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| ==Week 1 and 2== | | ==Build, break, broadcast / Users and abusers== |
| I have a few ideas that I might want to work on. Some are in really early stages and I will not share them yet. But two are a little bit more mature and I'll describe them briefly below.
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| ===Performance space as a computer=== | | ===Essay=== |
| The note by Alexander Galloway on code as a language that is executable reminded me of John Cage and performances of him I heard about. He wrote instructions for his performers for example:
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| <tt>"In a situation provided with maximum amplification, perform a disciplined action"</tt>
| | I would like to investigate an user that we have not spoken of yet. I call this user the info user and it's basically everyone who uses information a lot, because it is their profession or because they are interested as amateurs in certain topics and want to know about things. Also the info user might be children and young adults who are curious about the world and need information to fulfill their urge. |
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| You could translate these instructions into code like language like:
| | I would like to characterize the different types of info users in greater detail and see what their needs might be. It crossed my mind that I might do this with interviews or through literature research. I can also take my own experiences as info user into account. |
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| <code>
| | When I know which kinds of info users there are and what they need I would very much like to make a connection with idea's on how to create a system which serves these users. I call this system (which like the Memex and Dynabook will not be build fully) the info#envo, which stands for INFOrmation ENVirOnment. I suspect that the idea of an information environment is important because I think users should be empowered to control their own information within their own (digital) environments. On systems existing today I find that the possibilities of play with information is very limited. This is usually due to the fact that current systems are build on very old paradigms and metaphors (like the computer as typewriter). I might place the idea's for info#envo within the context of older system idea's like Memex and Dynabook, but that depends a little on my progress I suppose. |
| BEGIN<br/>
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| sound.level = sound.maxlevel;<br/>
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| performance.action = "a disciplined action";<br/>
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| END<br/>
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| </code>
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| If you approach these instructions from a code point of view you can borrow concepts from programming languages (for instance procedures) to shape the instructions. This will make the instructions work differently. In the case of borrowing the concept op procedures the instructions become more dynamic:
| | It is my opinion that the info user has become an important (real) user now that knowledge has become a resource in the knowledge economy. Yet I would not like to solely focus on these "information workers", but also see if information can be of value in different ways then dollar signs to other users. |
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| <code>
| | ===Intervention=== |
| PROCEDURE openWindow()<br/>
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| BEGIN<br/>
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| performance.action = "open a window";<br/>
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| END
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| PROCEDURE closeWindow()<br/>
| | My idea for an online intervention is based on my opinion about current information systems. As said above these systems are often limiting, because the underlying design idea's haven't changed for a long time. But it also happens that info systems are limited because the creators want them to be that way. For instance the way how Google has designed their GoogleAds. If you search Google and visit sites connected to the GoogleAds program it will insert adds that to Google seem relevant for you. They are however mostly relevant for the sites that you've been visiting, because they want you as a customer (again). From the perspective of the info user this design is completely utterly boring. As an info user I want to know what I don't know and don't want to be stalked by information that I do not care about anymore. I want information to be like an adventure, not the same over and over again and I think a lot of info users feel the same way. |
| BEGIN<br/>
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| performance.action = "close a window";<br/>
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| END
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| BEGIN<br/>
| | I would like to place a hack on the GoogleAds program. This hack will transform the Google business model into a service for their users. What it does is that it changes the advertisements into something else, which is probably more interesting and certainly more surprising. I would like to leave it up to the crowd what this other thing is, but the crowd will be limited. You can only upload new content for the ads, replaced by the hack, by going to a belhuis and upload it from there. Hopefully I can convince some belhuis owners to work with me and make the hack a default. This would offer a stage for and by belhuis visitors, next to other users who might use the hack instead of Google. |
| openWindow();<br/>
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| closeWindow();<br/>
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| openWindow();<br/>
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| openWindow();<br/>
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| closeWindow();<br/>
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| END
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| </code>
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| Looking at instructions this way turns the stage into a platform where the performers act as processors and you can create art by writing code.
| | ===Previous idea's=== |
| | | You can read about the idea's that I had before [[oldideas|here]]. It says something about my performance ambitions as well as other ideas for possible interventions. |
| Most people will know the work of John Cage and that of Allan Kaprow. LeWitt seems to be another artist concerned with code that executes art. I will have to broaden my knowledge about them and especially my knowledge about the people who came after them. With this theoretic research I hope to learn more about the possibilities of shaping instructions.
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| In the end this research may develop into a protocol that leads the performers. And as Alexander Galloway writes, this protocol has the potential to be a field of possibility where the performers can "hack" the protocol and break out of their impediment; showing creativity.
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| I like this idea a lot, because it appeals to my motto which is: "Freedom only exist in how you respond to what people do to you". Likewise freedom only exists in how as a performer/audience you deal with the protocol.
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| [[image:InstructionsAllanKaprow2.jpg|300px|instructions as written by Allan Kaprow]]
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| ===rotterdammers.nl===
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| My second idea is about art facilitating contact between strangers. Sometimes I'm struck by the realization that everybody I meet on the street could be a valuable person to know in my life, but that I'll never know, because they'll always remain strangers to me. Reason enough for me to think how art may change this in my life.
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| The first thing I thought of (an idea from last year) was to make a performance about strangers that would automatically get into contact with each other through a site called www.rotturdammurs.nl, without them realizing exactly what is going on. I imagined the play to be about problems that might occur in online contact and would end with the announcement that everybody in the audience was now subscribed to www.rotturdammurs.nl and that they could check it out themselves to meet the strangers that are now sitting in the theatre.
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| Now that I know more about wireless connections through Danja and Gordo's classes I was thinking that it might be exciting to listen to a public wireless connection (like the one from Rotterdam) and see what people browse on these networks. If you compare the surf behavior of different individuals you might be able to match people together and bring them into contact. The idea of the play would be executed in real life. I'm not 100% sure how this would work technically, but I will try to listen to some traffic soon and talk about the possibilities with the tutors.
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| ==Week 3==
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| A lot of stuff happend this week. First all give a short update on my ideas so far and then I'll go into the prospects of the other classes that I took this week.
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| ===Performers space as a computer===
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| Unfortunately I have not red as much as I wanted to. But some Kaprow texts are now printed in my bag and I got to read the first chapter of Galloway. It remains difficult to think of a translation from what protocol is to a theatrical protocol, but the second chapter of Galloway about form is promising, because it will give a more abstract description of what protocol is, making any translations easier.
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| Through Dusan I heard about an alumni called Mara. It appears that she made a performance project very similar to my current idea's. She wrote instructions in Perl for performers to execute. I will try to get into contact with Mara and see how we might benefit from each others work and idea's.
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| The glimpses I saw of Kaprow's text remind me of the current Prototype assignment. You can check my results with this assignment [[User:Fako Berkers/assignment1|here]]. Happenings might be not so different from algorithms. With Happenings (so it seems now) you don't prepare much but you let a piece of art develop depending on the participants. Likewise you could expect an algorithm to create output based on participant input. For instance a favorite song of a participant could be downloaded and function as a time structure for a Happening. You could import the favorite 3D world of participants to be the base for the space structure. This way a lot of variables in the Happening are set through the computer. But more on this after I red some more Kaprow!
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| ===Rotterdammers.nl===
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| I got a little wiser on the technical part of this idea. Apparently it is possible to put you wifi hardware into listening mode. This way you can collect data and decrypt info. With Wireshark it should be possible to view data packages.
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| ===On radicalization===
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| I went to a masterclass organised by Forum. The masterclass was about radicalization. I was shocked how teenagers with extreme ideas are pushed to the edges of internet where no one can give a counter sound to their ideas. Maturity is formed by discussing your idea's with people who think differently and this will not happen if you can only ventilate your idea's on extreme sites, because moderators do not allow it anywhere else. It is in my opinion a negative effect of controlling internet. I believe a lot of the internet is about meeting people who are like you and share your interests. I will contemplate on how you can bring together people with different idea's. Interesting in this matter is the notion of weak and strong ties between people. My bachelor thesis was about strengthening ties by using theater as a means, maybe I can continue this research by looking at online possibilities and barriers concerning ties between people.
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| ===On discrimination===
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| Articles about activism through the internet made me think of an old idea of mine to create a Facebook game of "find the differences". By using faces of different ethnicity, sex, subculture etc. you might reduce implicit discrimination (since studies show that becoming aware of differences in faces between people of the same race reduce implicit discrimination). It might be worthwhile to think about an installation that might be taken from school to school in order to promote the game and anti-discrimination.
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| ==Week 4 and 5==
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| In the last two weeks my ideas have gone through a filter. By attending a tutorial with Rennee and Aymeric I got a better idea what my direction is. In short: I would like to work with my personal motto (freedom lies in how you react to what people do to you) at this moment, I have to think of low-tech high-performance solutions, I have to decide on the role of the audience (how to crowdsource).
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| At the moment I have a hard time to figure out the crowdsourcing part. I deem it important because it deals with contemporary techniques and could give an answer to the question why an audience should care for the thinks I'll be doing on stage, but the solution has not presented itself yet.
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| ===I hate cooking, but I love the way I do it===
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| I want to start with a cooking table and some cooking necessities. Apart from that there will be recipes. How these recipes will be introduced to the stage remains a question. They could be suggested by the audience. If so I need to split the instructions from the ingredients, buy the ingredients and partially prepare them before the performance (similar to how a cooking show on TV would). It might be interesting to create something which makes splitting the input into the ingredients and instruction parts easy (this tool might also stimulate a user into XML behavior). Yet I could also imagine that this part of the performance is not crowdsourced for convenience.
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| The performance environment will feed me the (cooking) instructions and I'll execute them. Since I do not enjoy cooking the protocol that makes me do it is something I want to break out of. The way I can brake out of it is by enjoying the performance quality that I will give to the instructions. Doing this is likely to severely slowdown the cooking process.
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| I could make the audience switch between modes where I'm allowed and not allowed to work against the protocol. Giving them control over my choice in how to interact with the system and with that how well I'll do on the task. Their behavior in this could be monitored and at the end feedback on this might be given, for instance the time ratio between the two modes, how far the task is completed and how much performance time is left. A conclusion might be drawn on the character of the audience as a group, ranging from very rebellious to very obedient.
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| I'm not yet sure if crowdsourcing my choices in to implement my motto or not is a good idea or not, but at least I have something on paper now that will force me to think it through more.
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| ===All is one and the "opposite algorithm"===
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| A very central idea to both the Bible as the Quran and in my opinion this idea is opposite to my motto in the sense that my motto is practical and this idea remains theory. Yet the practice of crowdsourcing algorithms (as they seem to be implemented at the moment) group people in the same category for marketing purposes, this makes them "one" in a way and fits the idea of "all is one" well. But I'm curious if a system can be developed that searches for opposites. A system where "hate == love" has a result of true.
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| ===P.S.===
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| I could also give the audience a control over the "all is one" motto. Of course this will have no effect on my performance, since this idea is purely theoretical on a performance level. At the end of the performance (because computers can't really differentiate all will be treated and judged as one. This way the polarity between these two philosophy's might become clear through the performance.
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Build, break, broadcast / Users and abusers
Essay
I would like to investigate an user that we have not spoken of yet. I call this user the info user and it's basically everyone who uses information a lot, because it is their profession or because they are interested as amateurs in certain topics and want to know about things. Also the info user might be children and young adults who are curious about the world and need information to fulfill their urge.
I would like to characterize the different types of info users in greater detail and see what their needs might be. It crossed my mind that I might do this with interviews or through literature research. I can also take my own experiences as info user into account.
When I know which kinds of info users there are and what they need I would very much like to make a connection with idea's on how to create a system which serves these users. I call this system (which like the Memex and Dynabook will not be build fully) the info#envo, which stands for INFOrmation ENVirOnment. I suspect that the idea of an information environment is important because I think users should be empowered to control their own information within their own (digital) environments. On systems existing today I find that the possibilities of play with information is very limited. This is usually due to the fact that current systems are build on very old paradigms and metaphors (like the computer as typewriter). I might place the idea's for info#envo within the context of older system idea's like Memex and Dynabook, but that depends a little on my progress I suppose.
It is my opinion that the info user has become an important (real) user now that knowledge has become a resource in the knowledge economy. Yet I would not like to solely focus on these "information workers", but also see if information can be of value in different ways then dollar signs to other users.
Intervention
My idea for an online intervention is based on my opinion about current information systems. As said above these systems are often limiting, because the underlying design idea's haven't changed for a long time. But it also happens that info systems are limited because the creators want them to be that way. For instance the way how Google has designed their GoogleAds. If you search Google and visit sites connected to the GoogleAds program it will insert adds that to Google seem relevant for you. They are however mostly relevant for the sites that you've been visiting, because they want you as a customer (again). From the perspective of the info user this design is completely utterly boring. As an info user I want to know what I don't know and don't want to be stalked by information that I do not care about anymore. I want information to be like an adventure, not the same over and over again and I think a lot of info users feel the same way.
I would like to place a hack on the GoogleAds program. This hack will transform the Google business model into a service for their users. What it does is that it changes the advertisements into something else, which is probably more interesting and certainly more surprising. I would like to leave it up to the crowd what this other thing is, but the crowd will be limited. You can only upload new content for the ads, replaced by the hack, by going to a belhuis and upload it from there. Hopefully I can convince some belhuis owners to work with me and make the hack a default. This would offer a stage for and by belhuis visitors, next to other users who might use the hack instead of Google.
Previous idea's
You can read about the idea's that I had before here. It says something about my performance ambitions as well as other ideas for possible interventions.
