User:Yoana Buzova/trim4

Tentative Title

Remember this can change as your research evolves - also keep in mind that the title of your research does not have to be the eventual title of your exhibited final project.

Introduction

During the past nine months I have been experimenting in different fields, using different approaches and tools. I made a few small projects in which exploring these areas.

I have mainly been working in the model of practice-based research. In the second trimester I started my self-direction project, provoked by the subject of signals and code. My approach was towards encoding and decoding simple urban patterns I collected. I photographed streets at night and then taking them as input, I created a visual code from the lit house windows. The code I played on a music box i built myself. The result are minimal, generative compositions of urban activity. I took information of a large scale ( whole streets and their buildings) to reinterpret it and notably descale it into a gentle sound, coming from a small mechanical object.

As a continuation of the project and aiming to close the loop I started, I built a discrete but resistant urban installation, aiming to bring the data I processed back to its place of origin – the streets. The melodies are looped in speakers, made of concrete, placed in the city. The speakers, in contrast to the music box are resistant, heavy and keep repeating the otherwise transient moments. This iteration where the translated gentle, almost fragile information (composition) is distributed and preserved was the endpoint of the project and made it a complete piece.

Relation of my interest to my previous work described above - ----> This work deals with processes of encoding and decoding and translation of data. It encloses information into tangible objects. Maybe as an unconscious result of my BA studies in photography, I take the position of a viewer, I collect data and use it examine and explore later so it can be the starting point of my work. Work is created during exploring diy strategies, conceptually and physically contrast/different materials and techniques

fast prototyping with laser cutting....slow prototyping with concrete

Looking back at my work from the first year I see two ways I could take my graduation project.

1. Installation/ Object -----> related to my self-directed research. Taking one set of symbols and transforming it to another. I am fascinated by the idea of reinterpreting data and bringing it back to where it originates in its new form. In other words creating different iterations of one source. Work with sound, use image as a starting point? Transporting sound of one place to another. Building an object that the viewers interact with and experience the new form of the information.

2. DIY kit / critique towards industrialization / false consciousness / criticism ---> related to my DIY kit, allowing the purchaser to create fake proof/documentation of DIY work in progress he/she has executed.

Both are connected trough my practice in the way that I like do my things myself, especially tangible work.

Key Words / themes

Fascination for making objects

using, mixing / commonplace objects

practice-based research

Tangible

Encoding – Decoding / reinterpreting

Translating and transporting information / taking it from one domain to another, from one place to another

Compressing - Decompressing

Scaling – Descaling

environment - sound

DIY strategies

False consciousness

form:

Urban spaces /installation/

working with material

object - image – sound – environment - audience

possible outcome: I am sure that i want a tangible outcome - as a result of my research --> building an object that exists in an urban environment as well as an exhibition space ( possibly a dynamic relationship / connection between them). Bold or even unrealistic may be a combination with an online part of the project( flexible database, live stream content or content fed by users). An object that is fed with dynamic data ( ex. a live sound stream)

questions:

exploring, experiencing information from a source different than a computer, screen / a custom, unfamiliar object

preserving information in another form ( what happens when data is suddenly gone)

DIY / instant / ready-made / fake / cheesy / romantic / false consciousness

Relation to previous practice

Relation to the Street Compositions project and its two parts/stages. First - Taking night street photographs as an input and creating a code for a self-made punchcard music box and Second part - bringing the modified information back to the streets in a concrete speaker installation, looping the music box composition.

summary : Reinterpreting data and putting it back in its old place in a new form

Relation to a larger context

Situationist approaches to psychogeography, urban tactical media and activist strategies of reclaiming the streets.

Works I find related to my interests /practice /method

Georgina Starr - Whistle

Zimoun – sound installations

Michael Kontopoulos - https://vimeo.com/1609126 - machines that almost fall over

http://locusonus.org/soundmap/034/ live open worldwide microphones project started 2006

http://aporee.org/maps/info/#archive sound maps ( field recordings) started 2006

Practical steps

Outline methods and interests

practice / build a lot of prototypes

Describe how you will go about conducting your research through reading, writing and practice. In other words, through a combination of these approaches, you will explore questions or interests you have laid out in your general introduction. In this section you can help us understand how your project will come together on a practical level and talk about possible outcome(s). Of course, the outcome(s) may change as your research evolves, but it's important to have some idea of how your project might come together as a whole.

References

Gregory Bateson 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind' (1972)

Yolande Harris, Phd thesis: Scorescapes On Sound Environment and Sonic Consciousness

Dr Hartmut Obendorf, In Search of “Minimalism”— Roving in Art, Music and Elsewhere

THE VOICE OF NEW The Voice of New Music by Tom Johnson New York City 1972-1982 A collection of articles originally published in the Village Voice MUSIC

++ tech literature

two books by Nicolas Collins Handmade electronic music and Hardware Hacking

A list of references (Remember that dictionaries, encyclopedias and wikipedia are not references to be listed. These are starting points which should lead to more substantial texts and practices.) As with your previous essays, the references need to be formatted according to the Harvard method.) See: http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/A_Guide_to_Essay_Writing#The_Harvard_System_of_referencing

Feel free to include any visual material to substantiate, illustrate or elucidate your proposal. For example use images to reference your work or that of others.