User:~brumatana/Project proposal

Graduation project proposal

02-12-2019

File:Ana Brumat project-proposal.pdf

As we discussed my last project proposal only recently, I will include both, the old and the recent proposal.

Latest proposal

For my graduation project I propose a video installation. The video triptych is built of three big vertical screens, hanging on a wall in a dark room. The middle screen is dominant and bigger than the others. The amorphous figures are previously filmed organic and translucent synthetic objects inside an aquarium. The footage is slowed down at very low speed. The image morphs so slowly that appears almost static. That allows us to concentrate to all their details, but still capture the feeling of a morphing organic structure. The sound is almost inaudible background sonic disturbance which covers the noises from the outside world. The subject are undefined amorphous figures, which are constantly mutating. The installation creates an isolated experience and absorbs the spectator in an intimate relation with the undefined exhibited species.

The artistic research is focused on the analysis of micro and macro dimensions and their prime universal patterns trough physical phenomena. An analog-digital analysis of micro and macro cosmos through means like sound, video and image manipulation, sonic and space research. It explores the imperceptible sides of objects and represents it in a language perceivable to human senses, building subtle and invisible realms.

The work is a development of artist’s personal encrypted language through the process of an abstract figuration. The artistic investigation is based on the discovery of new possibilities and relations between synthetic/digital world and natural systems. It leads to an expansion of our understandings of complex cybernetic structures. The application of organic attributes and behavior to an artificial structure makes it become a part inside a natural habitat and it draws new perspectives of progressive alienated forms inside complex possible future life structures. The core of the project is the creation of a series of fascinating near abstract works that create primordial dramas of forms that might be microscopic or macroscopic. Together these works create a fascinating and richly textured imaginative world that draws the viewer into metaphysical environments that are uniquely informed by emblematic complex systems and organisms. The process gives to the work much of the fascination of the ethereal-scientific mapping of a universe that becomes an evocative analogy to human emotions.

First proposal

The project is a representation of a conceptual chimeric laboratory. An opus of the research process, which explores the concept of possible intelligent future life forms and cybernetic systems. The embassy lies on relation between evolution, cybernetics, homeostasis and general system theory. The artist attempts to create conceptual artificial life forms and environments that can learn and adapt to the natural habitat without invading it. The artist explores the behavior of individual self-organizing intelligences and merges them into a decentralized homeostatic network. The adaptation of the synthetic organisms inside natural habitat is an urge in the evolution to obtain the homeostasis of heterogeneous micro and macro layers of living systems. The aim of the project is to explore new possible interactions of artificial cybernetic entities inside a cultural and natural habitat.

The laboratory is made up of examples and fragments of the research; sketches of the ideas, prototypes and the final creation. It is a collection of experiments made with miscellaneous media and an attempt to recreate an artificial living habitat. It explores experimentation with substances like light, translucent objects, water, network structures, multimedia apparatus and sound. It includes an interactive audio visual installation in a combination with analog micro photography and digital images, displayed as digital prints and projections on screen diffusers.

About interactive audio-visual installation: It represents an artificial cybernetic living system. The installation is a spider web like structure, made of black elastic ropes. It expands in the space from the sealing to the floor and nearby walls. White veil, wrapped and bended inside the structure, creates multiple semi-transparent screens for the projection mapping. The translucent screens create a holographic effect. Every image draws an individual living system. The mutation of the images through layers of the screen represent the interaction between those systems. Their life symbolizes their process of exchanging data through diverse modes of communication, self-organizing and regulating their behavior to external factors while forming a much bigger symbiotic structure. The projected videos are made with deep learning, an exchange of information and actions between the software and the maker. The software analyzes frames of from the footage previously filmed by the artist, where the filming apparatus are capturing the behavior of artificial translucent matter under various conditions of lightning beneath the of water surface. The motion sensors placed on the structure detect and interact with the audience producing sound as an attempt of a communication with the human species. The audio samples are pre-recorded in the urban environment and are given to the network as an example of the outside world. The network tries to transmit to the audience the sound produced in their human habitats in its own interpretation of language.

About digital images: Digital images are representation of first sketches cellular tissues of individual organisms in their first state of life. The digital images are the result of experimentation with translucent objects with slit-scan and underwater photography. Each diverse object used for the photography creates its own series of work. The series are presented as digital prints or projections on TV screen diffusers, hanging in the middle of the space. Those screens reflect the projected image and the movement caused by their flexible method of the installation make them look like they are in constant motion.

About analog micro photography: The apparatus is a DIY focal camera with a microscope lens. It represents the analysis of micro and macro spheres. It captures small parts of the environment, creating images that resemble landscapes photographed with satellites or microorganisms under the microscope.

Relation to previous practice

The proposed project is a union and a continuation of my previous research. The subject of my past work explores new possible forms of organized life structures and their relation to each other. I was creating art through points of view of different sciences with an emphasis on cybernetics, homeostasis and general systems theory. I envision the creation of an ethereal artificial world. I continuously explore the imperceptible micro and macro spheres. I analyze the behavior of an object under varying physical conditions and capture the invisible sides with capturing apparatus. The process is an experimentation with translucent objects, light, water and sound through analog and digital means. I have always been interested in the discovery of imperceptible sides and characteristics of the objects by analyzing their countless relations with myself and the environment.

Timetable

I already have quite a lot of footage on which I can work. I will continue to explore organic shapes and forms. I will use the footage also for a short film for the Eye Filmmuseum. I have to understand what is the essence of my work and take away all the unnecessary elements.

References

Albrizzi (1838) Enciclopedia Italiana: Dizionario della Conversazione vol. II. Venice, Girolamo Tasso

Ashby, R W (1957) An Introduction to Cybernetics. 2nd edition. London: Chapman & Hall LTD

Ashby, R W (1960) Design for a Brain. 2nd edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Bale S B (no date) Gregory Bateson, Cybernetics, and the Social/Behavioral Sciences, Narberth

Bateson, G (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. 2nd edition. Northvale: Jason Aronson Inc.

Bateson, G (1979) Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York, E.P. Dutton

Bertalanffy Von, L (2013) The History and Status of General Systems Theory. Academy of Management

Bridle J (2018) New Dark Age: Tehnology and the End of the Future, New York, Verso

Deleuze G and Guattari F (2005) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, 11th edition, Minneapolis, University of Minessota Press

Gleick J (1998) Chaos, London, Vintage Books

Guattari F (1989) Three Ecologies, New Formations number 8 summer

Haraway, Donna J (2016) A Cyber Manifesto, Minesotta, University of Minesotta Press

Hayles N H (1999) How We Become Posthuman, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press

Hofstadter, D (1979) Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York, Basic Books

Kohn E (2013) How Forest Think, California, Universiti of California Press

Nicolai C (no date) syn chron, Berlin, Gestalten

Pickering, A (2010) The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future, Chicago, The university of Chicago

Sonic Acts XIV (2012) Travelling Time. Amsterdam, Sonic Acts Press

Sonic Acts XV (2013) The Dark Universe. Amsterdam, Sonic Acts Press

Reichardt J (1968) Cybernetic Serendipity, London, Studio International