already.

Global warming demands that we take responsibility for other interactivities than we have talked about so far. There is no reason why more buildings can't be generators of energy, rather than just consumers. Why not integrate that goal into the next generation of generative models for design?

That's actually a good bridge into the question of urban dynamics - how architecture can contribute to the growth and development of cities and economies. In a lovely book by the late Jane Jacobs, The Nature of Economies (2000), she describes how economies grow, develop and expand using an ecosystems metaphor. She says it's helpful to think about how energy passes through ecosystems, what kind and how many transformations of energy and matter take place. In desert ecosystems, less happens than in well-developed forest ecosystems. In a desert or a parking lot, sunlight heats things up but doesn't get circulated much and basically disappears. In the forest, energy is circulated in a web of teeming, interdependent and interacting organisms, plants and animals. It's not just converted once but many times, combined and recombined, cycled and recycled, passed around from organism to organism. That's how diversity, intricacy and complexity develop. The flow of energy, she says, is "dilatory and digressive," leaving behind complex webs of life. It's worth thinking about how the design and making of buildings can enrich ecosystems -human as well as natural - by circulating and recirculating energy. Literally in terms of the energy they use or produce. If they produce energy, not only will this offset global warming, but that energy can be sent into the world to circulate more and in more productive ways.

It's time to radically expand the sphere of interactivity and effects that architects engage, to become serious and activist on that front. We need to develop inclusive habits of mind, to embrace the so-called real world, and work towards attaining multiple goals. There are many issues and resources that can be harnessed and brought together with experimental form-making; it's a tremendous horizon. Without bringing all that together, it seems to me that pure, disinterested experiments in form are inadequate to the tasks that face architects today.

Ecosystem simulation

2009-04-29T21:25:00.002+12:00

Ecosystem simulation in Houdini

Bioconstructivism > Biosynthesis - Emergent Architecture

2009-04-29T20:02:00.004+12:00

Emergent Architecture, Bioconstructivism, Biosynthesis

I like this description of emergence, taken from EMERGENT Architecture: (company)

What is Emergence?
In the scientific sense, emergence refers to the process of deriving new and coherent structures, patterns, and properties in a complex system. Emergent phenomena occur due to the pattern of interactions between elements of a system over time. Emergent phenomena are often unexpected, nontrivial results of simple interactions between simple components. What distinguishes a complex system from a merely complicated one is that some behaviors and patterns emerge in complex systems as a result of the patterns of relationships between the elements.

An emergent property or behavior is shown when a number of simple agents operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviors as a collective. A system made of several things can host properties which the things themselves do not have. For instance, consider water (H20): hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) are extremely light gaseous substances at room temperature, while water, the effect of their combination, is a heavy liquid. Liquidity is therefore one of the emergent properties of the system of hydrogen/oxygen. There is nothing about the property of liquidity-- its wetness, hydraulic dynamics, Brownian motion, and potential for heat exchange-- that can be predicted by examining the properties of either H or O.

Emergent properties can arise not only between things in a system, but between other emergent properties. The number and subtlety of these properties can be very much greater than the number of things.

An excerpt from EMERGENT's 'about' page:

EMERGENT’s approach is informed by contemporary models of biology and systems theory as well as the arts, toward an architecture based on structural pattern formation and emergent behavior. The work is part of a larger contemporary movement in architecture referred to by Detlef Mertins in 2004 as “Bioconstructivism,” where a bias toward material intelligence begins to produce an architecture characterized by its variability and responsiveness to local forces.

The work questions the dialectic of excess and efficiency in architecture, in favor of a more complex understanding of both through biological thinking. The recursive process of random mutation and natural selection in nature provides a model for how a dynamic feedback between excesses and efficiencies can create innovation and elegance. This feedback logic is executed in the office using both generative and analytical algorithms as well as hands-on design techniques.

Key to the work is the phenomenon of ‘emergence’ which offers insight into the way apparently Isolated bodies, particles, or systems exhibit group behavior in coherent but unexpected patterns. The animated beauty of emergent organizations, such as in swarms or hives, points to a range of real architectural potentials where components are always linked and always exchanging information, and above all, where architectural wholes exceed the sum of their parts.

Here's a link to a project where the medicine department is collaborating with the design department:

LabStudio 07/08 : Nonlinear Biosynthesis, University of Pennsylvania

Lars Spuybroek Architect / Designer - Bioconstructivism

Synonymy, Antonymy

2009-04-29T15:37:00.006+12:00

Peculiarities and paradoxes in linguistics:

How is it that chaos is antonymous to harmony which is synonymous to system (and antonymous to discord), yet system is synonymous to complex, which is antonymous to clarity and simplicity, which is synonymous to unity!

And thus, unity is synonymous to harmony, which is antonymous to discord and chaos.

Cybernetics views communication and control in all self-contained complex systems as analogous.

Culture emerges out of repetitive response to exterior stimuli. Culture emerges from environmental conditions:

Deleuze mentions how time is either pulsed or non-pulsed (Chronos and Aion). Yet these two are subjective and are dependent on our experience. What may appear random and 'non-pulsed' or alien (even complex) to one person, may be easily understood by another (chronos, coded, comfortable, simple). Thus, there is usually a process of [de- to re-]territorialisation when some unknown stimuli or data is offered. Humans do their best to codify everything. Anything that humans are incapable of codifying (by scientific or objective means) usually gets lumped into the category of the mysterious... or, in other words...

INSERT: DOGMA/RELIGION/FAITH/BELIEF

YAY!!! So, now humans have a code to explain and replace the unknown...

GOD.

... or quantum mechanics, coincidence, miracles, manifestation, dark matter, the aliens did it!, ghosts, fairies, "I'm too ugly/fat/poor/cool/rich/sexy/human to do that", the media, schizophrenia, flying pigs, "new" recipe...

What I'm saying, is there is there is there is a process, a distinct set of cognitions that occur when alien data enters:

1. "Dum dee dum dee dum"
2. "What on earth is that?"
3. "Ah, it must be _________"
4. "Dum dee dum dee dum"

Dumb asses.

De-codify this!

"God talks to me."

De-codification: Um... so you have voices in your head? (that's [code] schizophrenia, or normalcy, or imagination, or the devil, or beauty, or maybe we're just amazing creatures???)

Presupposition: voices in head = "code"

Situation:
A man wears a pair of underwear on his head.

Solution:
Fashion statement! (huh? That's not fashion???)

Some common processes:

· territorialisation > de-territorialisation > re-territorialisation

· Chronos > Aion > Chronos

· harmony > dissonance > entertainment/fun/creation/funk

· simplicity > complexity > simplicity

· order > chaos > order

· object > subject > object ("object")

· code > flow/flux > decode > code

· control > freedom > control

· is > what is? > is

· yes > no/maybe > yes/maybe

· system > disorganisation > re-territorialise, codify

· certainty > uncertainty > certainty

· knowledge > uncertainty > knowledge

· comfort > discomfort > adjust

· boring > alternative > boring

I try to stay in the middle category (which is bloody hard work, I keep codifying, objectifying everything dammit!)

Hmm...

Environment + alien = culture (?)

Maybe.

the medium is the message: a neutralization of meaning

2009-04-29T13:46:00.008+12:00

I'm reading parts of Jean Baudrillard's book Simulacra and Simulation (1981), and in the writer's essay "The Implosion of Meaning in the Media" he discusses how information 'eats' itself.
Information must be transferred through a medium (ie. language), and virtually every language/medium (body language, speech, written, art/graphical) requires decodification or translation in order for us to understand it.

Any code/medium which is used to report/transmit information will require an abstraction of that which it is transmitting, it is but a representation of what is. This is common knowledge in how two witnesses will report entirely different experiences of an event.

It is paradoxical that I am writing this using an abstract medium (internet blog), with a code (english) that is known for stimulating subjectivity.

Jean Baudrillard speaks of how the real and the medium together create a nebula - a haze of what is.

It is useless to dream of revolution through content, useless to dream of a revelation through form, because the medium and the real are now in a single nebula whose truth is indecipherable.

We all live by a passionate idealism of meaning and of communication, by an idealism of communication through meaning, and, from this perspective, it is truly the catastrophe of meaning that lies in wait for us.
p. 83

To a system whose argument is oppression and repression, the strategic resistance is the liberating claim of subjecthood. But this strategy is more reflective of the earlier phase of the system, and even if we are still confronted with it, it is no longer the strategic terrain: the current argument of the system is to maximize speech, the maximum production of meaning. Thus, the strategic resistance is that of the refusal of meaning and of the spoken word - or of the hyperconformist simulation of the very mechanisms of the system, which is a form of refusal and of non-reception.
p. 85

Activism? Or Nazism.

Further, at the end of this essay, Baudrillard hypothesises that INFORMATION = ENTROPY:

The information or knowledge that can be obtained about a system or an event is already a form of the neutralization and entropy of this system. Information in which an event is reflected or broadcast is already a degraded form of this event.

Paradoxical you ask?
How can information be a loss of information?

PUSH (2009)

2009-04-29T12:09:00.006+12:00

I saw one of the most beautiful expressions of motion ever on Sunday night.

My friend invited me along to a dance called "PUSH." He works for the theatre, saving me about $60.

I found her movements ever so precise and controlled, yet so fluid and natural. During one of the pieces (TWO), I felt a sense of awe and mystique similar to when I first saw "The Matrix." The mechanical and carefully calculated movements had a depth of intention and focus that I had never before witnessed in a dancer. It felt like I was watching 'Trinity' from the Matrix... in real life. I was transported to another dimension. The perfectly placed pauses in motion intensified the impact of each movement.

Here is a link to the solo "Two", one of the pieces in PUSH, Choreographed by Russel Maliphant.
This was filmed in 2005, you can imagine how much this piece has been refined after 3 or 4 years. One could actually FEEL the lines being created.

Two (Rise and Fall)

Proposal

2009-04-29T11:59:00.009+12:00

Here's a link to my year 3 proposal for Digital Design:

Proposal - Coding Complexity: A Collective Abstraction (2009)

I am studying a Bachelor of Design, majoring in Digital Design at AUT University, Auckland (Auckland University of Technology).

It is in a process of emerging as I am fresh to this area of research.

Gender Transition in a Virtual Environment

2009-04-23T17:54:00.001+12:00

Would the audience notice a slow change in human proportion over the course of an animation? Would one be able to tell that a character has changed from male to female between the start and finish?

I would like to investigate this. If gender is in fact important to the aesthetic quality of an animation then it would be assumed that the audience would notice a change in the levels of masculinity/femininity within a form.

A digital form which morphs between male and female. An ambiguous form which can choose its gender, and apply the change in an analogue, flowing way - or a digital, immediate way. Physique and voice tonality contribute so much to gender identification in the physical world, yet on the internet these factors are often not specified or available. Gender is an assumption based on our expectations and conditioning of language choice and linguistic structure.

Mark Poster mentions how we can assume a different identity and gender on the internet.
From his essay "Cyberdemocracy" taken from "Reading Digital Culture" edited by David Trend:

"The structural conditions of communicating in Internet communities do introduce resistances to and breaks with these gender determinations. The fact of having to decide on one's gender itself raises the issue of individual identity in a novel and compelling manner. If one is to be masculine, one must choose to be so. Further, one must enact one's gender choice in language and in language alone, without any marks and gestures of the body, without clothing or intonations of voice. Presenting one's gender is accomplished solely through textual means, although this does include various iconic markings invented in electronic communities such as the smiley [:-)] and its variants. Also, one may experience directly the opposite gender by assuming it and enacting it in conversations." p. 268

Also, how would a transition of gender affect the audience's experience of an animation? Would there be an air of discomfort or would there be nothing? How would the audience respond?
Would any response be an unconscious one (evident through bodily cues) or would the audience notice consciously.

Mark Poster outlines a case of gender redundancy causing a characters perceived 'death' in an online context:

"A man named Alex presented himself on a bulletin board as a disabled woman, "Joan," in order to experience the "intimacy" he admired in women's conversations. Van Gelder reports that when his "ruse" was unveiled, many of the women "Joan" interacted with were deeply hurt. But Van Gelder also reports that their greatest disappointment was that "Joan" did not exist. The construction of gender in this example indicates a level of complexity not accounted for by the supposition that cultural and social forms are or are not transferrable to the Internet." p. 267

It will be interesting to see the implications of this in the context of a contemporary dance.

Unexpected Moments with Ea Sola

2009-04-23T15:59:00.001+12:00

A workshop with the choreographer of ‘The White Body’ , Ea Sola

In this session I was given the unique opportunity to be taught by Ea Sola. I found it an enlightening experience and I learnt so much about human expression and the liberation of self. The class was held at Sky City Theatre, on the same stage as the performance. The workshop was designed for dancers and non-dancers alike.

I felt exposed and vulnerable on the large stage, even though there was only the event coordinator in the audience, and Ea Sola’s partner – whom filmed the workshop. The workshop was strange and quite alienating (so outside of everyday experience) yet it felt like I was investigating the primate within; the roots of human expression.

I asked if it were possible to get some of the footage, and I provided my email address. As they are travelling, I doubt to hear back from them. As I have learned recently, it is often difficult to get in contact with such people (outside of being present with them).

Ea Sola stressed that the class was about honesty; honesty of expression. I believe this was to account for the fact that there were different types of people in the class: elderly people, young, heavy-weight people, delicate, and muscular people. Dancers were here, choreographers, students and enthusiasts. There were 8 of us total.

Activities:
Imagine the Rain
Ea asks us to imagine rain falling upon our skin, and to do so with complete honesty. To see, feel and hear rain splashing upon our bodies (standing). How does each of us respond to subjectivity?
We did this in silence for about 10 minutes.

The next exercise was to follow a single raindrop running down our body, to follow it as it went down one’s arm/chest, and then onward - again, to do this with honesty. I found this challenging as I knew there was no raindrop there – however, I persevered.

We talk for a little while, and then Ea Sola asks one of the participants to come to the front of the group. She asks her to imagine the rain, and to imagine herself naked, exposed to the elements. How will she respond under these conditions? We observe her intently. She was given a position of vulnerability – her every movement analyzed by the group and its individuals.

I learn to defocus my eyes into soft focus (see ‘Photo Reading’ by Paul Scheele, which teaches to use the power of the unconscious mind to read books). By using peripheral vision, I pick up on tiny twitches in muscle movement, I realise how alive this person is (she initially appeared to be motionless. This action allows me to experience the person as a whole, as opposed to zooming in on aspects of motion – which has a tendency to detach that movement from the whole).

When I was on the NLP course, I would spend extended periods of time watching grass shiver in the breeze. I focus on one single blade of grass, absorb it in all its uniqueness, and then allow my eyes to naturally slip into soft-focus. Soft focus also happens spontaneously when one focuses on a spot for a long period. The brain realises that the only content that is important is that which it is focusing on, so the surroundings blur and distort – creating a vortex around the thing being observed. Motion is retained. Back to grass: soft-focus allowed me to see every blade of grass move. I saw the grass as a fluid, responsive body – it was a medium where I could visually track how the wind thinks and acts. Ripples and flickers of movement.

The grass reminds me of society, how we too are like grass – collectively responding to change. Society may be like grass. Grass is a system, a collection of individual elements – a school of fish. Dynamic, responsive – and, like fish, rooted to its environment (fish are rooted to the ocean – grass, to the earth).

Humans are also a system, like grass. The individual components responsible for movement are muscles and tendons. Muscles can consciously and unconsciously respond to stimuli. A muscle may twitch to acknowledge a presence in the objective, physical environment (temperature, forces); it may also respond to a request from the subjective, metaphysical environment (the mind - perception, beliefs and desires).

A twitch is usually unconscious; that is… outside of intent – Habit and Instinct. A smooth movement usually has attachments with intention – it is more rooted in intent, and rearing towards consciousness, awareness. Thus, it could be said that (in general) the micro level of movement is unconscious, and the macro level of movement is conscious.

Could I go as far as saying, with respect to society: a person, a micro-movement (twitch), a blade of grass, is inherently unconscious unless it connects with that outside themselves to create a larger micro-movement (a cult, group, movement) and thus effect the organism as a whole (society, the complete human system); a macro-movement.

In this exercise I learned about subtlety of expression, and of how alive we are, even when apparently motionless. I also learned how to hallucinate, to imagine things which I know aren’t there, yet to believe as if they are.

A Tree in the Wind
In this exercise we split up into pairs. Each of us was assigned with the role of Tree or Wind.
For the tree, the idea was to imagine we were rooted in the ground, yet responsive to forces. The main point was that a tree is designed to return to its original position. A tree is a permanent organism, it is ‘immanent’ (inwardly expressive).

The wind on the other hand is a free force. It is in a state of flux. It is an outward expression, a transient organism. Philosophy calls this ‘Transeunt’.

So the person role-playing as the wind acts as a consistent flowing force which would push against the tree gently – like a wash or a slow-motion push. The wind would manipulate and press anything it wanted to, it has freedom. The tree just responds and reinitiates.
This exercise taught me free-flow and the difference between responding and reacting.

Open your Hands
How slowly can you open your fingers from a clenched fist?
In what had to be the most physically compelling exercise, we learn to gradually open our palms from a tightly closed fist to an open expressive hand.

This was to be done over the course of 10 minutes; an excruciating length of time to perform such a small motion that we humans take for granted. I was intrigued.

It drew a spotlight on the numerous bones responsible for moving my fingers. It was like slowing a film to reveal its frames. Motion was not smooth and uniform. Instead the shifting was a chain of microscopic jerks and twitches. I could feel my bones resist the lack of momentum as they creaked on their joints and gasped for fluidity. I felt at once mechanical and robotic. I felt in awe of the complexity of human motion and the anatomy behind it. I felt humiliation for ignorance demonstrated by the average person of this fundamental beauty and complexity. I did, however, feel enlightened and exposed. It was an unveiling, a new level of awareness – of consciousness.

Summary
The workshop was an exposure of our uniqueness. It highlighted vulnerability and celebrated it. I felt proud of my imperfections and discovered the beauty of other’s imperfections. The concept of imperfection became irrelevant. My preconceptions of what was ‘beautiful’ dissolved. I was able to observe when I was judging and accept it as judgement, lest I judge myself and experience hypocrisy through that altered state.

I also learned to perceive and appreciate in other ways. The environment allowed for experimentation into other possibilities – it is a rare opportunity that I was allowed to observe a live human in a self conscious, poised and exposed state and reflect on that, in real-time.

Live in Conversation

2009-04-23T15:48:00.000+12:00

With Ea Sola, the choreographer of 'The White Body', and with Lemi Ponifasio, choreographer of 'Tempest: Without a Body'.

Both mention staging as an apparatus to text.
Both stress the need for Emergency.

Ea Sola:
Ea Sola believes there is no magic of existence. She sees the person a mystery, she works with the mind and then translates words into bodily motion. She uses dance as a text, a way to express words, thoughts, ideas. She also sees the body as a poetic expression.

Lemi Ponifasio:
Lemi sees dance as a form of activism. He asks the audience why? He says Tempest expresses fragility and power – depicting the process of powerful life change.

Ea Sola:
Ea Sola depicts memory through the body. She is not concerned with personal memory but of collective memory – the memory we all share through war and international relations.
The body is valuable and political. Eliminate violence by shifting one’s perspective – dissociating from the event and observing. How can we bring ourselves closer together? She says her work is a collective work, of togetherness.

Lemi Ponifasio:
He says his work is about sharing and collaboration. He wants to find out who you are. The public viewed Tama Iti – whom performed and spoke during the piece – as a monster, their perspective was one-sided because of how the media portrays him. Tama Iti is a person like everyone else. He is trying to live his life and do what he thinks is right. He is portrayed in all his vulnerability and presence on the theatre stage.
Lemi believes theatre should not be escapism, theatre is a way to understand existence and to acknowledge public fears. He sees theatre as a public ceremony – he says that there is a lack of focus on public concerns in most ceremonial events. The audience as a community: theatre as a way to contemplate time – to reconstitute humanity. Contemporary dance is moments in life.

Ea Sola:
She would like the audience to think and feel, to understand and feel the other. To take consciousness, become aware of youth culture in its current state of consumerism and greed.
She feels it is our responsibility as a collective to observe ourselves.
She is concerned with the modern world – the illusion of freedom, the democratic illusion of freedom and protection. She asks us “is it like that?”
The System, built by European people who stand for freedom – yet they take cheap labour from Asian countries. Is this democracy?

Lemi Ponifasio:
He asserts that it is not democratic to bludge off other countries.
Lemi mentions that the fatal condition of commercial art is that it doesn’t acknowledge reality, that art which focuses on commerciality is fashion and trend based. He encourages us to recognise our cultural roots and to share beauty.

TEMPEST: Without a Body (2008)

2009-04-23T15:44:00.001+12:00

Choreographer: Lemi Punifasio

An intense show from start to end, there were many unforgettable scenes.
The show starts with an abrupt explosion of sound – throwing the audience’s adrenaline and emotions into turmoil. It was like a tornado had hit the building – in fact, I actually thought the stage had exploded.
The sound and lighting throughout the show was eerie and evocative. I had never in my life been terrified and shocked to this level of intensity. Some people to the right of me left the venue about 15 minutes in, and did not return.
The space onstage was used sparsely, I could tell much thought had gone into the placement of elements (I speak of elements… the shapes and actions the performers created made them seem inhuman).

Scenes:
There were four scenes that really wowed me. I will give a description of them now.

Solo with Angel:
Moving ever so slowly, the angel crept around the stage – hunched over, seemingly without a purpose; without direction. There was a deafening silence that clung to the air.
With painstaking deliberation, the angel lifted its head and eyes. The eyes met the audience’s space. Forever seemed to unfold and then all of a sudden the angel let loose the most bone-freezing, unearthly scream. One could see the front five rows actually throw themselves back, stunned. It was like witnessing a shockwave hit the audience.

Liquid Human:
An exposed dancer wriggles backwards like a caterpillar or a worm. It appeared as though his muscles were liquid. The muscles rippled like waves.
Enter angel, screaming at irregular intervals. The angel is not happy. There is an enormous textured panel that hangs to the left of the stage. A deep red blood-like substance gradually stains the panel with light. The blood is wispy and layered. I think was a projection of blood moving around in a glass of thick, clear liquid.
The angel stops screaming. Violently, the liquid human writhes and seizes its way back along the bench – halting as it hung off the end of the bench, lifeless.
This reminded me how fish writhe and squirm when removed from their natural habitat. The scene was highly disturbing, yet captivating. I was intrigued and inspired.

Human animal:
This scene depicts a dancer shifting around the stage much like a deer or similar 4-legged creature. It reminded me a lot of the Tool music video Schism where two contortionists interact with each other on all fours. The dancer even swung his head to and fro as it walked.
The thing that disturbed me the most about the pacing movement was the way the dancer would bulge his lower back in and out – like a hump. Initially I thought it must have been a prosthetic attachment with animatronics inside. However, my eyes adjusted and revealed the truth to me.
I never thought humans were capable of such unusual movement. It was bizarre.

Smash:
Another dancer enters the stage, wielding a large plaster plaque. The dancer lifted it above his head, as if it was an offering to a higher being. Abruptly, the dancer brought it down upon his head. Smashed into a powder, the dancer was obscured by a cloud of white powder.
Then dancers began rushing in – hurling pieces of plaster on the ground around the dancer.

Sleep/Wake (2008)

2009-04-23T15:40:00.001+12:00

The Playground

Conceptually and aesthetically this piece explored territory that I have either researched or wish to investigate and express through. Using a mixture of projected imagery, technology, liquids, airborne particles and light, Sleep/Wake moved me on many different levels.

Scenes:
Bed Sheets
Three dancers lie on a bed each. Initially, they move independently and in isolation to the other dancers. Twisting around the sheet of the bed, and sliding in and around the bed, the dancers moved with closed eyes. They appear to move from intuition and through their unconscious mind.

Pillow Feathers
The dancers thrash and maul a pillow, causing the contents to burst into a swirling cyclone of feathers. I find this eye catching and aesthetically similar to some ideas I will convey.

Moving Wall
A wall that drops up and down, which gives an illusion of a shift in perspective as the dancer moves with the wall. I like how the architecture is alive, and how the environment interacts with and influences the dancers’ decision making.

Tap Scene
Basin overflows, spreading water mixed with black food colouring over the floor. The tap is left on for the rest of the performance. The female dancers begin sliding around in the water.

The lighting reflects the water onto the surrounding walls, which gives a beautiful lushness to the stark scenery. The dancers begin interacting with the wall and throwing water around the place in a crazy organic manner.

The White Body (2008)

2009-04-23T15:38:00.001+12:00

Choreographer: Ea Sola

This show resonated with me, as I had already attended both Ea Sola’s workshop and the conversation with her and Lemi Punifaso.

The performance was disjointed and provocative; Mechanical and robotic; Spastic and chaotic.
I really enjoyed these aspects of the dance. I found the props and lighting powerfully effective.

Scenes:
The Plastic Screen
In this scene the three dancers press against a huge transparent screen of plastic sheeting that hung across the stage. The dancers writhe and throw themselves upon the light drenched plastic. The plastic appears to replicate a vertical surface of water or some sort of gel. The chaotic ripples and waves obscure the dancers – who perform behind the screen.
Each touch causes a ripple that spreads across the screen. The lighting is soft hues of blue, purple and green… which add to the illusion of water. Contact with the sheet of plastic also throws a shadow over the point of contact… with the shadow fading the further the dancer was from the screen. The dancers behind the screen appear in soft focus – blurry with gentle pastel hues.

Manipulation
Motionless on the floor, the female dancer lies. The male dancer walks around her, lifting her limbs into various positions. The female dancer stiffens to hold each position – waiting for the next movement. It is like she is a manikin figure, at the mercy of the manipulator.

Solo Seizure
The third dancer – the second male, walks around the screen to the front of the stage. The lighting is bright and the dancer is exposed.
At this point the dancer begins a distorted and random sprawl of seizing. The arms appear to have a life of their own, like a storm had taken hold of each hand. The sound is loud, eerie and panicky.

Botoh

2009-03-23T11:43:00.001+13:00

After speaking with Andrew Denton, he suggested I check out a person called Botoh (now a movement/style). He said that the movement is a reaction to contemporary dance.

Liquid Motion:

Disjointed, Chaotic, Mechanical:

Cloth and Sheeting:

This reminds me of Ea Sola's The White Body (2008) and the scene in Sleep/Wake where the dancers writhe and twist amongst the bedsheets. I find the light works really well and gives the human an alien-like, provocative undertone which I really enjoy.

The following (by eVoLUTION COMPANY) is a nice example of translucent fabric being used in a dance.

And these screenshots from a dance by the same company have a similar aesthetic.

Here's the video the screenshots are taken from: