(This is written for the upcoming show/installation at Humlab.)
Introductory Essay to the Humlab AIR Residency Project
I thought the best way to proceed with an introductory essay, is to begin
with the original project description. Notes are bracketed.
Project name:
Either Well or Brane -
The first refers to something that is low/beneath the surface - but
reflects the sky; it also taps into something hidden.
The second references a dimensional object in string theory that may or
may not exist. From Wikipedia:
"Originally string theory was a theory of 1-branes called strings. By the
mid-1990s it became apparent that the theory could be extended to also
include higher dimensional objects. Typically these objects are
non-perturbative features of the theory (meaning they do not appear in
perturbation theory)."
Think impossible or inconceivable objects, objects nonetheless that may be
fundamental to the cosmos - think fundamental ontology.
Avatar names:
My first avatar is Alan Dojoji.
My second avatar is Julu Twine.
[ Originally, Julu Twine was simpler in appearance and accouterments and
was used for building and everyday tasks. Then for a reason I no longer
remember, Alan Dojoji took up the role, and Julu Twine was outfitted for
complex movement, self-installation, and performance. Now both perform;
Alan Dojoji is the everyday avatar as well, and for the most part is
simpler.
Even with avatars, there are bandwidth issues; the more complex the
avatar, and the greater number of particles s/he emits - the more
bandwidth is taken up, which affects slower machines and the Second Life
parcel in general.
The avatars go in and out, taking their self-installations all about. ]
Description of installation:
Well/Brane is both installation and performance space. with the former, I
want to extend the idea of "negotiated space," a space in SL that is
inherently uncomfortable, impossible to move through. Negotiated space,
which is also a supple and continuously-changing architecture, first
appeared in my Odyssey installation, "The Accidental Artist" (also the
name of a publish-on-demand book produced by Fort/Da Press). The basic
concept is that, within the space, one is utterly lost, among the 'alien.'
[ The concept changed; I was less interested in negotiated architecture
than negotiated performance, and what I've termed "ontological mashup."
Negotiated performance references inordinately complex movements and
costuming - which is activated (i.e. moves on its own, has scripts
attached. I wanted to explore not only inconceivable movement, but a kind
of inconceivable movement that might reference our own condition in the
world - what happens when we carry destructive ecologies with us. A series
of oil and "oilamina" videos and still images resulted; the avatar became
hir own ecological catastrophe. I related this to the odd and abject
sexuality and fluidity of the BP oil spill videos, creating "spills" and
spews in the Humlab space seemed to wash away landscape, consciousness,
and intentionality. There's a buried politics at work here, based on the
majesty of large-scale environmental catastrophe and the horror that
ensues. ]
The space Well/Brane is narratological, since objects will possess labels
or signs appearing in the vicinity of avatars. It will also be aural, and
in this sense more complex than the space in the first installation. Using
the Beta 2.01 viewer (and its successors), I should be able to directly
add webpages and videos to objects - videos that are differentiated from
each other (in the first viewer, "media" allowed objects in a region to
play only one video at a time). This gives me the opportunity to develop a
narratology from within, based on differences among videos - not just, in
other words, what occurs in a specific video, but what occurs as a result
of difference among them. The same should hold true for audio.
[ The narrative elements I used were based on several sources. Aurally,
I've worked with music, spoken narrative (both my own), and natural sounds
recorded in Colorado; these sounds have been remapped into the Humlab
space, creating interlocking realms. Visually, I've worked with language
and signing texture-mapped on objects - the language constantly changing
(it's imported from external directories). With all of this, the
"ontological mashup" described above becomes evident - it's hard to tell
what the _origin_ of speaking or writing is in the space - i.e. _who_ is
speaking, and to _whom._ Offline and online worlds are deeply entangled -
which is to say that inert and idiotic (Rosset) physical reality becomes
deeply entangled with online abstract and completely constructed virtual
reality.
A visitor to the site - or someone watching a performance with this
material - follows a complex diegesis which stumbles and backtracks upon
itself. The nature of language and communication are called into question
as signs appear and disappear at high speed, the avatar's gestures seem
corrupted, and the negotiated performances seem completely out of hand,
certainly out of touch.
All of this is also connected to issues of body and sexuality; with
texture-mapping, I was able to create reference points, intensifications,
Barthes' puncta, as a kind of seduction. So whatever happened in the chaos
sometimes seemed to resolve around sex, around flesh or meat, around
bodily contortions reminiscent of everything from torture to sexual
ecstasy. But these resolutions never held; what's visible is always in the
midst of a turn towards an other (Other) that remains both internal and
external, as if there were a coherence - where in fact there isn't any,
and as if there were inhering - whereas things tend to disperse, fall
apart, turn out not to be things at all. ]
This work will continue to use modified bvh animation files; at this point
I want to use both older ones, and newer ones created directly in Poser. I
want to explore "behavior collision" more systematically: an avatar
following more than one animation structure at a time.
[ I stayed with the older files; I was more concerned with audio, with
video texturing, with interspersed texts, with the problem of narrative -
the imaginary of narrative - within virtual worlds. All of this adds up to
a phenomenology based on relevance theory and attention economy.
Relevance theory is concerned with the hermeneutics of an environment -
how are complex spaces interpreted, and what is relevant within the
interpretation. Relevance is related to action and function: How one
behaves in a space is connected to how the space is read.
Attention economy references the "bandwidth" of attention - one might say
the political economy of attention - of the performer or online/offline
spectator. (The online spectator may be _within_ Second Life, or observing
Second Life in a public demonstration, i.e. on-screen.)
One only has a limited time to do anything, see anything, exist; the
attention economy considers how this time is deployed, actively or
passively. Within the Humlab installations, videos, and graphics, the
issue is connected with negotiation - is it worth moving through an
overly-busy space? What are the rewards? How does one _feel_ moving this
way? What are the detriments? What is the politics of what might be read
as overcrowding and ideological confusion? ]
I envision several public performances, with Foofwa d'Imobilite and Sandy
Baldwin; the results will be documented in video, audio, and stills.
[ These performances were carried out at Humlab and in a space in East of
Odyssey, with great success. Foofwa d'Imobilite performed in front of a
screen projecting videos from the Humlab space; Sandy Baldwin worked with
me "in world" - in other words, within Second Life. ]
The points of all of this:
1. To further explore dance/choreographic/behavioral issues in SL.
2. To further explore these within complex negotiated environments.
3. To explore media-modified environments with contradictory video/audio
materials.
4. To explore narratologies and performances in these environments.
5. To relate all of this to a developing philosophy of difference and
contradiction.
[ This was done. I feel like a pioneer in virtual worlds, creating utterly
"alien" performances, spaces, and avatars - i.e. without reference in our
real, physical reality. Second Life gives me the opportunity to create, in
a sense, ab nihilo; by doing this, I feel I can return to the older
phenomenological states of bracketing - not taking the world for granted,
but exploring all manner of other worlds. We are so used to considering
avatar and virtual worlds as mockups of our own, emphasizing surrealism
and fantasy - here, I explore worlds and states that aren't mockups, that
are something other, something unaccountable. This is exciting research /
work / art, and as far as I'm concerned, on the forefront of exploration
into virtual spaces. It's filled with wonder for me. It draws me in, and I
hope, draws you in as well. ]
- August 20, 2010
