forum: Let's Talk about Collaborative Art Making
Submitted by neil.grindley on Wed, 18/07/2007 - 12:48.
Greg Sporton is the Director of the Visualization Research Unit in the Department of Art at the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design. He is the organiser of an event called Real-time Collaborative Art Making that is taking place on Friday July 20th. Anyone who wants to join in this forum and swap ideas with Greg and his colleagues is welcome. You will need to register or login in order to be able to add comments.
How are things shaping up for Friday?
Hi Greg,
I'm looking forward to coming along to the workshop on Friday and am intrigued to find out more about the technologies that will be demonstrated ... and the kinds of things that can be done with them. You were investigating some of these methods at an e-Science workshop last year (http://www.biad.uce.ac.uk/vru/escienceworkshops/collaborativ...)which looked fun and interesting! ... have you had time to exploit what came out of that workshop and try out some new stuff using the same kind of methods?
I'd be interested to know what sort of expectations you have for the forthcoming event and where you think the priorities are for maturing research using these techniques. Technology issues are often fairly minor in comparison with the human ones when it comes to technology-based ways of doing new things ... Do you think that's the case here?
Friday Workshop
Hi Neil and others,
Gosh, Neil, I thought you said you had asked me a few simple questions!
First, I am pleased you picked up the 'fun' element. Technology is fun, especially networked technology, though certainly not when it doesn't work (though this gives us plenty of time to look concerned and talk to each other as if we know what has gone wrong and what we should do about it). Part of the process, especially at the beginning, is to play with the technologies and through play try and work out what the qualities and possibilities of the technoologies might be and the potential for their creative use. This is particularly important because the development of most of the technologies we are using was not necessarily for application in creative fields. so we are often seeking to find dormant or oblique features that might ordinarily be difficult to come across. This has led in some cases to some unusual applications (unauthorised procedures!) of the technology because of our creative interests, and has also affected the stuff we create.
We have been fairly ruthless with ourselves about innovation. Once we have established a principle, we tend to check that we all have it and move on fairly quickly. I have a bit of a concern that sometimes that leaves big gaps for observers in wondering how we got from A to C, so we will be trying to join-the-dots a bit on Friday (lots of mixed metaphors there...Don't tell Tobias!).
We have been working with some dancers as well as with technology (mmm...'the human ones' have actually been really good in relation to the technological problems we have had in the research process), but I asked Carla (one of the dancers) this question and she said:
"It is definitely more stop and start. If the technology stops working you have to go over it again and again. I think the technology is more temperamental than most dancers, lol. You have to think about how you choreograph, and how to change it to accommodate the technology, to get the best results."
We will be showing two processes really. One linked to the creative reuse of a technology, or 'extended technique' as we like to call it (eBeam), and the other is a more original work that is designed to generate a lot of visual/aural resources that can be reformulated. Both of these processes have their complications, but a few things are clear.
The first is how we negotiate the technology. Carla and I have been pretty methodical about what we are doing, but because of the stresses we have been placing on the technology, it has responded by being less predictable than we expected (v. interesting).
Secondly, I think our experiences this week have reinforced my view that theorising about creative practice through digital technology often comes about when people have less access to the kit, and the consequence of that is often the development of intellectual structures rather than genuine artistic questions. So important to get people practically involved before they make up their mind about what technology might do for their practice.
Thirdly is the development of resources that are oriented from the beginning towards creativity. These are beginning to take more of a hold on the internet through the Web 2.0 things, as the Internet really becomes creatively functional rather than merely useful...
Hope these observations are of interest.
Greg
Unauthorised Procedures ...
Greg,
Very interesting observations ... thanks a lot. I like the idea of 'Unauthorised Procedures' - it sounds like the title of a choreographed dance piece ... or perhaps even better, the name of a Performance Art/Dance outfit (along the lines of 'Very Nervous System' or 'Forced Entertainment').
I think your idea of exploiting functions from technology that most people pass over as not being immediately relevant to the way that they want to work is very intriguing. It strikes me that there is some element of 'green' research going on here (used in the most generic sense imaginable!). That you're using the functions that others have discarded, that you are extending and pushing the functions to avoid creating unneccessary new ones ... you've also used phrases like 'practically involved' and 'creatively functional' which have the pleasing ring of people getting down to the nitty gritty of an activity. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this but I'd be interested to know if you and your collaborators are broadly interested in these kinds of motivations?
Neil
Put the weapons down and come out with your hands up...
Well, it was a long and exhausting day today, and certainly we got down to a lot of nitty gritty activity...Whilst I find the (all-too-frequent) failures of technology frustrating, I also find they fire up my imagination to think about how we could do things otherwise. The problem is often that it is only in a crisis that the triggers go off! Our AccessGrid session this afternoon (the Test) was a qualified success and certainly technically possible by a range of mixed media, but the speed with which we thought of alternatives was rather dazzling.
I think the practical activities are the easiest to miss out on, as set up and getting functional often takes so long (and there are always problems with ambitious applications of technologies, and it seems to me that that is all we do), so the art making bit has got to emerge from the structural process of assemblage of cables and computers and screens if it is to have any real link to what we have come to think of as technology...More on this tomorrow! As well as touchy, feely computing.
and with or through ... dance drawing or performance art ...
Hope everybody made it home OK! I for one was so engrossed by the proceedings of the workshop last Friday that I didn't really register that it was raining so hard.
But enough of the ridiculously inclement weather ... I'd very much like to continue talking about the issues and the work that we all talked about and witnessed up in Birmingham last week. And the first thing I need to do is to thank everyone involved. You got a round of applause at the end Greg so I imagine you are feeling sufficiently appreciated ... what I didn't do at the end of the workshop (and should have done) was to also extend huge thanks (from the Methods Network) to Suzanne, Jonathan, Matthew, Kier, Carla and Mike.
Before getting into any detail about the workshop, people might like to have a look at the blog that Matthew referred to as the place where he has meditated on the preparation and construction of the performance/installation piece 'ditdahbit' that we were privileged to witness during the workshop.
http://quodlibet.tumblr.com/page/1
And having just read it myself, I'd like to further express my admiration for the huge amount of work that all participants were prepared to put into the conception and realisation of the work. It is, in one way, great credit to your execution of the piece that I was unaware of the amount of decisions that were required in order to arrive at the work as it was presented. Which may indicate that the component parts of the work were 'correctly' and 'harmoniously' configured, but also makes me ponder ... if some of the complexity of the work is not on show and can only be discovered by explication of the work afterwards, is this a problem? I suppose I'm thinking principally of the mechanisms of arriving at the words printed on the index cards and the information directed at Kier from Matthew via a blog, which I think was an invisible component ... unless I missed something on one of the displays. (But don't misunderstand me, I thought 'ditdahbit' was marvellous!).
But perhaps we should approach the day chronologically. In the morning, we saw Greg and Carla give us a demonstration of collaborative drawing, and after a bit of technical pain and suffering, got us linked up with Edinburgh over the Access Grid. I think in common with some of the other participants there, I was very taken with the potential of the eBeam technology ... or something like it, and very quickly got the feeling that I wanted it to be more instantly expressive, more definitely controllable, more adamantly connected to the way I wanted to draw, or fight, or move, or vandalise (in the manner of graffiti writing!). Obviously this is borne out of a natural urge for things that are to be manipulated by hands and fingers to work with immediate and intuitive precision and it is clear that this technology won't allow that. It's actually a very difficult instrument. It's more like a violin than a guitar.
Greg, perhaps I can ask you ... (or Carla, or indeed anyone who has had a go with the eBeam drawing technology), how do you think you might know when you've got as good as you're going to get using this instrument?
as good as it gets
hello neil & all, yes .. i got delayed too! glad you enjoyed the day and thanks for your observations. lets stick with your chronological approach for the moment, and i'll respond to your q's on ditdahbit another time.
Question: how do you think you might know when you've got as good as you're going to get using this instrument?
Response: when you can conceive of a composition in 2d via 3d paths (and vice versa) then perform the movement and get your 'expected results'.
i should back track a little. i've not used the e-beam so much but 3d optical tracking to 2d transcription. here i was using a single, finger located maker to explore motion traces as dance notation, and the notation as an (art)ifact itself.
i found there were five things i had to work on before i felt somewhat competent.
- calibration
- mark-making
- 3d -> 2d conceptualizing
- developing an aesthetic
- technical details of the tracking
calibration is the starting point of any useful skill learning process. visualizing the capture volume was aided by the tracking softwares functionally. this was important because you need to know the size of your canvas in relation to the tracking volume.
i had a set of 'scales' i'd work through of increasing complexity. these were both for myself and to re-teach the system (a tracking template). calibration is relatively simple when your system has linear control. if you are working with non-linear control (like e-beam) you need to be aware of where the locations and direction of ratio changes across the tracking volume.
one i'd calibrated it would be onto mark making practice, drawing different types of lines (short, long, straight, curved etc) using a range of movement approaches from whole body to finger.
mark making practice helped develop my 3d -> 2d conceptualizing. i would practice motions looking at the screen, then close my eyes and try drawing the same shapes elsewhere in the volume and at different orientations. the myriad of scribbles also lead me towards a particular aesthetic (for both the drawing and the physical motion).
the e-beam as greg was using it is particularly challenging, the bluetooth tracking gives you curved field. that means in many locations what would be an orthogonal path on the canvas is curved in real space.
knowing how your system functions, and the wider context of those principles gives you a reasonable ida of what is or is not possible. how to hack the system, or yourself to overcome any limitations.
if you are learning to play the guitar and the machine heads slip badly under normal string tension ... then you know you are not going to get very far. however hard you practice.
Printmaking?
Hi Matthew. Yes ... I think your assessment that
'calibration' is going to be a key issue for learning how to use this kind of tool must be right. There's basically a 'knack' to most things isn't there? There's a period of familiarisation with anything that requires some mechanical manipulation, and (depending on the temperament of the person involved) that process will always more or less formally involve a process of calibration - either in the commendable way that you approach it where you employ a set of increasingly complex 'scales' to work out the limitations (or indeed the potential) of the tool you are working with ... or alternatively, in the way that I suspect I would approach it (which would be more chaotic) far too impatient as I would be to obtain what I considered to be a 'reasonable' result!!
I said to Greg at the workshop that it struck me that mark-making with the eBeam was more like printmaking than drawing (by which I mean intaglio printing, e.g. lithography, etching, drypoint etc). The mark you make for the most part does not have the nuanced feel that I associate with drawing ... it is a gouge or a slash. As your comments draw out, there is also a technical component that needs to be mastered for successful engagement with the process. And lastly, there is the reproduceability intrinsic to the digital medium that is more akin to printmaking.
Such pedantic categorization may not strike people as a key issue here but it does strike me that eighteenth century notions of the hierarchy of techniques and genres (where oil paintings of mythological and historical subject matter were at the top of the heap ... and etchings of flowers and still life setups were near the bottom in terms of kudos) may still survive, albeit in skewed 21st century forms. Or does it? Regardless of one's own opinion of the quality of art made with digital systems, is there still some kind of a hierarchy of output type I wonder?
engraving
i don't think the hierarchy is skewed linear with the crafting/coding of digital geometries & abstractions at the top, what greg called 'digital analogues' are at the bottom. yes, catagorisations are a little pedantic, but only in the face of (digital) practice which thus far has rejected developing a 'proper' pedagogy. 'give them the tools and let them work it out' - is the most common approach, but not one i find productive. but i don't find this approach surprising, digital technologies are supposed to lower the barriers of participation and specialisation (that's the claim anyway).
so yes, there are expected output types (i refer to them a little in my blog), and part of working in this area is knowing how to use the tools to achieve that output. we don't copy the 'old masters' any more but aesthetically replicate 'current' work. what occurs byond that is the same as it has always been, using your on artistry with the tools to surpass the conventions.
i find your printmaking comparison interesting, and am reminded of [[http://www.frontdesign.se/sketchfurniture/]]. it would be interesting to manufacture intaglio plates via ebeam (through some yet to be defined method) ...
An external point of view
Hi Greg and others,
My name is Thomas Garzon. I am a French student working in UCE and secondment from Business High School. I discovered during all the last week the artist's world. The conference on Friday was very interesting because it was quiet new for me. Apparently, there was a problem about divisions between dancer and e-Science.
In my French school this question does not exist because we used to teamwork to reach an objective. Nethertheless, I think that there is no division between artist and e-science. The artist's work is the beginning of the technology's work. So how can we say it's a division ? I think this is just a transcription of artist's realization.
Then I comment on the Access Grid and IG Pix programs. It was the first time I used video conferencing and this is the future of meeting. Why ? because of the globalization and people need speaking everywhere in the world. Moreover, IG pix is a good support to lead a videoconference. IG pix represents in fact the informatic board (or blackboard !)and it's a very interesting program. The only problem is that you can not put video on igpix , just powerpoint documents or fixed files. I do not know if it already exists this kind of program with which we can put some video but I think it should be a great idea to create one .
As Greg said , Hope these observations are of interest.
Thomas Garzon, the French frog.
e-beaming....
Hi everyone,
I really enjoyed playing with the e-beam last week and thought the presentations went pretty well so i'm fairly happy. I would, however, be more than happy to carry on researching the e-beam as i think there is still a lot to be explored. For example: 1.using more pens, 2.attaching the pens to different limbs, 3.removing the pen case and working with the sensors.
1. We briefly touched on this and created a very artistic drawing (in my eyes anyway. By using more pens it obviously picks up more of the movement so it's not just 'one-sided'.
2.We tried to tape the pen down as if we were holding it 'on' which would have been succcessful if they didn't cut out after a few minutes. With more practice we could find out if this is a manufacturer default or if the spring had slowly moved back. This is something i would like to play with a lot more because if this can work then we can do a lot more with movement as it frees up your hands and allows the pens to be placed anywhere on the body.
3.As an extension of number 2, if the spring that holds the sensor down could be removed from the pen casing, this would create a much smaller object to attach to the body, in numerous places, ie. head, toes, fingers, etc. Picking up the smaller movements of the body would perhaps produce a more interesting drawing. For performance also, the smaller, hidden sensors would be ideal.
What i find interesting as a choreographer is that the e-beam can be used as a stimulus for movement; you can choreograph based on the outcome of the drawings. So as you're moving, with practice, you can decide what movement will create a desired outcome with the drawings.
In response to the Question: how do you think you might know when you've got as good as you're going to get using this instrument?
Answer: well, as i've written, i still think there is a fair amount to explore. If money were no object then we could have more of the e-beams to surround the dancer to get more of a 3D capture. Having them set at different levels would pick up a lot more of the movement that is sometimes missed due to not being in the beam's pathway.