Maslic, A.D. (2016). Running Code to Control Sculptures in Installation Art. Second International Conference; Going Digital: Innovation in Art, Architecture, Science and Technology, Conference proceedings, Strand, Belgrade, 2016.
ABSTRACT
Code, algorithms, interactivity, electronics, biology, genetics, physics, engineering and many more attributes or fields are increasingly becoming an intrinsic component of contemporary art. These fast developing innovative technologies and methods are rapidly consolidating their place in this realm. However, a synergy between these new pioneering fields with the more conservative traditional disciplines are consequently provoking necessary and constructive transformations. Throughout my work, an extensive research has been conducted to find strategies to bridge the gap between those traditional disciplines and technology driven methods and concepts. Coding and algorithms integrated through electronic controllers and interactivity are playing an increasingly important role to achieve this. The final outcome never targets a predetermined result, but rather envisions a hybridity of interlinking different time periods, different technologies and disciplines of art, science and its sphere of ideas. New avenues are thus explored to control sculpturally installations through digitally driven manipulations, connecting sound, visuals, tactility, interactivity, materiality and space into an all- immersive experience.
Adorable and clumsy looking inanimate objects are coded so as to mimic recognizable emotional content, affecting a viewer to project her own psychological imprint as well her inevitable shortcomings. Traditional media like painting are released from their rigid and static framework through process-based coded animation techniques. These are some of the issues that set the context and form the building blocks of the works and concepts to be further explored.
Keywords: contemporary art, hybridity, digital, traditional, synergy
Running Code to Control Sculptures in Installation Art
Anton Dragan Maslic Artist, Researcher
Running Code to Control Sculptures in Installation Art
Interchangeability between Art Objects and Observers
It is traditionally thought that inanimate sculptures do not react to their environment. They are static and can be observed from different vantages, in silence and contemplation. It happens mostly at a location specific to, and designated for that: a museum or gallery. The experience drastically changes when animate properties are included. A simulation of suggestive animate characteristics can be experienced and mentally projected as a mental imprint by its spectators, which can be achieved by means of technology, based on conceptualization. Interactivity would be the tool of choice to attain this. While becoming responsive to its environment, solely the observer, the audience, develops projected affiliations and even emotional qualities such as affection. These can be induced though an exchange by levels of abstract communication. The audience has gained an impression that the artwork/sculpture has developed awareness of their presence by displaying its behavior of responsiveness and subsequently by its reactions.
This interchangeability between alive-like and lifeless objects could be explained through the scope of Object Oriented Ontology, a term coined by Levi Bryant in 2009 (Bryant 2014, p.6). A philosophical concept which suggests that each object, subject, animate or inanimate have equal rights on existence and is therefore devoid from any hierarchy, thus renders their contingency indiscernible. There is no space for monism in this context. In the geological age of the anthropocene, to think beyond human boundaries has becoming increasingly important on both ethical and ecological grounds (Anderson 2014). The capacity to imagine and visualize a less anthropocentric worldview, has become more urgent and necessary in the age of anticipated turmoil. In contemporary art this could evolve, and is already happening, in a resuscitated interest in an object oriented worldview (Kerr 2016; Barker 2011; Anderson 2014), and thereby respecting the world differently by redirecting our attention to a different focus.
Interactivity in art could help to galvanize this new fascination with objects. Additionally it could instigate an empathic consciousness by alluding to the interdependency of all organisms, animate or inanimate, in their symbiotic existence (Gauld 2014), and, as a consequence, it could shift our perception away from ourselves as the central most important entity of existence. At the same time by looking and thinking about objects which are responsive to us, a space unfolds to reveal a glimpse of ourselves, in this newly appreciated and rediscovered world of objects. Those objects in this context can be reinterpreted beyond the sole scope of substance. Thoughts, algorithms, ideas, consciousness, computer memory, social networking, WI-FI and broadband networks, and the protocols that allow computers to access and communicate over these networks, software, programming and code could all unequivocally be considered as objects (Barker 2011; Evens 2006), as can be everything else (Harman 2008; McLean-Ferris 2013). This acknowledges an object oriented ontology as a theory of normalizing equality of existence between psychic matter and object matter.
Installations that acts in response to an audience can be observed, while at the same time it observes the audience. This provides a perfect mirror image for the audience to introspect and decode internal mechanisms and inscapes in the mind of the viewer. The classic dogma of subject (the observer) versus object (the observed) therefore requires some rethinking and reevaluation. Can we assume here that if objects could be conscious – since even consciousness is reducible to similar micro- particles as that which physical inanimate matter can be reduced to (Harman 2009, p.154) – and ultimately broken down to the same substance everything is made from? This is an interesting question, which will be addressed throughout this article in relation to audience perception and interactive art. The argument that rejects privileging human existence over the existence of non- human objects can be easily explained as equal value between the two disparate entities, thereby equalizing human consciousness with non human non-awareness: a property that would be ascribed by phenomenologists to a stone, for instance. This is radically denied by thinkers of speculative realism and object oriented ontology as a form of anthropocentrism (Anderson 2014). Connecting the audience in an equal way to an interactive art object could open a new discussion through the spectrum of object oriented ontology.
Interactivity has an interesting attribute of connecting the physical world with the digital world with the mental word. Somehow a thinker like A.N. Whitehead already understood that there is no ontological difference between the physical world of objects and that what we generally consider as the mental world or subjective acts (Shaviro 2009, pp.21–23). The world of ideas, or the mental world can be interpreted as a first level activator of shaping and conceptualizing mechanisms of observing, processing and deciding how to react or engage physically with works of art. These notions are all inherent in models ubiquitous in interactive conceptual art, even though this obviously contradicts a sequential order of distinguishing the causality of non-material ideas on substantial physical matter, like artworks. There is of course a whole scope of different forms of interactive art. To narrow things down we will predominantly concentrate on interactivity in art and in particular in one work, which was produced and exhibited in Viennai, in 2016 by the author and George Marcou, in cooperation with Niki Passath. This work, titled, “Symphony for Accidental Encounters”, was intended to form the initial research base for gathering information, but instead raised many more questions. One particular question, which stayed unanswered during the whole process of producing and analyzing this work, including this paper, is the fact that decisions during the design stage have been recurrently viscerally made. The intellect, although apparent, was often suppressed to the background to let something else influence the decisions. The process was clear. Explorative playfulness, followed by visceral evaluations, alternated with intellectual discourse, which gradually generated the work. Discourse was an inevitable aspect of the creation of a work as such, due to the collaborative nature of this particular working process. In the following section, the process of thinking about and producing the artwork are explained in more detail.
An Inanimate Living Organism. Paradox or Possibility?
The aspiration to bring responsiveness into the artwork necessitated a jump into the digital world of coding and algorithms. How would the work become responsive? It needed to have an ability to observe its surrounding thoroughly. This generated an attribute of sentience similar to animate entities. It bred some life in the assembly of disconnected inanimate components of the installation. But the mere capacity to observe does not make the work observe. It required processing power to achieve this, and to act upon the observation. A neural network of wires [see photo 1] and a simple brain, which could process the observed information and control the desired action were required to achieve this.
Photo 1. Neural network of an artwork
The new problem arrived how to control the input and to activate its activators. There were 8 ultrasonic sensors used and additionally a webcam with a high frame rate as a field map tracker.
These were considered the eyes, which sent signals through the cabling – the neural network – and this information was directed to a controller. The latter functioned as an electronic filter (Manovich 2002, pp.131–133), responsible of doing one specific and mostly simple task. This controller, an Arduino Unoii, was collecting and sending its information to a central computer – its brain – a Mac mini. Inside this brain a visual programming language platform Max7iii was running, which kept track of all the different processes that came in as input. Thereafter the data were processed through a series of algorithms designed specifically for each action and each task, and were subsequently sent as output: again, finding its way through another section of the neural network, reaching another set of controllers (again Arduino Uno’s), which in turn were executing simple tasks based on a new set of algorithms that controlled and activated the electronic components on the artwork. The whole system has a strong resemblance of a biological neural network, where the interface of the neurons interact with the synapses to dendrites on other neurons. Where differences in the range of an input signal surpasses a given threshold, this results in the neuron triggering action potentials that travel on to the axon hillock. This subsequently transmits an electrical signal through the axon to any part of the organism, which awaits activation in a standby mode of operation.
The striking comparison of the mechanisms between animate organisms and this inanimate art organism suggests that object oriented ontology can provide insight into the complex relationships art has with reality as we perceive it, or as we have agreed to perceive it, of course, in relation to its existence and its observers, the visitors. This proposed existential equality could also provide space for thinking and comparison between seemingly dissociated and unrelated structures, patterns or entities, to suggest innovative new solutions or unconventional approaches in subfields like: interactive art; software developments and its applications; algorithmic art; artificial intelligence; genetic art; bio art; net art; and so on. This list is infinite, as the territories of art are rapidly evolving. Even though the technology used in this specific art installation is still quite rudimentary and simple to implement, it could easily turn into a vessel of thinking and understanding. In addition to the workings of the used moving parts, there was a central idea based of analogue and acoustically triggering the strings of the harp – mechanically – by specially designed components.
The Heart De(con)structed and Reconstructed
The artwork was developed and produced in Vienna, Austria. This capital is the heart of classical music for centuries and has a very rich tradition of keeping it that way. Promoted by the new years concert the first of each January, which is famous worldwide and the Gala ball later in January each year. This unique location automatically led to an interest in doing something in this area with a
musical instrument and with the rehashing of its sonic qualities and capacities. The choice, partly by chance and partly by intention, was easily made. A piano formed the initial start of an incentive of destruction, and reconstruction. This was done both physically as well as mentally. An interesting observation of destroying a piano is that this forms a journey of exploration, not unlike an act of archeology. The piano was undated, but assumed to be built at least prior to World War II, due the fact that the manufacturer apparently ceased to exist since then. All sources which could be traced back were from or before this period. In “Symphony for Accidental Encounters”, the destruction of the piano has been executed in a way quite contrary to the ways it has has been done in the past. Piano destruction in art performances happened during Fluxus events by performance artists intentionally destroying the symbol of high culture. Most notorious was the performance “Piano Activities” by Philip Corner in 1962, organized by George Maciunas in Wiesbaden, Germany (Schmidt 2012). In this particular performance Corner asked a group of artists to play, scratch, rub and strike soundboard, pins, lid or drag various objects across them. This resulted in the piano’s complete destruction. Artists involved in that performance included Emmet Williams, Wolf Vostell, nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, Benjamin Patterson and George Maciunas, but more might have been at play. It is not certain that anybody was completely intentionally destroying the piano for a conceptual reason other than provocation and play. A practical reason was later written by Maciunas that the cost of the piano was 5 dollars and for practical reasons of disposal, needed to be destroyed anyway (Noel & Williams 1998, p.53). The destruction of our piano was also not done in a ways subscribed to men’s propensity to destroy a piano as the embodiment of genteel femininity – as it could be seen in Andrea Büttner’s work: “Piano Destructions” in 2014, exhibited in Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (Chase 2016). Here, Büttner juxtaposes projections of archived Fluxus performances of men destroying pianos in contrast with female pianists, elegantly and sophistically playing pianos.
The action of our destruction was of a more silent nature, dissecting the inner organs of this inanimate organism with surgical precision. An explorative journey through historical layers of developments and innovations of a vintage technological creation. The deeper its torso was unravelled, the more appreciation for the handcrafted mechanical precision this instrument possessed, and the more guilt of harming this defenseless lifelike creature the collaborators developed. The piano started to grow a personality. The more we changed it, the more a responsibility grew to create something, which would have similar qualities of this transmuted entity to honor its former glory. A process of deduction left us with a harp of a piano (see photo 2), still connected to the sound-board and fully stringed, which formed later on the heart of the installation.
Photo 2. Heart of an artwork
This interior work of beauty is usually concealed, and protected by a strong chest. By releasing it from its captive and constricted state, it obtains an unleashed condition of freedom. The function of the instrument is transcended by its release, and can now embark on its adventure to adopt a different existence. Reconstituted in its bare form to confront itself with a different time, in a different setting and in a different technological driven reality. Thereby involuntarily becoming that technological driven reality itself. The destruction was only a transmigrated stage of becoming integrated in a repurposed manifestation embracing its new hybrid existence.
The Transmutation Complete
The venue of the exhibition was located in the former royal stables of the imperial palace of Vienna in Austria. A space that was recently tailored especially for cultural events, mainly concentrating on exhibiting contemporary art. This integrated conveniently with its proximity to several major museums. In this particular wing of the building, experimental electronic art is shown in an indoor, artificially created alley that is tellingly labeled: “Electric Avenue”. The ghosts of it former use are still noticeable. Haut reliefs can be found above most passageways of the buildings, and are still depicting horse heads and armored horse heads, which are silent reminders of its historical and military purpose. The architectural function of this edifice had been inexorably transformed in time due to the outdated use and disappearance of horses as the dominant mode of transportation, and this semantic
difference resulted in a desire to alter the function of the space. The fact of reconfiguration from an outdated use to a new purpose appropriately coalesced with the artwork as this was analogously an object from the past stepping the threshold of transmutation into a new era: an era of digital art, code, algorithms and electronic controllers.
The heart, detached from its former glorious status of prestige, had no function or purpose yet. It required an additional layer of components or limbs before it could be part of a new organism. Out of pragmatic considerations, the position of the new organism was chosen to be resting on small stands horizontally on the ground. After a series of experimental and playful research (see photo 3), exploring its possibilities with the newly positioned harp, a number of possible triggers to play the new organism buoyed on the surface. All of the solutions had a similar vertical downward directional character. The strings required activation superior of its location. This offered two options of either a hanging contraption suspended above the harp or a series of components comfortably positioned surrounding the harp. Inclined sticks and activators would then direct their actions vertically downward. The latter option provided more freedom and was chosen accordingly.
Photo 3. Piano experiments with string (film stills, by George Marcou)
The new limbs were given birth through a careful, planned, process-based thinking. Inclined beams needed to be counterbalanced in order to keep standing autonomously under the envisioned angle. This led to the introduction of a new functional and aesthetic element in the installation. A footing was introduced at each component, further in this text called actors. The choice was to create 7 actors in total to play the harp in 7 different ways. By disassembling the piano some parts could be reused and reclaimed for the newly built actors. So far there were slender beams standing, clamped by a double foot, positioned precisely on a location on the harp at the angle they needed, so the actions could be precisely located on the harp. Keys from the piano formed the new elements clamping the stepper motorsiv or servosv on the beams. This particular configuration generated zoomorphic associations with hobbyhorses (see photo 4), alluding to the playfulness of the experiments and the boyish character of experimenting with mechanical toys.
Photo 4, Unstable systems with hobbyhorse and toy like associations
Conveniently, this was apposite to the space’s historical function as horse stables. Each actor strongly resembled a horse-like creature – each with its own characteristics – individual features, qualities, weaknesses, skills, appearances, and integrities. All evidently different, but belonging to the same group of species. Some tall, elegant and slender, others short, slightly gauche and compact. Each
allocated with a task of executing its skills on demand, specifically designed to contribute to the symbiosis with the heart of the installation.
The mission intended for each of the creatures was to play the strings and consequently produce a specific set of sounds on the harp. Some were subtle and hardly audible even sweet, some violent, loud, with a husky quality. The synergy between all the sounds formed a composition of chance. This sense of chance was extended by the random appearance of the visitors, triggering and activating the work. All these aspects helped to randomize the composition further. Issues like the proximity of the audience with the work, their movements and velocity, and the number of visitors interacting with the work all contributed to the chance composition, a complexity that would generate an infinite number of possibilities of the ever evolving composition, except for one problem. Mechanics in combination with simple code created machine-like calculated repetitions and monotone rhythms based on the precise code of the algorithm and the nature of electro- motors in combination with the precise execution by the actors. A solution was found in the introduction of unstable, unbalanced and unequal variables. These were based on serendipity and affected by collisions, friction, gravity, and interaction among themselves and with the harp. The arbitrariness increased even more by introducing an algorithmic randomness next to the mechanical destabilization. This created an organic behavior of all the components, which affected the sound composition and could be translated in complex and unpredictable patterns.
These patterns were departing from the machine like qualities of precision and flawlessness. There were little errors inside the composition, produced by the interaction of the randomized algorithmic code and the mechanical planned flexibility and precariousness. A deep level of complexity was further achieved by destabilizing the integrated parts of the full system. The beautiful errors provided a lifelike feel, which could help the audience to introspect and easier associate with the sometimes clumsily behaving actors. By observing these life-like qualities of the actors, and becoming affiliated with them, a normalization happened, and a reduction of the differences between inanimate object (the observed) and the visitor, the subject (the observer) started to appear. When the audience started to interact with these little creatures an increased sense of equality between inanimate matter and, subsequently, its audience was created. It triggered a dialogue between the visitor and the work. The artwork was living in its own private space with a glass barrier separating it from the audience. (see photo 5)
Photo 5. Glass barrier, L. view from exterior, R. view from interior
Even though this barrier was fully transparent, it nevertheless created an artificial distance between the audience and the group of creatures. From one perspective, this could be interpreted as disadvantage to associate emotionally with the object; but at the same time, it created the feeling of having its own habitat, perhaps revealing a glimpse of its peculiar and disparate existence. The artificial distance experienced by looking at the work – looking at a creature in captivity, as it were – provided unexpected empathy to this incarcerated entity. It was responsive to its audience but fell sadly silent when the audience left. Each passerby triggered this lonely confined creature that was concentrated on carrying out – in utter seriousness – its performance for attention. It needed an audience to be alive. Without the audience it became what it was, an assemblage of inanimate objects, functionless, lifeless again; waiting for another passerby to communicate its complex story with vigor, even if this visitor was solely passing by and uninterested. The creature communicated
indiscriminately to each visitor who became involuntarily an accomplice in its urge to seek a moment of life.
Definitions of life can be understood through the spectrum of object oriented ontology, and an obvious criticism can be found here. Objects do not care, and this could be an important aspect of life. Care is generally a quality and even a responsibility ascribed to humans, even in this era of disembodiment, with virtual avatars and digital personalities we still do possess physical bodies. These bodies and their experiences remain extremely important, especially since boundaries are increasingly becoming obscured and technological alterations of these bodies are progressively more common. We are inevitably turning into cyborgs, merging with the technology we develop (Guga 2015, pp.135–136). Thus, these physical and biological aspects take on a significance and value and are relevant: maybe now more than ever (McLean-Ferris 2013; Filas 2013). This however, does not make any difference to the audience. The artwork transcends from a collection of objects into a vessel of reflection and introspection. The playful character of the object invites audience to interact, to play, to enjoy and to learn (Adams et al. 2003). The unobtrusiveness of the artwork and the fact that it is behind a glass barrier, resulting in a dimmed volume, are generating a subtle invitation, like a gentle whisper to interact, contrary an intrusive command.
Audiences can feel intimidated by interactivity in art. Concerns, like not knowing the rules, and to make a fool of oneself, or to make embarrassing mistakes, are all factors that can affect audience reception (Scott et al. 2013). An intriguing observation that was shared by several visitors, while staring at the actors executing their tasks in absolute seriousness, instigated an idiosyncratic impression of internal enchanted gaiety: almost paradoxical in its essence. This intimate sense of glee elevated in intensity when all actors were occupied collectively conducting their performance. Experiencing a presumed serious circumstance as humorous can be because of various different reasons. Incomprehensibility, the absence of cognitive understanding can actuate a smirking laughter to hide behind a state of humiliation. But also self-satisfaction can turn into laughter, a witty feeling of grasping a meaning. Laughter is usually caused by social complex behaviors in relation to a social context in interaction with others. Both examples are externalized expressions and are easily explainable. In case of our example it is more complex to find a convincing clear-cut reason behind this sense of delight. The difference with the previous examples is that this laughter is introverted, a very personal experience. It is not based on any social interaction at all. However there is an abstract mental dialogue between the viewer and the artwork, perhaps the best explained as interactions between humans and machines as interspecies encounters (Anderson 2014). This possibly triggers parts in the mind to unlock this internal glee. Another option of explaining this inner sense of content, while watching the actors displaying their serious but at the same time pointless repetitive acts, is the toy like qualities they seem to possess. Watching them can trigger memories of childhood, nostalgic remembrance of playing childrens’ games with toys, projecting imaginary stories. Perhaps this is why children were also mesmerized by the installation. Although we know that humor is universal, the specificity of humor is generally bound to a location within a particular culture (Sasamoto 2015). This was not the case with “Symphony for Accidental Encounters”, as was obvious from conversations with visitors, who came from various parts of the world. The majority of visitors mentioned having a notion of contentedness or finding it humorous for no particular reason to gaze, at these enthusiastically, and diligently working, little adorable peculiar looking entities. The fact that they are just inanimate matter didn’t change the perception of the visitors to develop empathy for them. The object started to manifest unplanned, unintentional characteristics, which is arguably a serious indicator that object oriented ontology has a firm ground to stand on.
Warping Time through Hybridity
In this particular work, an old piano was reclaimed and repurposed. The instrument is fully mechanical, acoustic and analogue. However, by removing it to a digital environment its character changed into a hybrid form. An obvious sculpture/installation suddenly became aware of its surrounding acted responsive upon it. The technology that made this happen was designed specifically for this work. When traditional art forms combined with pioneering art forms based on innovative technology are merging into a symbiotic existence, then two different eras are connected. It attempts to warp these periods through a mental wormhole. Referencing the past through transmutation and re-appropriation, and thereby formulating a statement of criticism towards technology based media art, which somehow lost its touch on the world of tangibility and materiality along the way. This work attempts to reconnect with exactly this world of objects and material, even though coding and software are essential components for it to exist. The work as it was produced has been exhibited and dismantled and is now stored in Vienna. However, the work continues to be developed. The fully digital version is created (see photo 6), and it lives in the virtual and digital space, nevertheless deriving its sounds from the original work, separating itself from the physical realm, and contradicting its own criticism.
Photo 6. digital model
The new work is a simulacra, still connecting itself with its original, but attempting to become something else. When this simulacra grows up, it might change in turn, into physical matter again. The cycle of its existence alternates between a digital and physical state, but before that happens, it will shift shape and format various times. From a sculptural interactive sound installation, to a printed image, to this text, to a film of the original, to a hybrid film combining the digitally modeled material with the original footage, into a work of which the outcome at moment of written is not known yet.
Sonic Hybridity
The work as it was exhibited in Vienna constitutes an intricate voice rigorously and with dedication conveying its complex sonic messages. All sounds, within this composition, are generated without being amplified or digitized and are acoustically produced, interactively and audible perceived by the audience. Even at this sonic level, a similar form of hybridity can be identified. The installation’s soundscape patterns are based on code, repetition, and planned demarcations of activation, but distorted by the input of randomness, interactivity and chance. The sound piece in all its complexity has recurrent sections with elaborative pitch, intensity, and timbre, and possesses individuated resemblance with electronic produced compositions. Even here we could argue that acoustic products, the arrangements of sounds, can be equated with electronically produced compositions. At the foundation of our composition comparable patterns can be found, which are unsurprisingly binary and algorithmically controlled. The synergy between the acoustic and digital realms are forming the conception of hybridization also described as the electroacoustic domain (Deery 2015).
Visitors interacting with the installation involuntarily or intentionally contribute an improvisational character to the composition and, taking this role, themselves become co-creators. Each understanding oneself through the eyes of another entity or person. This could be interpreted as a level of aesthetic contemplation, repositioning and understanding ones own place and position in this world (Moreva 2010). At the same time they became the musicians of the orchestra, turning vicariously into actors. Subsequently appropriating the original actors, the limbs of the creature, temporarily into their instruments. Emphasizing the interchangeability between inanimate objects and animate sentient entities. Interestingly, this corresponds seamlessly with the theory of object oriented ontology. An unfortunate aspect of the work being shielded behind a glass barrier is that sound waves cannot travel freely, and were not able to generate immersion for spectators. This was especially so with the nuanced sonic sensibilities produced by the scarcely audible acoustic sounds, which were completely lost and were therefore not active in effecting an experiencing of the depth that the work was potentially able to convey. This mitigated the experience for the audience of becoming fully involved reducing its sonorous experiential character, which would have increased the work’s function of being a vessel of contemplation and reflection. Being immersed in sound could provide an embodied affective experience that can be considered as opposing rationality; differentiation; critical thinking; and decisions (Schrimshaw 2015). The audience would thus hover between the two spheres of rational mundane thoughts and visceral emotional experiences. The immediacy that is ascribed to sounds as a property could contrast with the conceptual meanings of connecting the past with the future, and this is one of the more obvious aspects of this installation.
Despite minor incongruities and environmental related disadvantages, the installation functioned in multiple ways. Its layered complexity allows the viewer to discover and explore philosophical questions related to existence and time. At the same time, its humorous nature and its exuberant character leaves the visitor lighthearted. The sympathetic impression it leaves behind, could very well being deceptive. The creature that dwells in inanimate objects struggles for its existence by luring audiences into its entanglements of seductions. It is attempting to harvest empathy, a possible diversion of its premeditation. What its real intentions are, we might never discover. Perhaps object oriented ontology could provide an insight into the real nature and intentions of objects. The work is open-ended and refrained from any conclusion. The creature is not done yet. It doesn’t give up its newly discovered existence so easily. It is profoundly seeking methods to be reborn again in any format it can get hold on. The mind is its vehicle to traverse between the mental world of ideas and the material world of objects. It looks for opportunities to manifest itself. At this moment it lives through this text in your mind. It triumphed!
References:Adams, M. et al., 2003. The Dilemma of Interactive Art Museum Spaces. Art Education, 56(5), pp.42–56.
Anderson, K., 2014. Object Intermediaries: How New Media Artists Translate the Language of Things. Leonardo, 47(4), pp.352–359.
Barker, T., 2011. Objects and interaction. Digital Creativity, 22(2), pp.65–77.
Bryant, L.R., 2014. Onto-Cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media (Speculative Realism EUP) 1st edition by Bryant, Levi R. (2014) Paperback 1 edition., Edinburgh University Press.
Chase, A.G., 2016. Andrea Büttner: Piano Destructions. Afterimage, 43(5), pp.24–25.
Deery, A., 2015. Practical approaches towards interactivity in soundscape composition.
Digital Creativity, 26(1), pp.32–39.
Evens, A., 2006. Object-oriented ontology, or programming’s creative fold. Angelaki, 11(1),
pp.89–97.
Filas, M., 2013. My Dinner with Stelarc: A Review of Techno-flesh Hybridity in Art.
Information Society, 29(5), pp.287–296.
Gauld, Q., 2014. Empathy beyond the human: Interactivity and kinetic art in the context of a global crisis. Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 12(2/3), pp.389– 398.
Guga, J., 2015. Digital Self, How We Became Binary 1st ed., Pilsen, Czech Republic: University of West Bohemia.
Harman, G., 2009. Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics, re.press.
Harman, G., 2008. Zeroing in on Evocative Objects. Human Studies, 31(4), pp.443–457.
Kerr, D., 2016. The Big Idea: What Is Object-Oriented Ontology? A Quick-and-Dirty Guide to the Philosophical Movement Sweeping the Art World. Artspace. Available at: http://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/a-guide-to-object-oriented- ontology-art [Accessed April 13, 2016].
Manovich, L., 2002. The Language of New Media, The MIT Press.
McLean-Ferris, L., 2013. indifferent OBJECTS. Art Monthly, (368), pp.7–10.
Moreva, L., 2010. Art in the Mirror of Philosophical Reflection. Museum International, 62(3), pp.13–18.
Noel, A. & Williams, E. eds., 1998. Mr. Fluxus: A Collective Portrait of George Maciunas, 1931-1978 First edition. edition., New York, N.Y: Thames & Hudson.
Sasamoto, A., 2015. Stages of Laughter B. Droitcour, ed. Art in America, 103(6), pp.104–113.
Schmidt, G., 2012. Klavierzerstörungen in Kunst und Popkultur. piano-activities.de. Available at: http://piano-activities.de/englindex.html [Accessed April 16, 2016].
Schrimshaw, W., 2015. Exit immersion. Sound Studies, 1(1), pp.155–170.
Scott, S. et al., 2013. Goffman in the Gallery: Interactive Art and Visitor Shyness. Symbolic
Interaction, 36(4), pp.417–438.
Shaviro, S., 2009. Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
notes:
i.Location of the exhibition was at Schauraum Angewandte, curated by Ruth Schnell and Tommy Schneider. An exhibition space from the Department of Digital Arts, University of Applied Arts, Vienna. Source: <https://digitalekunst.ac.at/schauraum/anton-maslic-george-marcou/>, produced during an artist in residency at Q21, Museums Quartier Vienna, Austria in 2015/2016. Source: <http://www.q21.at/artists-in-residence/artists/artistinfo/tony-maslic-george-marcou/>
ii. An Arduino Uno is an electronic microcontroller board. It has 14 digital input/output channels, 6 analogue inputs, a 16Mhz quartz crystal, a USB connection, and a power jack. It can run autonomously software to control electronic components. Special software can be loaded or written for specific tasks designed by the user. The controller therefore has manifold options and applicabilities. The device is often used in new media art works, DIY robotics and interactive work. Source from Arduino website, accessed 17 April 2016 , <http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardUno>
iii. Cycling ’74 Max, is a visual programming language for media. An interface which allows to build networks of patched and connected software through an interface of hardware connectivity. Its flexibility allows the user to control complex, diverse and seemingly disconnected operations. In a visual and schematic way it provides real time monitoring and control over a wide range of software connections in different software languages and different platforms or devices. Source from Cycling 74 website, accessed 17 April 2016 <https://cycling74.com/products/max/>
iv. A stepper motor is a brushless DC electric motor that divides the number of a rotation in equal steps. This is achieved by using a toothed gear shaped iron rotor. Because the steps are indicated in degrees a high accuracy can be achieved and makes them ideal for electronic application by electronic controllers like Arduinos and so on.
Source from Wikipedia website, accessed 18 April 2016 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepper_motor>
v. A servo motor is a rotator actuator or linear actuator, that allows for precise linear or angular position velocity and acceleration. Servos are equipped with sensors, which communicates to a controller, like an Arduino, the precise position of rotation. They are available in capacities of full rotation or of 180 degrees, 90 degrees, 60 degrees, 45 degrees or less.
Source from Wikipedia website, accessed 18 April 2016 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servomotor>