User:SN/Graduate proposal: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 22:21, 18 June 2018

PREVIOUS PRACTICE

During the two years in PZI my interests revolve around generative art, media specificities and distortion, its inevitability in any digital media.

There are features common to all my projects:

- works are based on code

- works are about specificities of different media, transformed and applied one on another

- set of rules directs the process

- situations are created in which error could emerge

Untitled, Chain reaction project

Sketch#004, Boundaries of the Archive

Documentation Failure

PROJECT

“Technologies are artificial, but — paradox again — artificiality is natural to human beings.” (Ong, Orality and Litracy)

Our relationships with the machines, the way technology is changing and overwriting us always were a theme for the discourse. The speculations on this topic can be found in popular culture, scientific articles, cultural and social studies.

Every information technology brings a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. It becomes subject to criticism, as it fights old established traditions and acquires to develop completely new skills. Nicholas Carr in the essay Is Google Making Us Stupid? wrote: “I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going – so far as I can tell – but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think.”

Tatiana Chernigovskaya is a scientist in the field of neuroscience, psycholinguistics, and theory of mind in one of her lectures said: “We are what we remember”. She points out that memory is not a box with pictures or any other kind of information, not a library or database; our memory is the processes that take place in our brain. These processes are always new. They change who we are, and technology changes them.

...

Recently I was reading an essay by Boris Groys. I caught myself reading one paragraph for half an hour. I just couldn't understand what he was writing about. Words, sentences — all was clear, but the meaning was fading away from me.

....

Often I catch myself staring at the screen powerless to start to work.

...

his morning I spent a few hours checking my Instagram and Facebook accounts. I wrote a few comments and put some likes, read articles and watched some videos. I barely remember which photos I commented on and what my comments were about. For half an hour I was scrolling my Instagram feed without any attention to the content. Just repetitive movements of my finger on the surface of the screen and the void in my memory. Now it is 8 in the evening and I cannot remember any sufficient detail of what I read this morning. This activity didn't bring me joy or satisfaction, yet my morning starts and evening finishes with checking social networks. It became a reflex: you get up, brush your teeth and check the feeds on social networks, the mind is not involved.

....

Today I printed out an entire ebook. I cannot concentrate while reading long texts on my Ipad. Reading from the screen takes too much time.

...

For 20 min I was turning on and off the Hide button on one of the layers in Photoshop. I was working on a web page and tried to figure out the best way to display and structure a significant amount of information. I doubt whether this monotone activity helped me find the solution to my problem, rather it helped me avoid doing it.

These notes I took while dealing with the digital world. Smartphone and laptop have become an essential part of my life. I used to think that they helped me to expedite my work; apps with smart interfaces, plugins, and scripts that optimize my workflow. But at some moment these tools stopped to be just tools, I became dependent on them. They transform the way I work, think and feel.

IDEA

In my graduation project, I continued the experiments with generative design that I began in the first year of my studies. In my intention was to gather and analyze data to reflect on the theme of the relations between technology and myself, find the best visual expression of the anxiety about losing myself in a digital routine. Taking facts and small things while working on my computer or interacting with my phone, I wanted to reflect on the feeling of being trapped in a digital void.

I started to develop my project being very negative about the impact modern communication technology has on us. Nicholas Carr’s findings only strengthened my assumptions. Nevertheless, now I tend to be less negative.

FILM

My final piece is a code based animation that recreates data I collect. I used a script that takes screenshots every 10 seconds. It consistently worked in the background while I was using my computer. Python code created “zips” based on these screenshots where black space stands for the time my computer was switched off. It changes as the new digital landscape changes my perception of time and space.

INSPIRATION AND PROCESS

One of the subjects of my research was code-based visual systems that I could implement into work with data. Slit scanning technique was one of them.

http://vimeo.com/1398634

Mood references

Michael Snow «The Central Region»

http://vimeo.com/115693196

Barnett Newman works

On the last stages of the project, I had few questions to answer.

At first, I planned to make a book that would include 40 images and 40 notes that correspond to 40 days I was thinking, contemplating and analyzing my digital routine. I planned to make an voiceover based on my notes for video. These elements would dispose to speculation about the impact the technology has on us.

The other direction ( that I actually chose) would be to exclude all the narrative from the piece and concentrate on the emotions I want to raise. Those are uncertainty, obscurity and melancholy. The animation would create the digital abstract landscape that would carry away in the new environment and evokes contemplation and meditation.

I was playing around the levels of abstraction, velocity, and sound trying to be as minimal as possible in order to not wake the viewer from the meditation state.

References

Nicholas Carr "The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember."

Katherine Hayles "How We Became Posthuman."

Charlie Gere "Digital Culture."

Michael Foucault "Technologies of the Self."

Timothy Barker "Aesthetics of the Error."

Rosa Menkman "The Glitch Momentum."

Golan Levin "An Informal Catalogue of Slit-Scan Video Artworks and Research."

Jos de Mul "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Recombination."

Lev Malovich "Post-media Aesthetics."

Lev Malovich "The Language of New Media."

Mark Hansen "The new Philosophy of New Media."

David Hopkins "After Modern Art."

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 <div style='width:900px;'>
-'''WHAT?'''
-My interests lie in data visualization and generative art. The main piece of my project will be a video installation based on a diary of my "digital routine." I also want to make a book based on series of images (100 in total) and small notes, that I take every day. I have a script that takes screenshots every 10 seconds. It consistently works in the background while I use my computer. I also collect data about the amount of time I'm spending in different applications and what sites I'm visiting. In my intention is to gather data for 100 days, analyze and use it to highlight the anxiety about losing myself in a digital routine.
-'''WHY?'''
+'''PREVIOUS PRACTICE'''
+During the two years in PZI my interests revolve around generative art, media specificities and distortion, its inevitability in any digital media.
+There are features common to all my projects:
+- works are based on code
+- works are about specificities of different media, transformed and applied one on another
+- set of rules directs the process
+- situations are created in which error could emerge
+[[User:SN/Untitled| Untitled, Chain reaction project]]
+[[User:SN/Sketch_004|Sketch#004, Boundaries of the Archive]]
+[[User:SN/Documentation Failure | Documentation Failure]]
+'''PROJECT'''
+“Technologies are artificial, but — paradox again — artificiality is natural to human beings.” (Ong, Orality and Litracy)
+Our relationships with the machines, the way technology is changing and overwriting us always were a theme for the discourse. The speculations on this topic can be found in popular culture, scientific articles, cultural and social studies.
+Every information technology brings a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. It becomes subject to criticism, as it fights old established traditions and acquires to develop completely new skills. Nicholas Carr in the essay Is Google Making Us Stupid? wrote: “I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going – so far as I can tell – but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think.”
+Tatiana Chernigovskaya is a scientist in the field of neuroscience, psycholinguistics, and theory of mind in one of her lectures said: “We are what we remember”. She points out that memory is not a box with pictures or any other kind of information, not a library or database; our memory is the processes that take place in our brain. These processes are always new. They change who we are, and technology changes them.
 ::...
-::''Recently I was reading an essay by Boris Groys. I caught myself on reading one paragraph for half an hour. I just couldn't understand what he was writing about. Words, sentences — all was clear, but the meaning was fading away from me.''
+::[[File:day6.png|900px]]
+::''Recently I was reading an essay by Boris Groys. I caught myself reading one paragraph for half an hour. I just couldn't understand what he was writing about. Words, sentences — all was clear, but the meaning was fading away from me.''
 ::....
-::''Often I catch myself on staring at the screen powerless to start to work. Such moments scare me.''
+::[[File:day5.png|900px]]
+::''Often I catch myself staring at the screen powerless to start to work.''
 ::...
-::''This morning I spent few hours checking my Instagram and Facebook accounts. I wrote few comments and put some likes, read articles and watched some videos. I barely remember which photos I commented and what about were my comments. For half an hour I was scrolling my Instagram feed without any attention to content. Just repetitive movements of my finger on the surface of the screen and the void in my memory. I think articles were about new discoveries as some time ago I subscribed to few science magazines and NG. Now is 8 in the evening and I cannot remember any sufficient detail of what I read this morning. This activity didn't bring me joy or satisfaction, yet my morning starts and evening finishes with checking social networks. It became a reflex: you get up, clean your teeth and check the feed on social networks, the mind is not involved.''
+::[[File:day1.png|900px]]
+::''his morning I spent a few hours checking my Instagram and Facebook accounts. I wrote a few comments and put some likes, read articles and watched some videos. I barely remember which photos I commented on and what my comments were about. For half an hour I was scrolling my Instagram feed without any attention to the content. Just repetitive movements of my finger on the surface of the screen and the void in my memory. Now it is 8 in the evening and I cannot remember any sufficient detail of what I read this morning. This activity didn't bring me joy or satisfaction, yet my morning starts and evening finishes with checking social networks. It became a reflex: you get up, brush your teeth and check the feeds on social networks, the mind is not involved.''
 ::....
+::[[File:day3.png|900px]]
 ::''Today I printed out an entire ebook. I cannot concentrate while reading long texts on my Ipad. Reading from the screen takes too much time.''
 ::...
-::''For 20 min I was turning on and off Hide button on one of the layers in Photoshop. I was working on the web page and tried to figure out the best way to display and structure significant amount of information. I doubt whether this monotone activity helped me to find the solution for my problem, rather avoid doing it.''
+::[[File:day4.png|900px]]
+::''For 20 min I was turning on and off the Hide button on one of the layers in Photoshop. I was working on a web page and tried to figure out the best way to display and structure a significant amount of information. I doubt whether this monotone activity helped me find the solution to my problem, rather it helped me avoid doing it.''
-::...
+These notes I took while dealing with the digital world. Smartphone and laptop have become an essential part of my life. I used to think that they helped me to expedite my work; apps with smart interfaces, plugins, and scripts that optimize my workflow. But at some moment these tools stopped to be just tools, I became dependent on them. They transform the way I work, think and feel.''
+'''IDEA'''
+In my graduation project, I continued the experiments with generative design that I began in the first year of my studies. In my intention was to gather and analyze data to reflect
+on the theme of the relations between technology and myself, find the best visual expression of the anxiety about losing myself in a digital routine. Taking facts and small things while working on my computer or interacting with my phone, I wanted to reflect on the feeling of being trapped in a digital void.
+I started to develop my project being very negative about the impact modern communication technology has on us. Nicholas Carr’s findings only strengthened my assumptions. Nevertheless, now I tend to be less negative.
-:: This evening I ordered some goods in an online shop. Usually, the shipping information is filled automatically by the Google autofill function. But something went wrong, and I had to fill it myself. I couldn't remember my phone number.
+'''FILM'''
-These notes I take while dealing with the digital world. Smartphone and laptop have become an essential part of my life. I used to think that they help me to expedite my work. Apps with smart interfaces, plugins, and scripts that are used to optimize my workflow. But at some moment this tools stopped to be just tools, I became dependent on them. They transform the way I work, think and feel. They affected my memory and perception, leaving the feeling of void and chaos.''
+My final piece is a code based animation that recreates data I collect. I used a script that takes screenshots every 10 seconds. It consistently worked in the background while I was using my computer. Python code created “zips” based on these screenshots where black space stands for the time my computer was switched off. It changes as the new digital landscape changes my perception of time and space.
-'''HOW?'''
-Right now I'm collecting as much data as I can. I was stuck with a certain way of visualization. So I decided to step back and analyze any changes, patterns, repetitions. Reflect more on how to deal with these changes. What exactly I want to state exposing them. Answering this questions would help me to find the right way of the visualization.
+'''INSPIRATION AND PROCESS'''
+One of the subjects of my research was code-based visual systems that I could implement into work with data. Slit scanning technique was one of them.
-'''TIMETABLE'''
+[[File:Ec.gif|300px]]
-.01.17 — 20.04.17 — collecting data, experimenting with representation, a makeup of the book.
+{{youtube|-4yVbPbJTHc}}
-.05.17 — deadline for the book.
+{{vimeo|1398634}}
-.06.17 — deadline for the video installation.
+Mood references
+{{youtube|uYr_SvIKKuI}}
-'''Relation to previous practice'''
+Michael Snow «The Central Region»
-In my graduation project, I continue to experiment in the field of generative design. I apply methods and practices I used before to reflect on the theme of relations between me and technology.
+{{vimeo|115693196}}
-In my previous works, I was playing with specificities of different medias, transformed and applied one on another. My projects were based on the set of roles that directs process. Sketch #004 is a video installation I made for the exhibition in Eye Museum. The piece is an outcome of several stages of manipulations of silent films which mimics the formalities of the indexing methods within the archive. My project is a creative point of view on the specificities of the storing and preserving methods and its influence on items that are stored. The categorisation processes distort the understanding of the narrative content of the silent film the same way the formal characteristics of the video distort the sound. Motion vectors and histogram data were isolated from the source to generate an audio track and reassociate it with the footage. The sound is built using granular synthesis principles and resonates with black and white video pieces from 1920's.
+[[File:Barnett_Newman.jpg|600px]]
-As an exercise for the Thematic project, we were asked to create An E-book that concatenates previous records of graduation projects. We were looking at the process as our subject, which seeps into our method. Documentation of documentation of document creates distortion and buries original object and its attributes under the layers of documentation specificities and its media attributes. Being focused on the process of documentation, we decided to pick scanning as a method and general strategy to work with content. Scanning as a process is very fragmented yet systematic with the aim of creating the exact copy of the object. But when you are scanning the scanner has no idea of the whole, the image is that of the fragmented images. We implemented scanning as a conception on different types of documentation objects. To underline disruption while documenting, while we are scanning something, there exists the framework - even it is successful or unsuccessful - just doing it once. I was working on "scanning" documents. This process brings to the surface and exaggerates all kinds of errors caused by machine malfunction and human factors. These errors reveal new aesthetic, produce unforeseen results.
+Barnett Newman works
-Untitled originally was a performance made by Pleun and me during the thematic seminar "Chain reaction." Pleun and I played on the field of combinatory literature, machine art and chain reactions. We looked at the way Youtube autoplay and Google method of crawling the internet works and took it as a starting point. My role as an author was to establish the rules for the process, define the amount of freedom and randomness in the code that would create situations in which the error could emerge. This way the error becomes an inevitable part of the work. The result is a list of words with or within a connection among them. The reader and its subjective interpretation create connections between words. The computer pretends to be a human; human pretends to be a computer, and in between, there is a spectator who creates connections and interpretations.
-'''Relation to a larger context'''
+On the last stages of the project, I had few questions to answer.
-Our relationships with the machines, the way technology is changing and overriding us always were a theme for the discourse. The speculations on this topic can be found in popular culture, scientific articles, cultural and social studies.
+At first, I planned to make a book that would include 40 images and 40 notes that correspond to 40 days I was thinking, contemplating and analyzing my digital routine. I planned to make an voiceover based on my notes for video. These elements would dispose to speculation about the impact the technology has on us.
-Nicholas Carr in his essay "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" wrote "I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going – so far as I can tell – but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think." Carr states that every information technology brings a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. The Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from any available source. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection.
+[[File:P 1.jpg|600px]]
-Tatiana Chernigovskaya scientist in the field of neuroscience, psycholinguistics and theory of mind in one of her lectures said that we are what we remember. Our memory is not a box with pictures or any other kind of information, not a library or database; our memory is the processes that take place in our brain. These processes are always new. Every time we recall a certain event, we recall new one. They change who we are, and technology changes them.
+[[File:P 2.jpg|600px]]
+The other direction ( that I actually chose) would be to exclude all the narrative from the piece and concentrate on the emotions I want to raise. Those are uncertainty, obscurity and melancholy. The animation would create the digital abstract landscape that would carry away in the new environment and evokes contemplation and meditation.
-'''References'''
+I was playing around the levels of abstraction, velocity, and sound trying to be as minimal as possible in order to not wake the viewer from the meditation state.
-Nicholas Carr The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember
-Sherry Turkle Alone Together, The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit
+'''References'''
-Charlie Giar Digital Culture
+Nicholas Carr "The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember."
 Katherine Hayles "How We Became Posthuman."
+Charlie Gere "Digital Culture."
 Michael Foucault "Technologies of the Self."
-"Aesthetics of the Error" Timothy Barker
+Timothy Barker "Aesthetics of the Error."
-"The Glitch Momentum" Rosa Menkman
+Rosa Menkman "The Glitch Momentum."
-"The work of art in the age of digital recombination" Jos de Mul
+Golan Levin "An Informal Catalogue of Slit-Scan Video Artworks and Research."
-"Form + Code" Casey Reas
+Jos de Mul "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Recombination."
-"Post-media Aesthetics" Lev Malovich
+Lev Malovich "Post-media Aesthetics."
-"The Language of New Media" Lev Malovich
+Lev Malovich "The Language of New Media."
-"The new Philosophy of New Media." Mark Hancen
+Mark Hansen "The new Philosophy of New Media."
-"After Modern Art." David Hopkins
+David Hopkins "After Modern Art."
 </div>