(viscous data) : “inscripting the corpo/reality of the body into the corps of the algorithmic code”.
My project was conceived via a quote from N. Katherine Hayle’s that, ‘the form of the body may change, and so too our concept of embodiment, but that, as humans, our materiality is the key to our lives’. It uses this statement as a springboard to explore how traditional notions of physicality/embodiment have informed the use of space and form within artistic frameworks; how those ideas are evolving, and what place those conditions occupy within the digital/material interface.
It proposes that proprioceptive conditions may act as agents of passage in the divide between mechanistic understandings of technology and embodiment. The project investigates the application of these conditions as mechanisms in popular and ‘high’ culture; examining the application of those techniques within a digital framework. It seeks to ‘earth’ floating disembodied presences, imparting a sense of mortality to a contemporary digital environment.
Aims
• To investigate video/film devices/mechanisms eliciting proprioceptive response
• To investigate the role of form, colour and space in proprioceptive response – both in traditional understandings and how digital/virtual mediums influence this perception
• To examine the role of conditions of being in popular cultural understandings (particularly in contemporary Japanese horror films: The Ring, The Grudge)
• To explore the use of space as suggestive of presence (eg; the use of ‘absence’ to infer presence)
• To examine the implication of production in infolding meaning specific to materiality (ie: contrasting qualities of fluidity and exposure in stone or wood resonate with ambiguous juxtapositions)
Research Questions
• How has the development of the individual from the time of the Renaissance informed our use/response to space within artistic praxis?
• What occurs to this space within a digital environment?
• How this space might alter philosophically in the move from Cartesian understandings of embodiment
• How these changes might impact on our proprioceptive response to the use of space and form within art (both popular and ‘high’) in the future
• Do notions of space and response shift between the digital and material interface?
• How concepts of form are redesigned by axes of movement and time.
• How these factors impact on the act of visual cognition, and inform proprioceptive response
What will you produce?
• A written thesis dealing with the research questions outlined above,
and
• Three design projects investigating how elements of non-material being/presence (within proprioceptive exchange) can be suggested or elicited through the manipulation of space, form and colour; supported by short essays relating the work and what emerges from it to the themes explored within the research.
- The first project ‘animatus’ sought to emulate a body on-line. It was the intention of this exercise to initiate the concerns of the project by emulating the behavior of living tissue - at times reaching out or shrinking back. Links, audio, visual and textual narratives will all be responsive to touch, and will be constructed with a built-in obsolescence that ‘ages’ during transmission (ie., text gradually fading to sepia, and scrambling) unless ‘rehabilitated’ by the user. The development on this piece evolved to include emulating conditions of ‘memory’ (ie., certain images triggered specific sounds/text).
Issues in running a work the size of ‘animatus’ have suggested simplifying the infrastructure in order to keep project sizes manageable. This is why the expectations at this stage of development is in exploring elements of memory (colour?), movement (space?) and response (form?) in dedicated projects that come together as an unified work. Therefore, finishing work on this project will be restricted to the initial intentions of the exercise.
2. In a continuation of developing themes initiated by ‘animatus’, the second project ‘unSite’ extends the construction of a digital presence as flickering memories linked to both audio and visual connections emulating recollections. Again this work will continue to explore themes of obsolescence, and proprioceptive response to digital space. At this point ‘unSite’ will run a Flash/Director file in conjunction with a powerpoint presentation as a large-scale installation/projection, (the choice of software has been factored around the resources of the exhibition space). It seeks to create a slightly disjointed dialogue which manifests an almost tangible presence in the space it inhabits; and is intended for exhibition around late October/early November.
3. The final project (‘viscous data’) culminates by incorporating both the above projects, and additionally explores exchange/relationship through the spectator’s proprioceptive responses, utilising movement/space as it exists within a digital environment.
Why is this research worth doing?
What do you expect to get out of this research? What do you see to be the value of the research and to whom?
At this stage in digital artistic development establishing areas of meaningful exchange between conditions significant to human actuality, and their context within a digital framework is germane to its evolution. It is therefore fundamental that we explore this state from as many angles and with as much rigor as possible. I hope that through research addressing the influence of embodiment and affect within the creative act this project will contribute to that process.
Ricky Swallow "Killing Time"
Richard Billingham "Untitled"
Richard Billingham "Dog Licking Floor"