digital aesthetics

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Vancouver
Canada

Short description

ISEA2015’s theme of DISRUPTION invites a conversation about the aesthetics of change, renewal, and game-changing paradigms. We look to raw bursts of energy, reconciliation, error, and the destructive and creative forces of the new. Disruption contains both blue sky and black smoke. When we speak of radical emergence we must also address things left behind. Disruption is both incremental and monumental.

In practices ranging from hacking and detournement to inversions of place, time, and intention, creative work across disciplines constantly finds ways to rethink or reconsider form, function, context, body, network, and culture. Artists push, shape, break; designers reinvent and overturn; scientists challenge, disprove and re-state; technologists hack and subvert to rebuild.

Disruption and rupture are fundamental to digital aesthetics. Instantiations of the digital realm continue to proliferate in contemporary culture, allowing us to observe ever-broader consequences of these effects and the aesthetic, functional, social and political possibilities that arise from them.

Within this theme, we want to investigate trends in digital and internet aesthetics and revive exchange across disciplines. We hope to broaden the spheres in which disruptive aesthetics can be explored, crossing into the worlds of science, technology, design, visual art, contemporary and media art, innovation, performance, and sound.

(Source: http://isea2015.org/about/theme/)

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Description (in English)

In this digital first picture book app, the reader encounters several interwoven stories connected by a thoroughly digital aesthetics that suits the different stories. The frame narrative centres around Kubbe, an anthropomorphic wooden log (kubbe is Norwegian for log) who is having a picnic with his grandmother and becomes curious about the shadows he sees. Upon hearing his grandmother’s story about how shadow theatre was created in ancient China, Kubbe decides to produce his own shadow theater: an unusal retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood”. The tablet’s affordances of back lighting, animation and visual spatiality are exploited in this app in a manner that suits and enhances the different stories’ individual characteristics. (source: ELO 2015 conference catalog)

Description (in original language)

Ny bildebok-app med Kubbe! Første digitale bildebok fra Gyldendal laget først for digitale flater, med både animerte sekvenser og en rekke berøringselementer. I denne digitale barneboka er det både interaktivitet og animasjoner, musikk og en historie som barna blir glad i. Hvis noe i boka blinker eller beveger seg, kan barna trykke på det og se hva som skjer. Kubbe-figuren har gått sin seiersgang internasjonalt, og historien er blant annet utgitt i Frankrike, Japan og Kina. Forfatter og illustratør er Åshild Kanstad Johnsen. (source: http://www.gyldendal.no/Barn-og-ungdom/Apper/Kubbe-lager-skyggeteater)

Description in original language
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By Daniele Giampà, 10 April, 2015
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Alan Bigelow tells in this interview how he started publishing online works of digital poetry around the year 1999 and where his inspirations for his work come from. Furthermore he explains why he chose to change from working with Flash to working with HTML5 and in which way this decision subsequently changed his way of writing. Then he considers the transition from printed books to digital literature from the point of view of the reader also in regards of the aesthetics of digital born literature. In the end he gives his opinion about the status of electronic literature in the academic field.

By Audun Andreassen, 3 April, 2013
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This paper explores the ontology of the digital. Specifically I argue that digital technologies, digital aesthetics, and digital culture express characteristics of the binary code. The binary code, which defines the digital, balances between ideal and real; tied always to some material substrate, the binary code nevertheless operates according to a logic of perfectly specified 0s and 1s. And it tends to bring this idealized perfection into the real, dividing up the world into neat, discrete categories, offering predefined choices with predictable outcomes, and shaping not only the materials of the machine but also the bodies and habits of users according to this binary logic. The binary code is an apotheosis of abstraction, but it is an operative abstraction, which becomes effective even while retaining its pure formality. Brief examples will elaborate this overarching argument, considering the digital’s ontological relationships to temporality, space, material, virtuality, uniqueness, identity, determinism, and language.

(Source: Author's abstract for ELO_AI).

By Patricia Tomaszek, 12 December, 2012
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79-92
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4.1
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Abstract (in English)

Whenever the program of a work is run by a computer, the digital device necessarily plays a role in its updating process: because of the operating systems, the software and the ever changing speed of computers, it may sometimes affect the author’s artistic project, or even make it unreadable on screen. Thus, authors lose control over the evolution of their work and the many updates it undergoes. Thus, the artist is given four options when dealing with the lability of the electronic device: (1) she demands the ‘right’context of reception for his work – a requirement which, over time, will be confronted with the impossibility to preserve obsolete machines, software and operating systems; (2) she ‘re-enchants’ the lability of the electronic device and ascribes a ‘technological sublime’ to it; (3) she simply ignores the lability of the digital device and creates at once, as if the digital framework was immutable; (4) she is fully aware of the instable environment in which his digital creation will be updated; he even considers the ephemeral and uncontrollable nature of his work as its fundamental aesthetic principle. This most radical approach would then consist in letting the work slowly decompose, as well as in accepting his changing forms and updates and in taking up the possibility of incidents and unexpected events. In Tramway, one of my experimental poetic works that I present and analyse in this article, the instability of the device is metaphorized on the surface of the screen; it is thematized in the relationship between the figures of ‘manipulation’ and the manipulable textual context; it is also theorized in a critical paratext which is based, for example, on the actual presentation of the work in this journal issue. A second work, Pond, is located on the border between the aesthetics of the ephemeral, in which the author accepts the slow decay of his/her work, and the aesthetics of re-enchantment, in which the author ascribes the digital device with a hope of survival, with a spectral characteristic linked to the materiality of the programmed matter and which remains despite the changes it undergoes on the electronic device.

Source: author's abstract

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Description (in English)

Corposcopio is an experimental collaborative performance that associates circle dance and mobile technologies. The purpose of the interactive performance is to stimulate, simultaneously, the perception of the media in contemporary reality and the collective body emergence. Corposcopio departs from the experience of circle dance, a very ancient group activity, present in different cultures in the world, and aggregates real time image manipulation, software art, VJ, and remix aesthetics.

The transparent, ubiquitous and pervasive presence of computer systems in contemporary spaces is a quotidian fact. Nevertheless, the emergence of digital communities demonstrated the power of human factor in the disruptive use of technologies. Human beings are social beings. Our depart point is to bring an ancient practice, the circle dance, to the scenery of real time image manipulation, ubiquitous computing and mixed reality. The performance itself deals with co-creation development and uncertainty. Each performance has peculiar characteristics hence it is an open system, open to receive the group interaction and participation.

The circle is probably the oldest known dance formation. Ancient circle dances movements are cultural manifestations present in different countries around the world, including Greece, African, Eastern European, Irish Celtic, Catalan, South American, Central American and North American. They have a great power of community integration. The experience stimulates an extended consciousness, a simultaneously perception of the individual body and the collective body. Our hypothesis is that each group will catalyze the emergence of an embodied consciousness of our mediated situation in a different way. As Bernhard Wosien, one of the pioneer researchers on circle dance, has said, dance is a path to totality. In Wosien's view, circle dance has deep ritual characteristics and evokes a tremendous collective enthusiasm. In Corposcopio experience, we observed a great vibration produced by the group movement in harmony with the music. In Brazil, there is a lot of amazing circle dance and one of the most popular is called “ciranda”, whose movements are inspired by sea waves. Ciranda is performed by hundreds of people and some participants fall into trance.

The music has a fundamental role in Corposcopio project. The songs have been chosen by Andrea Leoncine and Andrea Soares, based on their research on folk music and Brazilian music. Dudu Tsuda has created new versions of traditional and folkloric songs, introducing unexpected accords and transformations on form. Tsuda's compositions are open systems that dialogue with enthusiasm and energy with the participants of the circle.

Corposcopio Project comprehends three different systems: the technological, the musical and the interactive arena, that is the place for the circle dance. The technological system is composed by systems of input and output. Two computers receive the images sent by mobile and unmovable devices. Wi-fi cameras, allocated in the dancers' bodies and cell phones transmit the images from the movable point of view. Three fixed cameras, situated around the circle and another one hanged on the ceiling provide the images from the unmoving angle. The camera situated on the ceiling transmits a design that reassembles different and dynamic mandalic patterns. The images received are manipulated in real time using Randox, software developed by Nacho Duran. The projection of images follows a script that has different levels and narrative elements.

(author description/statement)

Description (in original language)

O projeto Corposcopio é uma instalação cíbrida que integra dois mundos. Por um lado, os participantes são convidados a vivenciar uma atividade muito antiga e presente em diversas culturas do mundo: as danças circulares. A proposta é estimular a experiência da riqueza ritual presente nas danças realizadas em círculo, de mãos dadas. Tais danças têm uma grande capacidade de agregar pessoas em grupos colaborativos. Por outro lado, questões referentes ao cotidiano tecnológico são propostas a partir da utilização de imagens midiatizadas, bancos de dados e remixagens. Nesse sentido, Corposcopio utiliza elementos tais como câmeras de vigilância, tecnologias móveis, aparelhos de telefone celular, estética do banco de dados, projeções e manipulações de imagens em tempo real.

O projeto é composto por três sistemas que se integram na atividade. O primeiro, composto pelos sistemas de captação e manipulação de imagens em tempo real, evoca o mundo dos VJs, da software arte e das tecnologias móveis. Nesse mundo de imagens, todo o grupo dialoga e se integra em remixagens, releituras e fragmentos. O segundo compõe a paisagem sonora, ambiente vibracional que interage com os participantes, em um diálogo co-criatvo. O terceiro mundo é criado pela interação das coreografias e os corpos dinâmicos. Nas versões que realizamos, foi evidente a importância da presença das coreógrafas na interação inicial com os participantes, na maneira de abrir o convite e conduzir as explicações dos passos. Os diálogos vivenciados extrapolam os níveis verbais e alcançam níveis sutis, de olhares, posições dos membros, bem como movimentos respiratórios.

O projeto Corposcopio conjuga três níveis de relações. No primeiro, buscou-se trabalhar com a percepção e o estímulo dos sentidos. A vivência da dança circular é altamente poderosa no sentido de gerar uma percepção do corpo como elemento dinâmico dentro de um corpo maior, o corpo do grupo. A escolha de músicas também teve por objetivo gerar integração entre os participantes. A seleção envolveu: músicas tradicionais brasileiras (cirandas, jongos e cocos): e músicas tradicionais de várias culturas (grega, israelense, nórdicas, escocesas, colombianas, entre outras). A experiência também se reforça a partir da projeção das imagens de corpos dos participantes e da criação de um corpo colagem, composto por fragmentos de corpos e interferências gráficas relacionadas a narrativas pessoais. Todos esses aspectos compõem o nível estético.

O segundo nível corresponde aos atos vivenciados nas possíveis interações. O projeto parte de uma asserção de repudio à espetacularização e assim, o caráter interativo é incentivado e constituinte da proposta. Logo no início da atividade, os participantes são convidados a se aproximarem do espaço integrador e compor a roda. Várias vezes, as pessoas que não aceitam o convite acabam participando num segundo momento, ao perceberem o envolvimento dos demais. Uma outra possibilidade de ação diz respeito à atividade de registrar imagens dos corpos em movimento e enviar por Bluetooth para a mesa de imagens, onde operam os VJs.

O terceiro nível compreende as relações lógicas que os participantes estabelecem com o processo. A proposta tem por objetivo instigar a percepção das múltiplas dimensões nas quais nossos próprios corpos transitam e uma reflexão sobre a atual condição cíbrida em que vivemos. Em outras palavras, o projeto evoca o corpo como um índice nos bancos de dados dos sistemas de vigilâncias e nos sistemas de informação e, ao mesmo tempo, o corpo em movimento e como um elemento ativo na constituição do grupo. Nessa zona de interstício, nessa vivência nômade e cambiante, o projeto se realiza como um discurso de expansão de consciência, pois, por mais paradoxal que pareça, somos, ao mesmo tempo, agentes determinantes nos grupos que compartilhamos e peças duplicadas, corpos sem órgãos nos sistemas informacionais.

(descrição da artista)

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By Maria Engberg, 13 November, 2012
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The talk discusses a series of characteristics of contemporary literature: multimodality, co-creativity, location-awareness, and tactility. Looking at digital narratives, particularly from the ELMCIP Anthology of European Electronic Literature I explore these four dimensions of what I call the polyaesthetic nature of contemporary culture. In addition, I present a locative media narrative that I am creating with Jay David Bolter and Michael Joyce, using the AR browser Argon.

By Eric Dean Rasmussen, 8 April, 2012
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83-99
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Abstract (in English)

A wide-ranging literary essay, what Joyce dubs a "theoretical narrative," surveying the desire for media "transparency," an ideal that retains its allure even after philosophers and theorists have revealed its illusoriness.

Pull Quotes

Transparency on the one hand is not to be read aesthetically, and on the other it is how we read something as having an aesthetic dimension. Hiding is disclosing, disclosing hiding, and a gap or its lack alike is a gap.

On its face I think we are inclined to think well of the word 'transparency' at least in its musicality, its traversal softened by the lapsing (if not lisping) sound of the sea at its end, the 'para' rising above its center in a billow and gently drifting down.