Archive for the ‘Kamerin’ Category

Hemmet, Tuters and Varnelis; “34 North 118 West”

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Hemmet, Tuters and Varnelis Articles

                In “Beyond Locative Media: Giving Shape to the Internet of Things”, Tuters and Varnelis define locative arts and explain its newfound popularity today.  Its name having origins in a Latvian electronic art and media center, the word comes from a Latvian word meaning location. Today locative arts have come to be centered around the individual viewer. It focuses on the “cartography of space and mind, places and the connections between them”. This new art form emerged from our modern do-it-yourself culture and as a rejection of the net art movement.  It morphed out of the net art movement because it encompasses many other media forms, other than the internet. Locative media includes software art, performance, sound art, data visualization, technology-enabled social sculpture and video, among other things.  This new type of art is so different from net art because it doesn’t try to prove its art status. Net art had an elitist audience, whereas locative arts target a mass audience through their use of consumer technologies.  In addition, locative arts hold large potential business opportunities and commercial applications. In fact, many locative media artists are collaborating with industry and government now. Tuters and Varnelis classify locative media projects under two types of mapping: annotative and phenomenological. Annotative mapping is generally concerned with virtually tagging the world, whereas phenomenological mapping traces the action of the subject in the world. Under these two classifications of mapping, many locative performers are attempting to change the world by providing it with more data. The data that these artists present offer people with the opportunities to make future choices with the data in mind. As successful as the locative media movement sounds, there are some critics today that think that these mapping forms of art are actually endangering us instead of enlightening us. One critic, Brian Holmes, thinks that because the US Army controls GPS satellites, and most locative arts projects use GPS as a main device, we are “allowing ourselves to be targeted by a global military infrastructure and to be ‘interpellated into Imperial ideology’”. Other critics think that locative media is enforcing a loss of privacy in the participants lives. I think the benefits of locative media outweigh the potential criticisms. Locative arts make us more aware of the world around us by providing proven data that we can interpret for ourselves and apply to our decisions every day.

In “Locative Arts”, Drew Hemment categorizes the types of locative arts and provides many examples of each.  He defines locative art as the art of mobile and wireless systems that is more focused on the preconditions of moving or being able to move than positioning. There are three main categories of locative arts: mapping, geoannotation, and ambulant (walking or moving about). Mapping is usually done by GPS systems and people moving through the physical environment. Some examples of mapping projects are GPS Drawing by Jeremy Wood and Amsterdam RealTime by Ester Polak. Geoannotation is the making of data to be geographically specific or placing a digital object in space. In this type of media, the individual person is the tool that drives the project forward.  Uncle Roy All Around You, by Blast Theory and Radio Ballet are some examples of this type of locative media.  One thing that is has been appealing to fans of locative arts but also addressed by critics is locatives arts characteristic of being “of the world” but not “in the world”. This speaks to the fact that the way these arts are performed is through the use of people and technology and often times the finished product is not displayed in a gallery setting. This is what makes locative media so much different than other types of art forms that we see today.

 

Jeremy Hight, Naomi Spellman, Jeff Knolton

Narrative Archaeology

“34 North 118 West”

 

Jeff Knowlton was the head preparitor at the Orlando Museum of Art for five years where he worked closely with curators in both exhibitions and education. He attends conferences and participates in panels and lectures on interactive media and technology.  He is a recipient of a New Forms Initiative Grant funded by the NEA and the Rockefeller Foundation. He currently is teaching at UC San Diego in the Interdisciplinary Computing Arts Program.

                Naomi Spellman is a transmedia artist and educator. She has exhibited works including networked art, video, computer-based interactive works, and graphic prints. She has over twenty years of experience in commercial work, including art direction, graphic design, photography, illustration, and internet content development.  Today, she teaches in the Interdisciplinary Computing Arts Program at UC San Diego and in the Design and Media Arts Program at the Orange Coast Community College in Costa Mesa.

                Jeremy Hight is an internationally published writer and poet who has created numerous works for multimedia and for exhibition. He wrote a paper titled Narrative Archaeology that was presented at a conference on writing at the MIT. Now, he teaches Visual Communication for Multimedia at Mission College in Los Angeles.

 

The team of Jeremy Hight, Naomi Spellman, and Jeff Knolton are currently putting into practice this idea of locative media. Their project, “34 North 118 West”, is an interactive experience that takes place in Los Angeles, California. They use technology and the physical navigation of the city simultaneously to create a layered atmosphere for the participant. As you walk through the city, you are given a GPS unit attached to a lap top computer and a set of headphones. On the computer, there is a map that tracks your movements through the streets. When you walk to certain locations (some are shown on the computer’s map and others are left for you to discover) a narrative is read to you through your headphones. The headphones appear to only have sounds in them until activated by your position in the city, then the written narratives are read to you by voice actors. This generates the sense that everything in the city is agitated and alive with unseen mysteries that you have yet to discover.

 

 The purpose of this project was to create the feeling of being in two places at once. As you pass through the city, a story is read that juxtaposes the sight you are observing. What you are left with is a sort of virtual reality in which the world is completely contradictory to what you would expect.  They wanted to create a dual city in which the world is split into being “connotative and denotative” at the same time. The denotative city is the one that is seen and navigated on the literal level. The narrative archaeology part of the experience is the connotative aspect.  This is considered a form of narrative archaeology because as you walk through the city you peel away layers of culture in the stories you are hearing, as if you were digging for artifacts through layers of dirt.

 

Questions to think about:

1.       Do you think the narrative archaeology concept used in this project would have the same effect on participants if it wasn’t set in a busy urban setting?

2.       How can being in two places at once cause you to look at your surroundings differently?

3.       Do you think narrative archaeology  is a valid form of locative media?

 

If you want more information on this project, visit http://www.34n118w.net/

 

David Nye Reading Response

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

                In Technology Matters: Questions to Live With, David Nye attempts to define technology and how it has progressed with humans throughout the course of evolution. He begins by saying that the earliest humans to use tools were Homo Sapiens, and they created tools out of necessity in order to improve their lives and develop more straightforward methods to carry out their day to day needs. These first tools mainly came into existence for hunting, building, creating shelters, and the like. For centuries, people saw these early humans as the primary developers of tools and explained mankind’s dominance over other species for this reason.  However, when Jane Goodall studied chimpanzees, she watched as one made a tool out of a stick in order to eat ants. This simple observation made people question the actual origin of tools. Since then, the seemingly simple idea of tools has been a complex topic.  According to Nye, “humanity fashioned itself with tools.”  He speaks of necessity and human’s desire to keep developing new technologies, even if the need for them has not yet arisen. His argument made me really think about whether or not tools have become extraneous in our lives.  I agree with Nye when he suggests that often times we make tools before we are ever put in the situation to use them. I think that if we were to just create new technologies at the same pace as our necessity for them, we would be able to conserve a lot more resources and technology might not hold such a huge role in our lives.  Nye goes on to compare tools to a story; a story that needs a forethought, action, and a final conclusion.  I never thought about tools this way, and it made me think of evolution and how human’s evolved so quickly because we were able to put thought into action and create technologies that simplified our lives. At the end of the first chapter, Nye brings up the example of Thomas Newcomen, the man who created the first steam engine in Britain. Although he was relatively uneducated in matters of math and science, he was able to create such an invention because of necessity. He used theory and logic to create the steam engine. This story makes me reevaluate the idea of technology. When I think of technology I usually immediately think of modern high-tech gadgets that require  a lot of knowledge of math and engineering to create. However, the instance with Newcomen has shown me that any technology, any tool, is ultimately whatever object you create to facilitate some necessary action. I think this chapter has taught me to look at the technology we have today in a simpler sense and compare it to the same spears and sticks that our early Homo Sapien ancestors used 400,000 years ago.

                In the second chapter, Nye renders a more philosophical tone as he addresses the idea of determinism.  Determinism by definition is the theory that every event is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. He questions whether or not technology controls us in this day and age and uses examples of the early Japanese and modern Amish to prove his point. Japan once used and manufactured guns, but were able to stop using them out of personal choice to return back to traditional weapons, like the sword.  Likewise, Amish people have resisted technology their whole lives, and instead live in self-sufficient communities with simplicity as the main goal. He then turns on western society, and the juxtaposition between us and the early Japanese and Amish further proves his point that we rely very heavily on technology.  Nye contines on with a more political overtone as he looks at different time periods and societies where industrialization and technology played a big part. He questions the role determinism played in the development of these ideas. He speaks of Marx, McLuhan, and Toffler and their ideas of industrialization at the time.  Marx spoke mostly of a utopia that would emerge from the rapid industrialization, whereas McLuhan and Toffler merely suggested a transformed society to come out of new technological developments.

                In the sixth chapter of the reading, Nye speaks of the sustainability of nature. He gives many examples of landscapes that we recognize as valid today, but were really formed out of destruction of something else.  The biggest thing that stuck out to me in this chapter is his ongoing comparison to Robinson Crusoe. When Crusoe was on the island, he fashioned tools out of whatever he could salvage and he hunted enough for himself to survive. However, as time passed, he began to hunt more and more and create too many things that he would never even use. He learned that it would be better to just use as much as he needed in order to protect the island’s resources.  I think this was a very wise move and we could all learn from it. The Earth isn’t going to keep producing more resources for us to use; eventually things will begin to run out and we are going to have to find other ways to facilitate our needs.  Like Nye says at the end, it is our choice whether or not we want to use up what the Earth has to offer without thinking about it first. I think everyone should give it some forethought and really try to imagine the consequences of acting outside of their necessity.

 

 

Questions:

1.       How would the earth be like today if everyone only  consumed resources out of necessity?

2.       Can our heavy reliance really be caused by determinism?

3.       Do we really use technology as a way to accomplish our goals or are many things created before we have use for them?

Marx and Williams Readings on Nature

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

In “Ideas of Nature”, Raymond Williams describes the evolution of the way humans relate to nature and how the ideas that illustrate nature’s definition have changed throughout the ages. The relationship between human history and the progress of known and accepted definitions of nature are analyzed through his chronological evaluations of mankind’s development. He describes the advancement of the classification of nature from the time when nature was seen as a “goddess” and “Divine Mother” to most the most recent view of nature as something that must be controlled by man.

Williams begins the descriptive journey of nature as viewed by humankind by describing how people saw nature as a “goddess”. However, this observation of nature did come into conflict as human history developed into a predominantly monotheistic one. When man saw the necessity to put God above all other things, nature was pushed back to being less important in their daily lives. People of that time recognized nature’s significant role in the world, but it was wrong to “worship” it, so to speak. This is when God became “the first absolute, but Nature his minister and deputy.” The fact that nature may potentially become God’s challenger or competitor for importance in man’s life forced it to take a step backwards.

Later, a newer idea of nature emerged, one that was more hierarchical and practical in character. Man recognized the hierarchy of life, with God at the top as the Supreme Being and nature intertwined in all other aspects of it. During this time, man began to question his role in the natural world and wonder whether he could be “described in the same terms as animals.” A new set of questions surfaced as humankind began to question ideas of destiny: how to figure theirs out and discover their role in the world.

Next, Williams describes man’s newfound desire to intervene and potentially control nature. This is when man and nature are distinctly separated from each other because, as Williams points out, man can only desire to control nature if he sees himself separate from nature. The idea of two distinctly different groups on earth has now come forth and the idea of this separation has no doubt been carried into our views of nature today.

Williams’ chronological depiction of the evolution of our ideas of nature has helped open my eyes to the connections that human history has with nature. I never thought about why we view nature the way we do, I have always just accepted my personal views as being unique to me. From reading “Ideas of Nature” I have realized that so many things I thought I knew about nature have been developing throughout time, hand in hand with the development of humankind. I agree with Williams’ ending idea: we cannot have a different relationship with nature if we do not first change our ideas of nature.

In “The Machine in the Garden”, Leo Marx discusses the different types of pastoralism with the use of many literary references. Like Williams, Marx analyzes the relationship between man and nature. However, Williams focused more on human’s views of nature and how humans are directly involved with nature, whereas Marx focuses more on nature’s affect on humans. He says that there are two different types of pastoralism: “popular and sentimental”, and “imaginative and complex”.

According to Marx, the ideas of pastoralism relate to man’s constant desire to escape from reality and return to the comforting romanticism of nature. Marx uses many literary examples to make his point, constantly mentioning names like Mark Twain, Earnest Hemmingway, and Robert Frost. All of these writers attempted to find temporary solace in the comforts of nature to escape from the fast paced and ever changing civilized world. The main example that Marx uses is one particular experience of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne sat outside in nature for some time to observe his surroundings and record them in a journal. Though he thought he discovered nothing of consequence, his notes reveal a harsh clash between man and nature. For example, as Hawthorne is sitting in the woods and making notes of the setting around him, a sharp train whistle pierces his silent reflection and the mood of his journal changes drastically from there. Instead of simply observing the nature around him, he begins to make notes that include, whether he knows it or not, more human involvements in nature.

The distinct separation of man and nature is dominant in Marx’s writings. He speaks of the locomotive train as being the symbol of human advancement, technology, and overall society of the time and when Hawthorne writes of its disruption of nature, it can be seen that today’s society is just as destructive, if not more. Our new technologies have a far greater effect on our environment then the few trains that were just being developed during Hawthorne’s time. Marx brings up a good observation of man’s role in nature, but offers no real suggestions on how to mend our disturbances.

Three questions to think about:

1. How can mankind lessen the gap between us and nature? And should we want to?

2. How does today’s technology affect our views of nature today?

3. What is the difference between our idealized views of nature and the views of nature in the past? If we wanted to go back to nature now, would we be able to?

Found Object of Nature

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

First Object of Nature:

I chose a sand dollar as my object of nature immediately when we were given this assignment. Every Memorial Day weekend my family takes a trip to Pismo Beach in California. There are always tons of sand dollars littered along the beach. It is the only place I’ve ever seen sand dollars just laying around, undisturbed in their natural habitat. At the end of each Memorial Day weekend, my family would have bagfuls of sand dollars that we then gave out to family and friends. Some of my fondest childhood memories have been at Pismo Beach, so when I am asked to think about nature, my automatic response is Pismo’s peaceful beach, covered in sand dollars.

Second Object of Nature:

This is a picture of an apple being genetically modified. GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) make me wonder about extent of human involvement in nature. A very controversial subject, GMOs hold many large risks and benefits for their consumers. The fact that people can and want to modify plants and crops to their own advantage shocks me.  When considering GMOs, the one thing that stands out in my mind is human’s need to always be in control. Even when it comes to nature, which man has never been able to fully control, he still tries to maintain power and stability.

My three questions:

What should be the limit on human involvement in nature? Why do people feel drawn to being in control of the world around them? Who will stand up for nature if man’s involvement goes too far?

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009