User:Amy Suo Wu/updated project proposalII
Reclaiming uncertainty with para-rational* methods.
* "As for the binary opposition between subject and object, I and thou, in relation to consciousness, Krishnamurti writes:
'One’s consciousness is not personal to oneself. This is very difficult to accept because we have been so conditioned, so educated,
that we resist the actual fact that we are not individuals at all, we are the whole of mankind.'
Krishnamurti is not typically quoted in the context of Western academic philosophy and science. I introduce his thinking here in
order to derail that tradition, to insert into the mix a parallel mode of knowledge formation. If a Western philosopher is dismayed
by the apparently illogical paradoxes of Eastern philosophy, s/he should take note of the fact that the Eastern philosopher is not
equally dismayed by the preoccupation with the West’s logic of binary oppositions, because s/he accepts them as a necessary part –
but only a part – of a unity. I propose a parallel, para-rational position that can accommodate both the rational and the irrational
and that is self-reflexive about its application of both ways of knowing." - Edward A. Shanken. Knowing Art, Transcending Science, 2010
what
- By reversing the statement “the weather affects your mood” to “your mood affects the weather”, I would like to try and predict Rotterdam's weather by capturing the mood or emotional levels by recording the interviews of the visitors.
- This will be done in an active weather station hopefully in a mobile unit. At least nominally, for the graduation show, I would like to have an autonomous, mobile space parked outside of Tent on the Witte de With Straat. I am thinking of renting or buying a second hand caravan, mobile home, construction trailer or any portable means of facilitating a consultation set up (refer to blade runner scene: Voight-Kampff test to check the emotional levels of the replicant Leon).
- Still need: parking permit for the caravan!!!!!!!
- "Consultations" will be given in the form of interview and video recordings will be made accordingly. This will then be analysised to make the prediction in it's upcoming days. Simultaneously, this set-up will function as a space to broadcast the live weather predictions directly onto the entrance of the TENT.
- Process will include asking a set of questions regarding irrationality, weather and prediction that will hopefully reveal mistakes, involuntary gestures, unconscious slip-ups. (I have to think of the Dutch artist, Anouk Kruithof who has made an interesting photographic series titled "Becoming Blue" in which she has captured her subjects unawareness when they least expect it. Another work is "The World Explained" by artist Erick Beltran. This work is a collection of personal "improvised" theories about the a wide range of subjects published into an encyclopedic format. The aim of this work is to challenge the nature of constructed knowledge by presenting personal subjectivity and everyday perception, something normally not considered objective fact as published epistemology.) I would like to capture this through video and render the vocal and facial 'glitches' through PD which will visualise the movements into a colour map resembling a weather map. In much the same way that weather maps chart temperature, pressure, wind direction, and wind speed, my facial maps will register facial movements. These parameters will then be associated to emotions.
- This footage in turn will be used to predict the weather while serving as footage for a daily live weather feed broadcasted online and projected or screened inside of Tent or V2, or both.
why
The notion of uncertainty is perhaps the least well understood concept in science. In the public parlance, uncertainty is a negative thing, implying a lack of rigor and predictability. In the field of meteorology, uncertainty is something that is to be contained so that it provides a measure of control over it. Similar to the stock market and population growth in ecology, the weather is a chaotic dynamic system which even though is deterministic, the highly sensitive nature of this system inherently evades the possibility of prediction. The irrational behavior of these systems even escape today's highly advanced computing technology and reasoning.
While Western science armed with rationalism may offer useful insights into phenomena, it is not clear that it will be able to explain everything. In thinking about it's limitations and blind spots of Western epistemology, I would like to create a space to contemplate and reflect upon causal factors that do not subscribe to a rational scientific paradigm. By changing the common proposition of weather affecting your mood to your mood affecting the weather, correlations between mood and weather are reversed. Thus, for my project I would like to somehow detect mood through some para-rational means to predict the weather in the following days. The objective is not to compete with more official weather broadcasts, but rather to explore creatively an anyway speculative system outside any possible graspable container. On one hand I hope to address the more ambiguous and discredited influences of the unconscious spirit. On the other hand, by reclaiming uncertainty through this para-rational method, I hope to shed light on the tenacity of a largely technologically driven society with the exclusive teleology of progress to dominate and its following consequences. Katherine Hayles maintains that, "visions of the future, especially in technologically advanced eras, can dramatically affect present developments.”
prototype
Mr stock and i (mostly mr stock, i was just there providing tea and support) tried to quickly sketch the technical part using MaxMSP. This program picks up movement represented by the colour scheme. I still need to decipher this and re-create it in PD.
