User:Zalán Szakács/projectproposal2

Graduation Project Proposal Draft 2
15 | 10 | 18

Eigengrau (project working title)
(German: "intrinsic gray", lit. "own gray"; pronounced [ˈʔaɪ̯gn̩ˌgʁaʊ̯]), also called Eigenlicht (Dutch and German: "own light"), dark light, or brain gray, is the uniform dark gray background that many people report seeing in the absence of light.

What do you want to make?
Since the antique humans were fascinated by light and it’s illusionary characteristics mentioning the metaphor of Plato’s Cave. Around the fifteen centuries perspective and camera obscura was invented and since then this spatial depiction has become the norm to all other visual representations. Perspective was accepted as a ‘scientific’ and true method based on optics, but also as a model of how people could observe space, and gradually people realised that perspective was mostly about a way of looking at reality. Joost Rekveld 2007, Mental Spaces, viewed 15 October 2018, <http://www.joostrekveld.net/wp/?page_id=590>
Towards the end of nineteenth century the non-euclidian geometry was discovered by mathematicians such as Friendrich Gauss, Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, Janos Bolyai and this brought up the concept of the fourth dimension, the concept of time in relationship with space.
Movement and light became an important motivation motor for the artists and designers from Bauhaus such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. The digital developments of the twentieth century brought the human kind to new spatial perception such as the Cyberspace. This space appears to be real and at the same time not geometric or not real in any physically determined way. We use completely new concepts to visualise or understand this space: rhizomes, networks consisting of nodes without any hierarchy, etc. Joost Rekveld 2007, Mental Spaces, viewed 15 October 2018, <http://www.joostrekveld.net/wp/?page_id=590>

After millennial humans desire for new understandings of spatial concepts as called ‘post-digital spaces’. These are psychical spaces build by digital components such as custom made software, sensors, digital interaction, where digital merges with physical creating hybrid environments. Human senses are triggered by these elements, while creating new sensory experiences, which have been deeply researched and experimented by scientist and artist in 1960’s such as James Turrell in his Ganzfeld Effect spaces (name them). Our everyday life is deeply interwoven with screens and interfaces therefor is a tendency and desire of breaking out of them.

Fascinated by epoch of the 19th centuries, the pre ages of the cinema humans created different spatial illusional models of bringing the dead materials of photographs and paintings alive through inventions such as zoetrope, praxinoscope and phantasmagoria. The goal is to reinterpret these media archaeology models into post-digital contemporary context. Creating different human spatial illusion effects (afterimage) with very basic elements such as light, haze, sound.
The interactive installation uses light (LED) as communication methods of breaking the individual bobbles of humans and bringing more people together for a dialogue. It receives data from heat sensors and if more people are standing underneath different LED strips will light up and the installation starts to work as spatial illusion. The structure consists of two grids one on the top and one on the button where different LED strips are installed. Each strip has also its own sound, which creates an audiovisual immersive installation.

This installation manifests a new understanding about the post digital spaces and the importance of light for its audience. It sets its goal to create a community around this term and make it more accessible this installation for a broader audience.

How do you plan to make it?

My first goal is to investigate into literature research from different angles such as philosophy, psychology (perception of space, emotional response of light in humans), architecture, scenography, digital culture & aesthetics, etc. At the same time I would immediately start with small script snippets and hands-on research with coding and light.

What is your timetable?

Research + Prototyping
Finalisation
Realisation
Presentation

Why do you want to make it / Relation to previous practice

My work has been shifting from graphic designer practice into a more motion designer, VJ and working with the dialogue of light and space strikes me the most at the moments. This medium would be the most complex but the most clarified as well.

Who can help you and how? PZI staff
Children of the Light
Sound:frame

Relation to a larger context

roiji ikeda
james turrel
nonotak
joris strijbos
uva

strp biennale
atonal berlin
mutek montreal
ctm festival
todaysart
china light festival
ars electronica
sonic acts
algorave
live coding culture
algorithms from nature

References Roberto Casati - Are Shadows Transparent? An Investigation on White, Shadows, and Transparency in Pictures
Junichiro Tanizaki-In Praise of Shadows (1977)