The spacial metaphor has been present in virtual worlds since even before their practical inception - that is, in the imagining of sophisticated interaction with data we were already building other worlds.
I am, of course, referring to the SciFi genre, specifically CyberPunk: Neuromancer by William Gibson. This book and subsequent genre informed the language and virtual architecture of the developing interactive and internet 'world' with terms such as 'Firewall' and 'Cyberspace' among many others becoming accepted in the language of the emerging virtual world.
The fact that we think of these banks of data as worlds or landscapes gives us as users a way to engage and interact. In the world of web1.0 this metaphor was ubiquitous, from text based Chat Rooms and M.U.Ds, users interacted via text using the binding idea and descriptions of an environment or space.
Early graphical websites also kept with the architectural metaphor using doors, rooms and representations of real object to allow users to engage with material presented.
It was not until internet use became normalised and users sophisticated enough that information architecture began to develop its own internal logic, even today the spacial metaphor is a persistent one.
We are creatures of our environment, so it only stands to reason that as we create sophisticated ways of interacting with data we will naturally port over the coded language that has been built to help us move in and understand the environment and architectural space.
In gaming this is even more true, gamers suspend their disbelief and submerge themselves in the game 'world'. Depending on the style of the game the environment can be the major 'character' or mealy the setting.
In games such as Super Mario Galaxy the environment is front and centre, the player moves in-between small self contained environments each with their own set of rules and play opportunities, rather like the set up of a theme park. This is Environmental Storytelling, and is also used in modern MMORPGs such as World of WarCraft: the game world is broken up into smaller self contained environments, separated by features such as mountain ranges or city walls. These elements may be close together, but the gamer will be entirely unaware or effected by the neighboring environments.
I enjoy Embedded Narrative games such as the Bathesda role playing games: Fallout3, Skyrim etc wherein the user uncovers the story by interacting with the environment and unlocking component parts. I feel these games give a more saisfactory feeling of being within the environment. Having to spend and hour of playing time moving across the Wastlands and not being killed really makes the player invest in the game, learn its logic and become one with the game environment.
Form + Image Response
https://vimeo.com/39885874
Soundtrack 'Hybrid' Dysphemic. soundcloud.com/dysphemic0/hybrid-by-dysphemicUsed with artist permission.
The animation is a generative piece using simple looping animation and a feedback loop. Video feedback is one of the oldest forms of generative art and it is one that I have ad the pleasure of exploring in my earlier VJ works.
My aim in this piece was to generate the visuals in sync with the audio, producing a meditative affect.
I ran the piece a couple of times before I decided to let go of any manual intervention, the result of the generative animation was far more pure.
The set up consisted of an Edirol V4 video mixer.
The mixer had a channel running the clips, and one running the video camera, the camera filmed the output monitor thus creating the feedback loop. The mixer was set to 90BPM (half that of the soundtrack) and faded between the 2 channels, this fed the feedback loop.
Resolume ran 2 clips, one with 3 effects running, the effects were controlled by various parts of the soundtracks' waveform. The second clip was set to an additive blend and its' transparency was linked to the audio.
I recored the result with the DV camera and finished the clip with some colour grading and titles in After Effects.
Time + Perspective
Time and perspective are both highly mutable ideas. Our perception of time can be slowed down through our reaction to danger or through meditative practice, it can also seem to move faster such as when we are carried away by a large collective event (such as a concert or the like). Perspective is one of the largest variables of any experience: ask multiple separate people for a description of the same event and more than likely you will get entirely differing stories.
With the advent of rich media applications (games, live visual presentations, the internet etc) media creators have broken away from the constraints of the ostensibly linear time of film and television.
Loops are one of the simplest and most effective forms of modified time, from looping animations representing movement and saving animation, to animated gifs saving processing power, loops are ubiquitous across all animated media. In my work as a VJ I could run visuals for hours on end simply through the mixing and effecting of short video loops. The visuals meaning and affect would change based on their juxtaposition, speed, type of mix and presentation.
Time in games and interactives is incredibly liquid, there is Persistent time of online MMOs where a world is shared by many separate users; Event based time where the world is in stasis until the user completes a task; Play or Game time, that is time that is controlled by the user, such as strategy games that allow a player to speed up and slow down play time for ease/ convenient play; and of course, Limited time, one of the oldest game models, in which the user has to beat the clock to complete an event.
As media artists these differing ways of viewing and experiencing time add yet another dimension to our very rich creative sphere.
Gesture + Movement
The idea of the interface is a fairly new one and only really came about with abstraction of ideas and highly coded data. Though as soon as I write that I begin to think about how all forms of communication and perception are really a code. For example language and mathematics, their written forms are their visual interface. So for these ancient codes we don't require any interface metaphors because they communicate directly to us without need for intermediary.
As technology and data storage has become more sophisticated we have had to develop ways in which the non-expert can interface with them. So the Desktop and then the Icon metaphors were introduced at Xerox PARC in the early 70s.
The metaphors were refined and developed over the subsequent decades by Apple and Micosoft and have become the standard for understanding digital data displays.
The interface can really be anything though and the paradigm is beginning to shift as we are moving into more gestural ways of interacting with digital technology with touch pad computing, and motion sensing systems like the Kinect et al.
There is a whole industry being built around user experience and how people interface with data. Before this area was commercialised there were many early digital art works addressing these ideas such as the Ceremony of Innocence.
Though the way a viewer is guided around an image is nothing new, from cave painting to decorated plates and vases we have been telling linear and non-linear stories with image for many thousands of years.
This visual storytelling became refined through the comic and of course the moving media of the screen (cinema language). Scott McCloud's early 90s amazing book Understanding Comics was the most accessible work on the defining of these techniques.
There are many fantastic comic works over the internet which not only engage with us using the visual tools of movement and gesture but also use sound, interactivity and animation to create a really immersive experience. My favourite work within this space is the NAWLZ series by Stewart Campbell, his use of 'movement' within static images really draws the reader in through the panels. Couple this with the level of interactivity, confusion, exploration, audio design and animation the comics are infused with and this becomes a mind blowing trip into a surreal future world.
Form + Image
Leading on from last weeks discussions of agency and the recreation of evolving systems we move to the field of generative art where the artist sets the stage and lets the art form evolve its self.
This can be..
Fractal generation
a process of infinite devision and self similarity, that is within every piece there will be an infinite recreation of exactly the same shapes.
Cellular growth based on a few very simple rules
Some amazing emergent work this whole body of work is derived from a simple series of base commands.
Feedback loops
This is a recoding of some video feedback I produced with a Fairlight Colour Synthesiser in my early VJ performances. Because of the Fairlights' simple posterisation and re-colouring abilities we were able to generate some amazing and long running organic morphing shapes with a very simple starting shape. Most often the starting shape was just the monitor its' self as the contrast in a nightclub was so strong.
Glitch artworks
Given the structure of digital data and the compression algorithms of video an image data it is a very simple process to add mis-steps into the code and produce some very interesting results.
These kinds of works are very interesting and can produce some stunning results, but like all artworks they also require direction. Allot of thought needs to be put into the presentation of the forms, results can be stunning such as some of the work of Casey Reas. The prints and sculptures made from his process work are a fine example of this emergent art: stills chosen by the artist to show the beauty of the process, as well as his video presentations detailing the process and its results.
Agents + Behaviour
Community + Practice Response
Some Interactive Pieces..
The set up consisted of an Edirol V4 video mixer.
A computer running Resolume3 playing the video loops and the Soundtrack.
A DV camera.
A preview monitor.
A DV camera.
A preview monitor.
The mixer had a channel running the clips, and one running the video camera, the camera filmed the output monitor thus creating the feedback loop. The mixer was set to 90BPM (half that of the soundtrack) and faded between the 2 channels, this fed the feedback loop.
Resolume ran 2 clips, one with 3 effects running, the effects were controlled by various parts of the soundtracks' waveform. The second clip was set to an additive blend and its' transparency was linked to the audio.
I recored the result with the DV camera and finished the clip with some colour grading and titles in After Effects.
Time + Perspective
Time and perspective are both highly mutable ideas. Our perception of time can be slowed down through our reaction to danger or through meditative practice, it can also seem to move faster such as when we are carried away by a large collective event (such as a concert or the like). Perspective is one of the largest variables of any experience: ask multiple separate people for a description of the same event and more than likely you will get entirely differing stories.
With the advent of rich media applications (games, live visual presentations, the internet etc) media creators have broken away from the constraints of the ostensibly linear time of film and television.
Loops are one of the simplest and most effective forms of modified time, from looping animations representing movement and saving animation, to animated gifs saving processing power, loops are ubiquitous across all animated media. In my work as a VJ I could run visuals for hours on end simply through the mixing and effecting of short video loops. The visuals meaning and affect would change based on their juxtaposition, speed, type of mix and presentation.
Time in games and interactives is incredibly liquid, there is Persistent time of online MMOs where a world is shared by many separate users; Event based time where the world is in stasis until the user completes a task; Play or Game time, that is time that is controlled by the user, such as strategy games that allow a player to speed up and slow down play time for ease/ convenient play; and of course, Limited time, one of the oldest game models, in which the user has to beat the clock to complete an event.
As media artists these differing ways of viewing and experiencing time add yet another dimension to our very rich creative sphere.
Gesture + Movement
The idea of the interface is a fairly new one and only really came about with abstraction of ideas and highly coded data. Though as soon as I write that I begin to think about how all forms of communication and perception are really a code. For example language and mathematics, their written forms are their visual interface. So for these ancient codes we don't require any interface metaphors because they communicate directly to us without need for intermediary.
As technology and data storage has become more sophisticated we have had to develop ways in which the non-expert can interface with them. So the Desktop and then the Icon metaphors were introduced at Xerox PARC in the early 70s.
The metaphors were refined and developed over the subsequent decades by Apple and Micosoft and have become the standard for understanding digital data displays.
The interface can really be anything though and the paradigm is beginning to shift as we are moving into more gestural ways of interacting with digital technology with touch pad computing, and motion sensing systems like the Kinect et al.
There is a whole industry being built around user experience and how people interface with data. Before this area was commercialised there were many early digital art works addressing these ideas such as the Ceremony of Innocence.
Though the way a viewer is guided around an image is nothing new, from cave painting to decorated plates and vases we have been telling linear and non-linear stories with image for many thousands of years.
This visual storytelling became refined through the comic and of course the moving media of the screen (cinema language). Scott McCloud's early 90s amazing book Understanding Comics was the most accessible work on the defining of these techniques.
There are many fantastic comic works over the internet which not only engage with us using the visual tools of movement and gesture but also use sound, interactivity and animation to create a really immersive experience. My favourite work within this space is the NAWLZ series by Stewart Campbell, his use of 'movement' within static images really draws the reader in through the panels. Couple this with the level of interactivity, confusion, exploration, audio design and animation the comics are infused with and this becomes a mind blowing trip into a surreal future world.
Form + Image
Leading on from last weeks discussions of agency and the recreation of evolving systems we move to the field of generative art where the artist sets the stage and lets the art form evolve its self.
This can be..
Fractal generation
a process of infinite devision and self similarity, that is within every piece there will be an infinite recreation of exactly the same shapes.
Unfortunately fractals are associated with electronic Trance music.
Cellular growth based on a few very simple rules
Some amazing emergent work this whole body of work is derived from a simple series of base commands.
Feedback loops
This is a recoding of some video feedback I produced with a Fairlight Colour Synthesiser in my early VJ performances. Because of the Fairlights' simple posterisation and re-colouring abilities we were able to generate some amazing and long running organic morphing shapes with a very simple starting shape. Most often the starting shape was just the monitor its' self as the contrast in a nightclub was so strong.
Glitch artworks
Given the structure of digital data and the compression algorithms of video an image data it is a very simple process to add mis-steps into the code and produce some very interesting results.
This one is the result of a virus (so unintentional) but it produces some great visuals!
These kinds of works are very interesting and can produce some stunning results, but like all artworks they also require direction. Allot of thought needs to be put into the presentation of the forms, results can be stunning such as some of the work of Casey Reas. The prints and sculptures made from his process work are a fine example of this emergent art: stills chosen by the artist to show the beauty of the process, as well as his video presentations detailing the process and its results.
Agents + Behaviour
It is a very human response to want to anthropomorphise (give human traits to) everything from animals to everyday objects and even the weather and random events. After all, what is God and the fates if not ancient humanities' attempt to rationalise and to reason with the seeming chaotic world around them.
Just as we have embodied the things around us with our own traits we have also sought to create life, the highest goal of this pursuit was to create life like us, an intelligence that we can communicate with and have communicate back to us.
Like all Sci-Fi fans I have always been interested in this pursuit, and it has been really interesting to watch the development of the 'cyber' world and peoples' response to it. I am always amazed at how people will form meaningful attachments to a purely digital construct, I guess its really the same as a child filling their toys with personality and forming a relationship (I had a crochet blanket that I would be sad without until I was about 4).
Personally when I am playing a game I find it quite hard to be bad within the world or to the agents within it unless they are trying to hurt me (unless I really make my mind up that I am playing an evil character). I remember in the early 90s playing the isometric strategy game Syndicate, I would run in with my team and complete the mission with as little collateral damage as possible. One day I saw my brother playing the same game and was quite disturbed as I heard all the little screams coming from the computer speakers and saw the 'people' running around on fire as my brother chuckled and guided his team through the crowed streets wielding flame throwers and rocket launchers.
These are simulation people or animals and I guess a visceral response is to be expected, yet people also form attachments with and have empathy for blocks of pixels (tamagochi), the Second Life Artwork
"Moaning Columns of Longing" by Adam Nash or even text based interaction with artificial agents.. crazy stuff.
"Moaning Columns of Longing" by Adam Nash or even text based interaction with artificial agents.. crazy stuff.
Recreating ecosystems digitally through a small set of simple commands is another fascinating branch of agency. I really am stunned by the complexity that is created within games like Spore or realistic swarm simulations and the like, it is a brilliant illustration of complexity through mass evolved simplicity. I'm not sure why people don't run with this as a direct example of the inescapable fact of evolution.
This branch of swam programming is particularly cool because it really does look like the beginnings of artificial intelligence, allowing a mass of simple 'organisms' to run in co-ordination with each other and to evolve in complex patterns. Much like modern neuroscience is showing us how the brain works: millions of little processes running in parallel and our intelligence sitting within that, the sum of the parts but very much the ghost in the machine.
Something Adam Nash said in his talk on Friday really struck a chord with me: If, when you create these artificial systems, you allow them aggressive or breeding behaviour it is only a (very short) matter of time before one of the types of cells dominates and destroys the system.. yeah, real life equivalent anyone?
This branch of swam programming is particularly cool because it really does look like the beginnings of artificial intelligence, allowing a mass of simple 'organisms' to run in co-ordination with each other and to evolve in complex patterns. Much like modern neuroscience is showing us how the brain works: millions of little processes running in parallel and our intelligence sitting within that, the sum of the parts but very much the ghost in the machine.
Something Adam Nash said in his talk on Friday really struck a chord with me: If, when you create these artificial systems, you allow them aggressive or breeding behaviour it is only a (very short) matter of time before one of the types of cells dominates and destroys the system.. yeah, real life equivalent anyone?
Community + Practice Response
I feel fortunate to be part of the AIM course at such a pivotal time. There has been much work in the, extremely broad, area of Animation and Interactive Media over the last few decades and we are still only within the formative years of the field. The work of former graduates and their peers has laid foundations for us to form a greater understanding and engage more deeply with the both linear and non-linear media.
I was aware of many of the concepts of ludology (the study of interaction and gaming), however this was my first introduction to the formal study.
Being a child of the 70s I have seen this area rapidly evolve and have partaken of its fruits, from arcade games like Galaga and Donkey Kong; paper roleplaying; table top war gaming (both pre-digital) and saw the explosion of gaming in the 90s which morphed to the online multi user versions, and into the rich and complex versions of today that really allow users to loose themselves in the virtual worlds though graphics, complex story and interaction.
I find the sub stream of the Emergent form to be the one of the most interesting. There are some really fascinating real world examples of Emergent gaming such as Mine Craft, when this first came out I wondered why it was so popular (I don't really engage with sand box games, I guess I too narrative driven). Within a matter of months users were engaging with the simple rules of the world to create the most amazing landscapes, buildings and even working computer processors!
The principals of non linear story telling are a great basis, that I am sure will broaden my engagement and understanding of this very wide and changing media stream.
Some Interactive Pieces..
I have been looking at a few interactive gallery and performance projects and found a few that I really like..
This is a beautifully simple piece where people can shape the movement of a series of illuminated lines, great use of distortion and physics..
This is a wonderfully playful puppet game piece made using Kinekt sensor data..
Below are some dance pieces utilising interactivity and projection..
Programming for this piece made with vvvv by Arístides García
Mortal Engine by Chunky Move and Frieder Weis utilsing the EyeCon system that assigns and tracks active areas utilising infrared security cameras.
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