Engaging in dialogue (day 163)

CODE Dialogues happened yesterday.  I didn't blog about it because I needed a break to get clear on what stood out for me about the event.

Bruce Ferguson started the day with a pretty heavy talk on the responsibilities of being an artist working with technology in the context of a world where many things are not working optimally.  There is still a tech divide.  The disparity of, say, access to the web, is pretty glaring when you see it on a map.  He was basically pointing out that artists have a role in working with technology in a way that highlights the inflection points of tech as creative and destructive.   He was pointing out that culturally we are still pretty clumsy at discerning what we should do with tech, and how we should do it.

It was a nice segue into the next talk about urbanism, technology and participation.  Alexandra Samuel did a great job moderating a fairly difficult group of panelists.  The discussion found its legs I think on the discussion about interaction vs. participation.  My feeling was participation in this case was perhaps meant in the sense of 'engagement'.  The difference between interaction and participation then centres on commitment to a larger dialogue for which the artwork or technology becomes an entry point.  Many interactive artworks are still very much about entertainment and spectacle.  And in some ways, people expect that.  As it becomes more mainstream I think we'll see a shift in emphasis to work that provides deeper ways to engage.

As I was getting ready for Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's talk during the break, the discussion in the morning started to worry me.  His work is so much about play and grand gestures.  It can be hard to relate his work to social responsibility.  There was some controversy about 'Vectorial Elevation' being enacted in Vancouver both because of the cost of installation and the amount of power needed for the lights.  Especially in the context of the Olympics where the cost/benefit analysis continues to trigger a lot of anger.  Rafael himself is not one to emphasize political issues in discussion about his work.  I was super nervous.

In good form, he started his talk with Mexican music to lighten the mood.  He went on to describe a series of recent work from his relational architecture, shadow box, and sub-sculpture series.  I was really glad that he finished his talk with Voz Alta, a work to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Tlatelolco student massacre in Mexico in 1968.   It is by far his most political work and I think highlights the potential of participation at a visually grand scale.   It was about owning a space and speaking out, involving the memory of the buidings and geography directly.  It was not about 'alien memory' as he often states of his relational architecture work.

I started with a question about the tension between large scale public installations and political overt work.  Creating large public installations often requires official permission and sanction so may limit the range of expression possible, yet the potential for impact is high.  He spoke about the fact that the work in Mexico was commissioned by the students at the University.  They were able to mount the work independent of government control.  It made me wonder if this would even be possible here.  He spoke about needing to compromise but not giving in on crucial points of the work.
I followed up with a question about Vancouver and why Vectorial Elevation, if he could have done a Vancouver-specific work what would it have been.  He didn't answer the second part of the question but talked about Vectorial Elevation as being ideal for the Olympics because of its possibility for cross-country and international participation.  Hard not to agree with that.
I then addressed the controversy more directly and asked about the need for such large scale work.  Why spend such large sums when there are more pressing social issues to be solved.  He spoke about the power issues with his work and said that people usually felt more comfortable once he told them that the power needed to run his piece for the entire duration of the exhibition was equivalent to three hockey games.  He also mentioned that the controversy noticeably quieted down once the piece went up.   He ended it with support for the fight to re-establish arts funding in BC.  People clapped.   Thinking about it now I think I would have rephrased my question.  I framed it in the context of the Olympics and NASA, things that are expensive but appeal to a hopeful sense of unity, exploration, out of the reach of the practical grittiness of life.   I think I would have asked his opinion more directly about how such endeavours help or hinder the possibilities or motivation of solving some of the more gritty issues of living in society.   Because that is the tension.  When I experience a work like Vectorial Elevation, am I suddenly more optimistic about world unity, world peace?  By highlighting the best of human nature, do we give ourselves a push to work all the more harder to solve the problems?  Or is it a distraction, a diversion?  I suppose anything can become a way to hide from responsibility.   When the question is framed about money I think it hides a category mistake.  Many of the social issues we face are about process, not money.  It apparently takes 75K per year for the government to take care of one homeless person.  Clearly, money is not the issue.  Still if we devoted all the energy and human resources that was devoted to the Olympics towards alleviating suffering in the Downtown Eastside, I'm sure we'd see progress.   Where people are willing to devote energy is the real issue.  It also helps that the Olympics has a definite end point, a goal.
Anyway, that is the real discussion that I would have liked to have with Rafael.  I still don't know what he thinks about it.  I sensed he wasn't going to go there with me.  He spoke eloquently about his work and process but stayed pretty clear of its potential impact.
I'm sad I didn't get to ask him about the question about Augmented Reality.   But I think he would have been against the personal and commercial nature of it.  Over the time I spent with the documentation of his work, and at the dialogue, it became clear that he is very much about people physically engaging with each other and the space.  He's a very social person and fun is very much part of his motivation.

Ok enough with the blow by blow.  I felt terribly uncomfortable up there.  Even though it was supposed to be a dialogue the nature of the setup made that difficult.  I think I would rather do radio.

A song for this post.

Shadowing Rafael (day 161)

I spent many hours familiarizing myself with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's thought patterns today.  I didn't have the luxury of speaking to him so I googled him and read books about him and watched videos and read interviews.  Mercifully, there was lots of repetition.  I need to know a bit about Rafael because I'll be responding to his talk tomorrow at CODE Dialogues.  It occurred to me that I could go in cold, or warm I guess...because I already knew some things about him but I think the preparation will be worth it.

Some of the things I take away from my research:

• He does not like the term "collective intelligence" (Pierre Levy),  prefers "connective intelligence" (Derrick de Kerckove).  This seems to be a reaction to the utopian ideas behind collective intelligence.   We agree.
• He currently has two streams of work: relational architecture, and sub-sculptures.  Relational architecture being transformations of public spaces to promote new relationships and sub-sculptures being about dynamic and chaotic systems.
• Likes the idea of being surprised by public participation.
• Works off of Duchamp's premise that "Le regard fait le tableau" (the gaze creates the painting).  Loves the dialogue between artwork and public.  Sees artwork as having awareness.
• Likes the idea of temporarily changing public spaces, putting it back into the hands of the public, subverting the usual commercial or political purposes of such spaces.
• Is inspired by current scientific thought.
• Likes to reveal the mechanisms of surveillance, even in his own work.
• Shadows are an important aspect of many of his works.

Some of the questions that came up for me:

• Vectorial Elevation is a work that has been enacted in other locations.  If he could do a work specific to Vancouver, or one that more specifically involved its architecture, what would it be?
• In Vectorial Elevation, how does the delay affect the piece.  How would real-time interaction change the piece?
• Why shadows?  I have my own ideas but it would be nice to hear him talk about it.
• The tension between analog and digital in his sub-sculpture work.
• What does he think about AR?  A lot of his work is about making the virtual visible in grand public gestures.  I wonder what he might think about the private nature of most AR work (as in one device, one person...each having their own view of the world).
• Would like to hear more about spin-offs from his work (open software, other tech).  He said in an interview that if artists had the budget of the defense department they would produce more innovation.  I tend to agree.  But I think that applies to a lot of fields.  The defense department is overvalued.
• Sound does not feature prominently in his work.  Or at least does not seem as deliberate in most cases.  Why is that?  Does he see that changing?
• Would love to hear his thoughts on the claustrophobia that can result from computer work.  His work is so spacious, it seems an antidote to email apnea.

Who knows what will happen tomorrow.  I'm happy to keep an open mind and work with him to create a great public dialogue.  Somehow I have a feeling he won't make it hard.

A song for this post.

Elevated (day 160)

I just got back from the opening of Vectorial Elevation, a public art work by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.   There are large search lights, I think 9 on either side of English Bay.   The patterns of the lights are input from people around the world at http://vectorialvancouver.net.   I input a couple patterns tonight.  In total there will be time for about 130,000 patterns, no where near enough for the amount of interest it will probably generate but the queue resets every day which helps with the fairness aspect.  After you input a pattern, it tells you how long before you see it in the sky and will also send you a picture.

The feeling when you're standing underneath it is like a tent or a cathedral of light.  Also feels a bit like the northern lights.  It's nice that there is a pause between patterns, unlike search lights or promotion lights which just circle endlessly in the sky.  I can the tops of the lights from my kitchen window.  Sometimes the lights would go straight onto a highrise downtown.  That must have lit up some living rooms.  I think he mentioned fixing that bit of potential public annoyance.

A song for this post.

Opening gifts (day 159)

It feels like Christmas eve pretty much every night now.  Every day there is something to look forward to.  Last night was the game, tonight was preview night at CODE Live 1.  Tomorrow is Opening Night for CODE Live.   And it goes on.  I picked up more tickets today:  for a choral evening at St-Andrews, and for the Cirque Eloize.

I wholeheartedly recommend going to see the CODE Live exhibitions.   There are three sites, CODE Live 1, 2 and 3.  CODE Live 1 is at the Great Northern Way Campus (GNWC).  CODE Live 2 is at Emily Carr.  CODE Live 3 is at the Public Library.  Some highlights from CODE Live 1:

• Vested: Don Ritter - Traverse panoramas of cultural and political sites.  Wear a vest.  Blow them up.
• Condemned Bulbes: Artificiel - Giant lightbulbs glow and buzz in a trance inducing electric space.
• 787 Cliparts: Oliver Laric - Clipart of humans doing things, going by so fast it's like a lifetime of human diversity and passions in a minute.
• Instant Places: Ian Birse, Laura Kavanaugh - Beautiful visuals of Canadian geography, processed and mixed.  A very restful and evocative piece to behold.  Made me love Canada all over again.

The space itself has been transformed for the exhibition and is quite interesting.  I loved the mural in the lounge.  I still don't know who created it.  It looks like a primordial soup of cellular organisms.

A song for this post.

So who won? (day 158)

If you had lots of money and you were suddenly faced with a vote for or against the redistribution of wealth, which way would you go?  What if the majority of your neighbours were quite poor?  I faced that decision today, with my avatar.  I was a wealthy flagger (had invested some money) and healthy enough though I had been injured in a random shooting by some of my fellow avatars.  I had made good choices along the way and though I had tried all the drugs presented to me, I stayed away from teen pregnancy and marriage with kids, and didn't sink my money into a house.   I considered myself a compassionate avatar for equal opportunity and justice for all.   But when the vote was called, I was surprised to feel a quite palpable twinge of entitlement.  I deserved that money.  The fact that chance had favoured me had been forgotten in a frenzy of selective memory.   Exposed, I sheepishly voted for equalization of wealth.  I consoled myself with the cheers of the many who got richer.  I then secretly hoped that winning was not tied to wealth.

My avatar was a little ball in the game "Best Before", a 200 person video game currently playing at The Cultch.  I say 'playing' because it does involve a measure of theatre from the game's creators.  This theatre game has heart.  It was not what I expected and certainly steers away from the usual tropes of video games.  It was folky and funny and thought-provoking in a surprising way.  It was sometimes socially edgy yet undependable as a social barometer.  Were people making decisions based on what they would really do in real life or were they trying something new because the consequences were temporary?  Starting with the decision to be male or female, that dilemma came up often.

A song for this post.

Subtle yet precise (day 157)

All is quiet on the bacterial front.  I had to further cull the kefir grains.  Hopefully perfect ferment awaits.

Today was a good day.  I was able to stay focused on the important things.  The information deluge was still around but somehow I could see through it.  It's too bad I don't exactly know the recipe for this good day.  It's somewhat random and somewhat willed.  Perhaps all learning is like that.   One thing that was different was a degree of renunciation.  I didn't feel bad about not clicking on a link and not scanning all my feeds.  I was clearer about whether I was interested and whether I could live without it.  I don't need to be a walking repository of headlines.    I think this change of mind was induced by adding twitter as one more source of information to my environment.  As it colonized the landscape, I had to prune to make everything healthier.   Am I taking this metaphor too far?  I resisted twitter for a long time for fear of 'one more thing'.  My fear was justified but I think I gained something from having to sharpen my pruning scissors.  Okay done with metaphors.  Tomorrow I'll probably be back to managing chaos but who knows.  No doubt it's best to expect nothing.

I came across this quote from Sun Tzu's Art of War:

"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate."

Somehow it seems appropriate to the Smart Graphics theme.  When presenting an image for the purpose of maximum impact, formlessness and soundlessness may be just the subterfuge you need to keep the eye interested.  I have to think about this some more.

A song for this post.

Patiently getting better (day 156)

Bacterial update:  It was a good day for the scoby love.  Two things happened.  Steve and I went to the TenRen tea shop in Chinatown and I was able to taste a 10 year old Pu-Erh tea.  It was delicious, smooth, sweet, and interesting.  The woman serving us had asked if I wanted to taste the 10 or 20 year old tea.  I decided on the 10 year old because I didn't think I wanted to spend the money on the 20 year old tea which was more than twice as much.  But I became curious after tasting the 10 year old tea.  I asked her what the difference is and she said it's sweeter and more complex.  After some discussion I purchased the 20 year old tea and got the 10 year old for free.  Who knows if it was a good deal.  Bargaining is not a skill widely practiced in my usual circles.   I got home and immediately brewed a cup of the 20 year old tea.  It was as she described: a beautiful, smooth, complex taste of autumn in my mouth.  It may now be my favourite tea.
The second thing that happened is that I did a final pH test on the kombucha that had been brewing for  three weeks and it was at 3.3 which meant that it was ready for bottling - a minor miracle!   Sometimes delays are forced patience for the good things in life.  So I sterilized everything and bottled the kombucha.  I filled six of the Grolsch bottles.  They will now rest comfortably at room temperature for two days to promote carbonation.  I'm not sure how much carbonation I'll get since it doesn't taste very sweet at this point.  I thought about adding sugar but decided against it in the end. 
I brewed a gallon of the 20 year old Pu-Erh and added a cup and a quarter of sugar.  I'm just waiting for it to cool down before adding the scoby.  I separated the old scoby into two and I'm preserving one just in case things don't work out.
The Kefir grains are doing ok.  I had to remove some to bring the production down to something manageable.  So far I can't bring myself to eat the spare grains but soon the question will need to be called.  Either I eat them, give them, or flush them.

I came across a quite beautiful visualization of whale vocalization in the New Scientist.  I wondered if it would be something worthy of the label Smart Graphic.  The images are created through algorithmic means with an aim to clearer representation of the sounds.   I suppose the visualization could be labelled smart because a more precise tool was used to transform a sound into an image, but I think only if that transformation is useful for a particular aim.  Is beauty a sufficient aim?  Are the images more beautiful than the sounds?   Could the images provide a better way of classifying different types of whales like showing differences and similarities that would have been harder to identify with just the sound?  Perhaps if beauty is the only aim, the conversation stops short, and so does the Smart in Smart Graphic. 

A song for this post.