maps and indices :
allegorical interfaces
Hybrid Media
Judith Doyle / February 22, 2005
Etienne-Jules Marey, Motion Study, Circa : 1870
where we left off…
Katherine Hayles calls them "skeumorphs" - formerly functional elements such as
dials and knobs that resurface and rewrite the body in familiar ways as design
features on the Internet
TITLE: World view according to Homer
DATE: prior to 900 B.C.
DATE: ca. 1350
AUTHOR: Ranulf Higden, “Polychronicon”
There are 12 wind-blowers surrounding the map. Oval
layout is in the medieval tradition of drawing maps in the
shape of Noah’s ark.
"Alberti Dvreri pictoris et architecti praestantissimi De vrbibvs...," 1535
Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
Paris: Officina Christiani Wecheli, 1535
Illustrated book; 78 pp.; H: 13 3/4 in.
Albrecht Durer. Allegory of Justice. 1498. Black ink on paper.
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Alfred Jarry, creator of Pataphysics and his character, Ubu Roi
(King Turd), 1896, Paris.
Alfred Jarry
Almanach du Père Ubu
illustré, Paris, 1899
Lithographs by Pierre Bonn
Page 12
“Chapter I”
EUNOIA, Christian
Bok
Eunoia was
recorded on June
2, 2002 by Steve
Venright in
Toronto.
UBU (the first)
laser print,
Christian Bok,
1998.
Conceptualism vs. Romanticism ?
"I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility.” - William Wordsworth
“In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most
important aspect of the work… all planning and
decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a
perfunctory affair. The idea becomes the machine that
makes the art.” Sol LeWitt, Artforum, summer 1967.
“If you like conceptual art, think about honking.”
Bumper sticker, circa 1977.
Komar & Malamid, “Most Wanted and
Least Wanted” paintings (USA)
Circa 1995.
http://www.diacenter.org/km/index.html
showing only the motion suit 'markers'.
1882
DUCHAMP, Marcel
Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2
1912
Oil on canvas
146 x 89 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art
cheap imitation, David Rokeby, 2002.
By 1912, Marcel Duchamp would paint only a few more
canvasses. He was becoming increasingly
dissatisfied with what he called “retinal art” - art that
appealed to the eye. He asked the question, “can one
make works of art that are not ‘of art’?” The
readymades were the answer : he substituted
manufactured (ready or custom-made) objects for
works by the hand of the artist, and non-conscious or
random procedures for conscious principles of
design.
http://www.understandingduchamp.com/
“Unhappy Readymade (1919) consists of a set of
instructions for exposing a geometry textbook to the
elements for a designated period of time.
Craig Owens, “The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a
Theory of Postmodernism”, October no. 12 (Spring
1980)
“Every image of the past that is not
recognized by the present as one of its own
concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably.”
- Walter Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy
of History’
Robert Smithson, PARTIALLY BURIED WOODSHED
Kent State University, Kent, Ohio Jan, 1970
one woodshed and twenty truckloads of earth;
18'6" x 10'2" x 45'
• Smithson’s Spiral Jetty : “derived from a local myth of
a whirlpool at the bottom of the Great Salt Lake.”
Craig Owens
• “We should be prepared to encounter allegory in
photomontage… the “common practice” of allegory to “pile up
fragments ceaselessly, without any idea of a goal””.
Craig Owen quoting Walter Benjamin
Film clip : Walter Ruttman : Berlin : Symphony of a City
Mineko Grimmer, whose works have as much to do with
sound and aleatory music as they do with sculpture,
traces it all back to her home in northern Japan. Born in
Hanamaki and educated in Japan and at the Otis Art
Institute in Los Angeles, Mineko makes sculptures of
wood and metal, above which she suspends inverted
pyramids of white or black pebbles frozen in ice. As the
ice melts in the course of each daily exhibition, the
pebbles fall with increasing rapidity striking the
elements of bamboo, fir or pine, bronze or piano wire,
and the pool of water, of which the sculpture is
composed, creating a random series of sounds that are
part of the work. In her home in northern Honshu,
which she left eight years ago, Mineko says that she was
able to watch "the icicles melt and refreeze all winter
long," inspiring her current series of musical pieces.
http://www.ubu.com
“It’s not the bullet that kills you, it’s the hole” (For
Chris Burden), Laurie Anderson, 1976.
SHOOT, Chris Burden
F-Space, Santa Ana,
California
November 19, 1971
http://www.neurotransmitter.fm/biodist_update.html
Groups like neuroTransmitter in Finland seek analogies
between spoken language congition and technological
structures such as radio.
John Baldessari
"I will not make any more boring art"
Robert Smithson
A Heap of Language
Metaphor and metonymy / Lev Manovich
(paraphrased by JD) :
“The hypertext of the World Wide Web leads
the reader from one text to another, ad
infinitum. Contrary to images of (the web as)
a giant library (which suggests an ordering
system) or a giant book (which implies a
narrative progression) the new media is more
like a flat surface where individual texts are
placed in no particular order.”“T
The pond strikes on adaweb :
http://adaweb.walkerart.org/context/stir-fry/hangzhou_f.html
Internet Archive “Wayback machine”
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/codedoc/
index.shtml
Languages: Java, C/++, VB; Perl, Lingo, xml
[html and FlashScript have been excluded for pragamatic reasons]
Assignment and Requirements:
* The code should move and connect three points in space. [This could obviously
interpreted in a visual or more abstract way].
* The code should not exceed 8 KB. 8 KB refers to your "main." The emphasis and
focus is on code written by the artist. Obviously it’s almost impossible to *not* call
any libraries and subroutines but if possible, you should avoid relying on them too
much (if they haven’t been written by yourself); meaning, the idea is not that you
write one line that calls powerful subroutines and libraries. However, if you can’t
resist bending the rules, please write a short line explaining what you did (so it
becomes a bit more intelligible for anyone who isn't a programmer).
* The code must be compilable / interpretable; it should run in a browser window or
be accessible as downloadable executable.
* The "object" is the code itself not what it produces. "Visual beauty" does not have
to be the main focus.
* By the deadline, you should deliver your code as a text file + the applet / exe etc.
David Rokeby’s 4 models for interaction between an
artwork and an interactor :
•
•
•
•
Navigable structure
The invention of media
Transforming mirror
automata
David Rokeby’s 4 models for interaction between an
artwork and an interactor :
• Navigable structure : examples - “They Rule”, “Myst”
QuickTime™ and a
Cinepak decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
MYST
Created by Rand Miller
and Robyn C. Miller 1993
Graphics and Construction tools:
HyperCard (Apple)
Think Pascal (Symantec)
Photoshop (Adobe)
Premier (Adobe)
Illustrator (Adobe)
Painter (Fractal Design)
Morph (Gryphon Software)
• http://www.theyrule.net/
Mark Lombardi's
'Conspiracy' Art
Iran-Contra, the Big
Picture
Oliver North, Lake
Resources of
Panama, and the
Iran-Contra
Operation, ca. 198486 (4th Version,
1999)
Geocaching : geomaps
• http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=bcd
8261a-d3bd-4eda-8840-7bc77c521e65
http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/home.html
• http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/vns.html -a very nervous
system (1991) “a sort of instrument you can play with your body”.
David Rokeby’s 4 models for interaction between an
artwork and an interactor :
• The invention of media - examples : “MacPaint”, “A
Very Nervous System”
David Rokeby’s 4 models for interaction between an
artwork and an interactor :
• Transforming mirror : examples “MUDs”, “RPGs”
David Rokeby’s 4 models for interaction between an
artwork and an interactor :
• Automata -- example : Norman White’s robots.
Mac Classic
System 3.2
1996
Janet Cardiff
To Touch, 1993,
Table, photocells,
electronic circuits,
audio equipment.