audiovisual

Big Data is a term used to describe, in general, the gathering of vast amounts of digital information and its subsequent processing, through sophisticated computational techniques, with the purpose of obtaining knowledge. In the case of Big Data, the poem, the term refers to the massive collection of personal information communicated online and its processing for commercial purposes, especially for-profit endeavors related to a persuasion achieved through the detailed knowledge of individuals, a persuasion aimed to be invisible. The poem is not situated in the present but in the near future, when the collection of personal information will be achieved by individual activities online, by the contributions carried out by other people and by sensors that are part of the Internet of things. The personal data, aggregated, will be processed at very high speeds with the assistance of artificial intelligence. The combination between the massive collection of personal data and its subsequent statistical processing, with that emphasis on inferential statistics to achieve persuasive objectives, will lead to a terrible reality. In general, the logic of statistics will be used to define human existence individually and socially in a deterministic way. Big Data's resulting knowledge, the poem suggests, is equivalent to the omniscience generally attributed to deities.

While the advertising industry heralds the use of digital communication technologies as a form of individual empowerment and self-efficacy, people’s interactions with their devices are proving to also have significant negative effects on society. The poem is situated in the near future, when the collection of personal information will be achieved by individual activities online, by the contributions carried out by other people, and through sensors that are part of the Internet of Things. The personal data, aggregated, will be processed at very high speeds with the assistance of artificial intelligence. As it happens in this generative video poem, unique pieces of audiovisual media will be created on-the-fly to achieve persuasive objectives based on individual profiles. The combination between the massive collection of personal data and its subsequent statistical processing, aimed at achieving persuasive objectives, will push us towards a terrible reality. Ultimately, the logic of statistics will be used to define human existence individually and socially in a deterministic way and, unfortunately, it will be guided mostly by commercial interests.

Color Yourself Inspired™ is a generative artwork that creates unpredictable poetic phrases from Benjamin Moore’s paint color database; it is an interdisciplinary exploration of sound, color and language. An online collection of over 1000 unique color names are poetically sequenced using phonetic analysis and parts of speech analysis in a computer program designed by the artists. Instead of labeling color with language as the marketing team has done in the original database, Color Yourself Inspired™ (a marketing slogan from the Benjamin Moore website) inverts this relationship and uses language to generate visual information. (Source: http://thenewriver.us/color-yourself-inspired/)

'Interstitial Articulations' is a series of audiovisual works by artist Alison Clifford and composer Graeme Truslove, that explores the space between sound and image through collaboration. The series is based around reinterpretations of a number of photographic light paintings taken during a drive at night. The photographs were experiments - improvisations with long exposures, motion and gesture. The light-forms which resulted were chance occurrences, combining the momentary fleeting headlights of passing traffic and the movements of the photographer, resulting in a series of abstract, 'interstitial' (in-between) forms.

Considering these ethereal forms as source materials, the series imagines what it would be like to experience them in different contexts beyond the photographic image. How might they be reinterpreted and rewritten for another context? And how might audio be used to structure our visual experience of them?

Lux (2012) is the third work in the series.

'Turbulence' (2013) forms part of the 'Interstitial Articulations' series of audiovisual works by artist Alison Clifford and composer Graeme Truslove. The series explores the space between sound and image through collaboration and is based around reinterpretations of a number of abstract photographic light paintings taken during a drive at night. Considering these abstract light-forms as a starting point for further exploration, the work imagines them beyond the photographic image in an abstract audiovisual environment.

'Turbulence' (2013) - the fourth work resulting from the collaboration – explores motion through simulations of natural forces, also questioning how audio might be used to structure the visual experience.

The reader finds, in the first level of reading a letter of Eugenia Vilasans, overlapped with a photography of her. The letter was written in 1926 and stayed hidden until she died, she confesses her adulturey in the letter. After this introduction a link invites to recompose her story, there are disorganised fragments. The image is a metaphor of the hypertext: postcards, newspapers cuts, pages from personal diaries of different dates, letters of the lover conforming the plot. It is an epistolary story that must be assembled like a puzzle.

As a poetic mediation on place and experience, Window encourages you to explore the things at the edges. The ordinary moments—sounds, sights, memories, thoughts—that make an environment familiar, that make it ‘home’. My inspiration came, and continues to come so often, from John Cage—and I made this work in 2012, the centenary of his birth. His music, writing, and thinking—the way he lived his life—are a wondrous integration of art and ordinary experience. Interwoven with fragmentary texts, themselves hidden at the edges, and only available through exploration, are a separate series of short essays. Some are about John Cage and some are personal reflections as I looked, listened and collected the sounds and images that provide the material for this piece. I did this over a period of a year—listening, looking, snapping photos and recording sounds. Arranged in ‘months’, there are various ways to interact with Window. The choice is yours—listening, reading, looking, and travelling from one time of year to another. For each month the images and sounds were actually recorded in the month concerned. So by moving the sounds around, louder or softer or from left to right, you may come to notice how subtly sound changes as time, and life, goes on. More information on Katharine Norman's work at www.novamara.com

Borderline is a performative piece concerned with time-based and improvisational action, in which two participants interact together within an audio-visual environment to gain a sense of the project’s latent narrative identities. Borderline will re-deploy VJ software technologies (using MIDI with MAX-MSP) to develop a dual interaction experience that uses hand-based gesture (via two graphic tablets and their pens) instead of the established hyperlink model. This will help foster a ‘computer system as instrument’ analogy in which the participants’ can ‘improvise’ ‘play’ or ‘perform’ set of narrative dualities. An often-levied criticism of VJ output is its preference for visual abstraction over content (Amerika 2005). In terms of the narrative, Leishman will both develop a new bank of non-abstract imagery, audio and animation to convey the theme of dualism. This will be based on research into borderline personality disorder (visualizing the problems of disassociation and hysteria through image, movement and narrative structure). Binary character protagonists from popular and literary culture alongside the philosophical notion of the double shadow (Jung, Neumann 1969) will also be used to frame the narrative. The borderline, the point of change between one state and another will be highlighted within the artwork. The two participants can choose to be social: to improvise / play /perform harmoniously together or be antisocial: to be in conflict with both the narrative and indeed with each other. Their expressive actions (for example fast / slow, long / short pen gestures) will significantly affect their narrative agency, immersion and comprehension. 

“Substratum” is an audiovisual artwork and the first in a series of collaborations by artist-composer duo, Alison Clifford and Graeme Truslove. This collaboration combines both of their artistic practices in an attempt to explore the space “between” abstract sound and image. Truslove’s work is typically concerned with exploring the space between acoustic and electro-acoustic sound, and between improvised and fixed forms. The audio in “Substratum” is devised from samples of bowed notes performed on a double bass, multiplied and arranged into rich, deeply layered textures by digital montage processes and computer algorithms. Clifford’s artistic practice is concerned with the process of translating between different forms of visual media, exploring what is lost or gained through such interpretation. For “Substratum”, she developed computer algorithms that “translate” samples from still photographic light paintings into animated fragments. She then sculpts the fragments into multi-layered moving image works that interpret the deep textures of the audio, creating an immersive audiovisual experience. (source: http://www.duck-egg.co.uk/substratum/index.html)