User:Amy Suo Wu/WHAT

Meditation Machine

The Meditation Machine is a system of responsive, self-reflexive inter-relations. It was originally presented as a desktop installation whereby my white laptop was set on a transparent perspex cube flanked by a set of speakers. On the screen of the computer appears a red translucent rectangular window with updating CPU (the computer's internal processing) usage on the right side. Under it, a white circle in the middle of a black square window is pumping away. Towards the left of the screen there is another window with scrolling text of the computer's internal monologue. Periodically, pop-ups appear near it. Finally what you hear is the CPU's information being amplified.

This project is programmed in Pure Data, a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video and graphical processing. Pure Data is an open source program that was originally developed by Miller Puckette. Using Pure Data I transformed my laptop’s CPU information into a low droning sound while a visualization of the audio took the form of a white circle. The control mechanism of this installation is a bash script (a Unix shell command processor) that calls upon various CPU-intensive applications to open and close, consequently causing the differences of the fluctuations of the internal processing to be seen and heard. For example, when an application opens, the white circle will expand as the sound will become louder or faster, and similarly when it the application closes, the white circle will contract as the sound becomes softer or slower.

Benji

Benji is a fictitious multinational corporation invested in Internet search, biotechnology, and advertising technologies. Its mission is to be the world's leading DNA search engine. Using state of the art technology, Benji matches you directly to personalized advertisements based on your class rank which is determined by an advanced analysis of your genetic code. So revolutionary is it, that even behavioral patterns can be detected to predict and preempt every decision so that your consumer cravings may be satisfied.

The first manifestation of this ongoing project is a semi-working website where users can log in through a simulated process of saliva analysis. Once your DNA has been hypothetically tested and confirmed, results are pulled from amazon's search engine using their eCommerce API (application programming interface) and fed back into the Benji website as personalized advertisement.

The second manifestation of Benji developed into a writing piece that evolved into the imaginary biography of Professor Benji Brin, the man behind the corporation. Adopting aggrandizing rhetoric from texts written on the Church of Scientology leader, L. Ron Hubbard, I continued add to a few more flavors of advertising talk and religious chant. This became a short paper which was submitted to ISEA, where a presentation of 15 minutes was followed up. In the presentation I assume the role of a close friend of Benji Brin and speak briefly about his history leading up to his scientific discoveries. I also explain in further detail about how Benji, the DNA search engine works while subtly underlining their ideology, view on race and political aspirations.The next manifestation will soon take the form of a video that mimics the aesthetic qualities and rhetoric of TED talks.

Where No Flag Has Gone Before

Where No Flag Has Gone Before is a live bluescreen studio installation set up so that visitors of the exhibition can reenact their own glorious moment of the first planting of the American flag on the surface of the moon. Complete with props and costume, consisting of a large American flag together with the flag pole, homemade space-suit pieced together with white disposable painters' coveralls, cardboard, bits and bobs from an old coffee machine, white spray paint, gloves, an unused back-pack, motorbike helmet and the foam insoles of moon boots, I help visitors gear up for the arduous journey to the moon.

Once prepared and dressed, the newly-initiated astronauts step into the bluescreen area where the upright flag awaits them to pick it up and gradually plant it back. The participant has 30 seconds to perform this act as it is being recorded and composited in the computer program Pure Data. The background image of the very first participant's video, is the iconic photograph of Buzz Aldrin standing next to the American flag on the moon, taken during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. The only difference is that in this video, the participant replaces Buzz and becomes the national hero. Consecutive video recordings of people reenacting the planting of the flag serve to become the background footage for the next participant. Gradually accumulating, the final video graph the episodes of reenactors as colonizers on the moon.