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S6 •• Eye Texts and Styles

First One

Logline

The screening is interrupted by a failure of the digital cinema projector, that is followed by the sequence of user interfaces or screensavers of video player (software), causing confusion about the actual medium and distribution.

Synopsis

During a screening, the audience will experience a rupture in the projection.

apparently caused by a crash of the player-software. This is followed by the expectable reboot of the system, showing images of user interfaces, boot screens etc., including those from online video streaming services, DVD players and cinema projector brands. On screen text further refers to the medium, DVD, online stream etc.. An unlogical sequence of media is created, that actually is not making any sense and is not possible to happen, but still, the audience, being in a cinema, as an authority, is more likely to believe what it sees. Through fragments of images hints to the age of fake news (or however to call them) are given, so that the uncertainty of the medium is transferred to the uncertainty of the message and raising the question what messages we trust blindly because we get used to the medium. The idea is, that a real, journalistic accurate authority in the media is not practically existing anymore (although existing, but forgotten), but needed. The sequence ends up with the beginning of the next screening from the programme.

Style: News

Filmscreening scares audience after breaking down

During a University’s filmscreening at the Eye Film Institute in Amsterdam, many people in the audience got highly irritated after a failure of the projector. When a new film was supposed to start, the screen suddenly went dark, followed by an annoying process of restarting the projection that was visible on-screen. During this process many familiar interfaces of media players, streaming services and Google’s YouTube were seen. A visitor reported after all these have been uncovered, he does not believe the cinema’s integrety anymore and is demanding a statement of the cinema what sources of information they distribute. Other visitors said they will not ever go back to a cinema again if they could see it all online. Eye filminstitute as well as the Piet Zwart Institute that was screening, did not comment on the issue at all.

Style: 2nd person

You question the cinema as a medium after the projection breaks and restarts

Authority of the cinema as legitimate medium to convey true experience. The domination of cinema.

During the PZI’s screening at the Eye Research Labs, you will experience a failure of the projection, apparently caused by a crash of the player-software. This is followed by the expectable reboot of the system, showing images of user interfaces, boot screens etc., including those from online video streaming services, DVD players and cinema projector brands. The on screen text further lets you think of the medium, DVD, online stream etc.. An unlogical sequence of media is created, that actually is not making any sense and is not possible to happen, but still, you, believe what you are seeing, because you are in the cinema and you think the cinema is an authority when it comes to movie playback. Some images you caught though make you feel uncertain about what medium you are consuming and what content you blindly trust. You question your own habits when consuming media and if you always are sure about the sources of the images you see and also what sources are existing, that you can trust.

Style: Personal Letter

My worst cinema experience

My Heart,

today something has happened, that I need to tell you. When I attended the PZI screening at the Eye, the cinema could not handle the high amount of 20 short films in the one hour of the screening. It was so much, that the projector crashed and needed to be restarted. That cost three minutes of time I paid for the ticket, so I am very annoyed about that. They did not even manage to arrange a replacement faster, but we saw the operator restarting the system on the big screen, we even had to see an ad during that time.

I know you can understand how upset I am about that.

In love,

your personalletterwriter

S5 •• Synopsis no2 & Essay

Essay: Baudrillard in Eco

Baudrillard, in "The possession of the Simulacrum", presents his thesis of the simulation and how the contemporary society uses it to produce its perception of reality. He claims that contemporary reality is its own simulacrium, with no reference to the real and with no strong meaning. Whereas in earlier historical periods a simulation was clearly visible as such of the real, through mass medias ability of reproduction, it later was capable of creating an own reality. This is exaggerated nowadays when this kind of simulations suppress the profound reality.

The simulation is happening in four stages: In the first one, the image is a clear copy of some reality, Symbols refer to it. For the second, the image is a copy that is referring to the real but creating its own interpretation of it. The third is depicting a non-real. The fourth is not relating to some reality at all but to its own simulacrum. This „hyperreal“ has its own existence.

In "Travels in Hyperreality", Umberto Eco gives various examples of the specific American phenomenon of the belief and desire to experience the a "real" in an unwillingly unrealistic way. This is specifically pointed out through the experience of art, history and experience that are, in the American culture reproduced or reenacted to be made consumable. These reproductions are made in line with the cultural rooted need for "more" of everything, which results in the reproductions to be augmented with an additional factor of experiencability of its realness that can come in various ways. Mostly in common an extension of an images framing to make something consumable despite temporal or local distances.

Against that stands that kind of reproduction that functions as a realistic copy of something from the past or present, that still preserves its original meaning and stays distinguishable as the copy. Also here, the obsession with realism is driving the copy, but rather in the way that it wants to preserve the original's properties and not to want to "enhance" the viewers sensation.

Umberto Ecos observations in America, that he has written down in “Travels in Hyperreality”, are very much incorporating and proving Baudrillards thesis on the “Possession of the Simulacra”. Eco describes the abstraction of historical events caused by their placement in interactively experienceable surroundings as hyperreal which corresponds to Baudrillards third stage in his four stages of the Simulation. Another of Eco’s observations, the American urge to preserve authentic originals, that leads to the multiplication authentic objects, seems to verify Baudrillards thesis of the first stage of the Simulation, the clear copy of an object, but Eco argues that the increasing habit of copying is even creating an abstraction. Both of the mentioned examples are in the thesis of Umberto Eco a prove of the hyperreal, corresponding to Baudrillards fourth stage of the Simulation: The American culture is, as Eco states, relying on the hyperreal abstractions that therefore achieve an own eligibility.

Synopsis: Travels in Hyperreality

In "Travels in Hyperreality", Umberto Eco gives various examples of the specific American phenomenon of the belief and desire to experience the a "real" in an unwillingly unrealistic way. This is specifically pointed out through the experience of art, history and experience that are, in the American culture reproduced or reenacted to be made consumable. These reproductions are made in line with the cultural rooted need for "more" of everything, which results in the reproductions to be augmented with an additional factor of experiencability of its realness that can come in various ways. Mostly in common an extension of an images framing to make something consumable despite temporal or local distances.

Against that stands that kind of reproduction that functions as a realistic copy of something from the past or present, that still preserves its original meaning and stays distinguishable as the copy. Also here, the obsession with realism is driving the copy, but rather in the way that it wants to preserve the original's properties and not to want to "enhance" the viewers sensation.

__ •• Intermezzo: Tutorial Questions

Answers to "What are you photographing?" and "How do you want to use your writing?" are here:

Writing with Steve

S4 •• Image description

Notes on image description

• Architecture photograhy, de-populated,
• office but not sure,
• between old and new,
• late autumn or winter,
• mind starts imagining how it could be populated,
• questioning about the floor part (if it is another building, a garden, connection to main building etc),
• cement of building <-> red benches,
• geometry <-> organic,
• missing rückenlehne,
• difficult to imagine orientation of bodies,
• not sympathic to people because of season,
• semi-public,
• discussion about how people would sit there,
• also association to sculpture, Lissitzky,
• you feel boxed in bc. no sky but you see sky in the reflection -> creates openness in another part of the image,
• also the building behind it is seen in the reflection,
• reaction to the building?,
• red is symbolic: inverse of grey cement, life, love,
• cold image, not welcoming,
• red surface is shiny, Mia would not like to sit there,
• benches are foreign objects to the environment bc. newer appeal,
• whoever made it made it on purpuse in contrast to building,
• building seems like institutionalized spooky place, but from the inside it might be bright,
• not welcomeing people,
• how could it be imaged differently, how would it look like in summer,
• taking picture in the winter is commentary to the landscape/architecture/scene,
• absence of life -> propaganda,
• as empty as it can be,
• interpretation: get rid of people, left with geometry,
• even nature is put on side,
• vegetation is fighting against geometry,
• repetition of lines can be read as Mondrian,
• it is so reduced, that the reflectioin in the windows is bothering,
• order, borders,
• no interaction with nature,
• reminds Marieke of Strijp-S, Eindhoven,
• reminds Ugo of paintings,
• reminds Mia of Becher School,
• Ugo says it is more modern than Bechers

S3 •• Augmenting sdr & Annotation/Synopsis no1

Annotation

Revision: Synopsis: Baudrillard: Simulacra et Simulation, The possession of the simulacrum, p. 1–7

In his first chapter, Baudrillard presents his thesis of the simulation and how the contemporary society uses it to produce its perception of reality. He claims that contemporary reality is its own simulacrium, with no reference to the real and with no strong meaning. Whereas in earlier historical periods a simulation was clearly visible as such of the real, through mass medias ability of reproduction, it later was capable of creating an own reality. This is exaggerated nowadays when this kind of simulations suppress the profound reality.

The simulation is happening in four stages: In the first one, the image is a clear copy of some reality, Symbols refer to it. For the second, the image is a copy that is referring to the real but creating its own interpretation of it. The third is depicting a non-real. The fourth is not relating to some reality at all but to its own simulacrum. This „hyperreal“ has its own existence.

Synopsis: Baudrillard: Simulacra et Simulation, The possession of the simulacrum, p. 1–7

In his first chapter Baudrillard explains his thesis of the four stages of simulation. Whereas earlier a simulation was a copy of something, referring to the original and itself being clearly a reference to the real, the simulation today does not have an origin in the real anymore but is replacing the real with its own simulacra, using only signs of the real. Opposite to the real, it has no meaning. This „hyperreal“ has its own existence disconnected from any model and can create a new real.

Related to the reality in the first phase the simulation is a recognizable copy of the reality, in the second, an adapted interpretation of the reality, in the third clearly embodying the absence of a reality, but in the fourth it is being without any relation to any reality and only working for itself. Within the first three phases, the simulation is, since it is related to reality, a kind of appearance, but in the fourth existing in its own relation of the simulation.

What is happening in the fourth phase of the simulation is that it is replacing the before with itself and the before gets extinguished. What remains is the meaningless simulacrum.

Augmented sdr Text

The project is working with and researching on photographic (or lens-based) images in public media/public space that are used to create an image of the world, or an image of a public. The work will at first be an observation and examination of these images and later aims to visually appropriate the findings into an own pictorial world.

Question of interest is how reality is perceived, shaped and when reality ends and becomes simulation or where simulation becomes reality. Especially with digital means creating and using simulated environments that immediately affect the physical reality becomes more easy and more common than ever. In the omnipresent filter bubbles, a variety of „realities“ exist, but what is actually universally „real“ then? Furthermore the question on these practices impact on the democratic society arises. How would a democratic simulation look like if that is even possible?

First, a collection of images needs to be done to define the subjects of the work. This collection then needs to be put in order to find methods and construals and to finally find what the images are used for.

The search for appearances of realities was visible in many of my earlier works. With that comes also the search for simulations of reality. So is „New New Home“ approaching an architectural reality of suburban housing that involves people’s desires of living situations that are created through simulations of themselves. „Beyond“ is starting in a situation that is assuming people are living in a algorithmic controlled reality which simulates the people a free mind, but is actually controlling and using people’s minds as an extension of its own algorithmic reality.

S2 •• Reviewing self-directed research

Revision

What are you making?

I am working on a project with a not yet specified outcome form/media/extent. It is working with and researching on photographic (or lens-based) images in public media/public space that are used to create an image of the world, or an image of a public. The work will at first be an observation and examination of these images and later aims to play around with the findings visually. But still, this is subject to change.

Why are you making it?

I want to research how reality is perceived, shaped and when reality ends and becomes simulation or where simulation becomes reality. With digital means creating and using simulated environments that immediately affect the physical reality becomes more easy and more common than ever. In the omnipresent filter bubbles, a variety of „realities“ exist, but what is actually universally „real“ then? I am strongly interested in how these practics affect the democratic society.

Does it relate to other work?

The search for appearances of realities was visible in many of my earlier works. With that comes also the search for simulations of reality. So is „New New Home“ approaching an architectural reality of suburban housing that involves people’s desires of living situations that are created through simulations of themselves. „Beyond“ is starting in a situation that is assuming people are living in a algorithmic controlled reality which simulates the people a free mind, but is actually controlling and using people’s minds as an extension of its own algorithmic reality.

First version/Interview from the Pad

In the Interview we talked not specifically about the project but about something else I used to approach new skills. So the Interview is not very much related to the revised What are you making description.

What are you making? He likes to stick to possible projects than one precise project in general.

He is interested in the technology, where you can create three-dimensional image (or fake 3D-image) Because Facebook announced a feature that is rolling out now, where you can make 3D photos visible in the news feed people consuming media on phones -> good way to consume 3D because it is integrated in your phone working either with eyetracking or Facebook-App with the scrolling animation (or tilting phone -> parallax effect) Photos can be produced with new gen phones with dual lens so it could appear more on social media could get additional coverage in advertising and then spread to other fields -> because people get used to the effect flat photographs can appear boring after time when 3D-photos are being used more often

Why are you making it? What effects could this have on traditional photography connected to light-field photography transfer aesthetics to another space (outside Facebook newsfeed)

He is afraid that it might not be relevant. Because the technology requires either glasses or lenticular printing He is afraid that it can only used with smartphones.

Does t relate to other things you have done? It is only connected little to previous work He was working on a project that dealt with the design philosophy and trends of tech-companies aesthetics of silicon valley in image language

How is it different to other things you have done? It depends on how it will come out later Right now he is only dealing with technology. But he is also interested in things like illusion, simulation and reality.

What are the most significant choices have you made recently? He likes to connect the interest in technology with his interest in how reality or simulation is formed in media.

Suggest research strands:

What work relates (books, TV, film, art):

Steve suggests: this may be of interest, it is a good example of recontextualising content: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/slide/decnews.html

Steve suggests: Why not try some 'rapid prototyping. Take an hour aside to make a piece of work which makes a gesture toward your research. it could be a line of code, a sketch, a hack, a model &c.How do you translate the research questions into work?

S1 •• The three project descriptions

Revisions

Beyond

Thinking Beyond is a digital software incorporated in a spatial, audio-visual installation depicting a sacral environment. Therefore it is made from an altar, a tryptichon from backlit prints displaying renderings of a moebius strip and six plates with commandments. It is interactive and provides the recipient with a tool to liberate himself from being a physical extension of an algorithmic controlled virtual society he is connected through his iPhone’s internet connection and make him a human being of free will. The emotionalising movie-soundtrack „Chariots of Fire“ is playing during the interaction of the recipient.

The intended „liberation“, as it is staged by the created fictive institution, is executed through a software, accessible through the altar, that is used as an iPhone dock. It uses generic Apple software to restrict the smarphones ability to use any kind of third party apps, as well as to connect to the internet. The 2x2 meter large altar is built of grey MDF and has a monumental appeal. The tryptichon displays the fictive Beyond-Society’s symbol, a moebius strip, stylised as minimalist productimages, referring to the design language of tech companies, especially such as Apple. The sacral appeal is continued on the audible level through playing the music by Vangelis that strengthens the emotional binding to the created institution.

With the sacral appeal and strong references to the commonly known aesthetics to Apple Inc.’s design language, that are exaggerated through its further minimisation, connected to the dystopic but though realistic idea of the recipient being an unfree personality but controlled through his smartphones software, the science-fictional installation becomes reality and through that criticises the current praxis of data-capitalism and people farming, arises awareness and provides, in a satiric manner, a method to overcome this practices. This is intended to process the personal observations and experiences of the author/artist/creator.

New New Home II

New New Home II is the second installation of an ongoing series of architectural photography. Two images, one showing a new, modern brick-wall with a door-sized, full-height window that is fully covered by a paravon with the print of a historic door on it on the inside, the other one showing the end of a new built, semi-private garden with a wall as a closing, and small garden gates to the private lawns that are also divided through small hedges. Both photographs are printed in 1:1 size, 2,80 meters long and 2,20 meters high.

The photographs are made at shady daylight with a normal lens on a medium format camera. The lines of the architecture are kept straight. Technically this creates a neutral and seemingly objective aesthetics and for that is intended to look as realistic as possible. Contrary to that the captured scenes appeal surrealistic and quirky, because of, in the first picture, the style and the positioning in front of the windows by the resident, and in the second, the layout of the gardens that seem to mainly exist of different divisions of the space. The large formats that make the recipient nearly stand in the scene exaggerate the appeal even more.

By showing explicitly new built residential spaces, the series of two is giving two contemporary documents of the exact time they were built in and photographed without the aspect of ageing. The quirkiness of the scenes is referring to the infantile humanity and a zeitgeist that existed at that moment. The display of the images took place within the same time period the photographs were taken and the buildings were designed and built. With that, the given stylisation of humanity and zeitgeist are thrown back to the recipient, who can see himself in the images.

City Center

City Center is a photographic work of 36 images displayed on a flat-lying 1x4 meter backlit display. The 6x6 photographs picture an about 40 year old shopping center, that’s architecture has hardly changed over the years. The mall is mostly empty and abandoned with some shops still in use and still maintained. The images are arranged in a straight 3x12 layout with identical distance in-between.

The photographs are made with the available light, which is daylight, falling through the glass-roof or from the sides, and fluorescent lamps from the center’s lightning. The camera is a 6x6 medium format camera that is used as well on a tripod as in the hand and captures on color negative film. The film is scanned and without editing digital printed on backlight textile. The print in its backlit frame is placed on the floor in a central position in the exhibition space, providing space to walk around.

The photographs by showing stillstand and decay are a time document referring to consume-culture and trends. The little life-signs of open shops and traces of human beings make the place appear like a human made zombie to irritate the recipient. The form of the installation, picturing a huge abstraction of an archeologists workplace and the material of the installation, coming from contemporary retail design, further focuses on the meaning of time, simultaneously putting the past, the present and the time in-between on display and through that uncovering societal change in the field of consume culture in public spaces.

First versions

Beyond

Thinking Beyond is a digital software incorporated in a spatial, audio-visual installation. It is interactive and provides the recipient with a tool to liberate him*herself from being a physical extension of an algorithmic controlled virtual society he*she is connected through his*her iPhone’s internet connection and make him*her a human being of free will. The spatial installation depicts a sacral environment, containing an altar, a tryptichon from backlit prints displaying renderings of a moebius strip and six plates with commandments of a proclaimed new society. „Chariots of Fire“ is playing during the interaction of the recipient.

The liberation is executed through a software, accessible through the altar, that is used as an iPhone dock. It uses generic Apple software to restrict the smarphones ability to use any kind of third party apps, as well as to connect to the internet. The 2x2 meter large altar is built of grey MDF and has a monumental appeal. The tryptichon displays the fictive Beyond-Society’s symbol, a moebius strip, stylised as minimalist productimages, referring to the design language of tech companies, especially such as Apple. The sacral appeal is continued on the audible level through playing the music by Vangelis that strengthens the emotional binding to the created institution.

With the sacral appeal and strong references to the commonly known aesthetics to Apple Inc.’s design language, that are exaggerated through its further minimisation, connected to the dystopic but though realistic idea of the recipient being an unfree personality but controlled through his*her smartphones software, the science-fictional installation becomes reality and through that criticises the current praxis of data-capitalism and people farming, arises awareness and provides, in a satiric manner, a method to overcome this practices.

New New Home II

New New Home II is the second installation of an ongoing series of architectural photography. Two images, one showing a new, modern brick-wall with a door-sized, full-height window that is fully covered by a paravon with the print of a historic door on it on the inside, the other one showing the end of a new built, semi-private garden with a wall as a closing, and small garden gates to the private lawns that are also divided through small hedges. Both photographs are printed in 1:1 size, 2,80 meters long and 2,20 meters high.

The photographs are made at shady daylight with a normal lens on a medium format camera. The lines of the architecture are kept straight. Technically this creates a neutral and seemingly objective aesthetics and for that is intended to look as realistic as possible. Contrary to that the captured scenes appeal surrealistic and quirky, because of, in the first picture, the style and the positioning in front of the windows by the resident, and in the second, the layout of the gardens that seem to mainly exist of different divisions of the space. The large formats that make the recipient nearly stand in the scene exaggerate the appeal even more.

By showing explicitly new built residential spaces, the series of two is giving two contemporary documents of the exact time they were built in and photographed without the aspect of ageing. The quirkiness of the scenes is referring to the infantile humanity and a zeitgeist that existed at that moment. The display of the images being within the same time period the photographs were taken and the buildings were designed and built, this stylisation of humanity and zeitgeist is thrown back to the recipient that can see him*herself in the images.

City Center

City Center is a photographic work of 36 images displayed on a flat-lying 1x4 meter backlit display. The 6x6 photographs picture an about 40 year old shopping center, that’s architecture has hardly changed over the years. The mall is mostly empty and abandoned with some shops still in use and still maintained. The images are arranged in a straight 3x12 layout with identical distance in-between.

The photographs are made with the available light, which is daylight, falling through the glass-roof or from the sides, and fluorescent lamps from the center’s lightning. The camera is a 6x6 medium format camera that is used as well on a tripod as in the hand and captures on color negative film. The film is scanned and without editing digital printed on backlight textile. The print in its backlit frame is placed on the floor in a central position in the exhibition space, providing space to walk around.

The photographs by showing stillstand and decay are a time document referring to consume-culture and trends. The little life-signs of open shops and traces of human beings make the place appear like a human made zombie to irritate the recipient. The form of the installation, picturing a huge abstraction of an archeologists workplace and the material of the installation, coming from contemporary retail design, further focuses on the meaning of time, simultaneously putting the past, the present and the time in-between on display and through that uncovering societal change in the field of consume culture in public spaces.