Monthly Archives: October 2015

Nick Cage Art

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 Whilst doing research for my R&D project I came across the artist Nick Cave (not the musician). His work isn’t relevant to any of the projects I’m working on but just too good to not mention it. And who knows, one day my discovery might be useful.
 
Nick Cave is an artist, educator and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. He says of himself “I have found my middle and now am working toward what I am leaving behind.” Cave is well known for his Soundsuits, sculptural forms based on the scale of his body. Soundsuits camouflage the body, masking and creating a second skin that conceals race, gender, and class, forcing the viewer to look without judgment.

His work reminds me a lot of the “Triadisches Ballett” by Oskar Schlemmer.

AtmosCube

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I’ve started looking for existing intallations for some of the themes. There’s so much amazing stuff out there!!!! I’ll update this post at some point because I didn’t have time to find examples for all the themes.

 

Rainforest: tropical greenhouse/ jungle look, hot and humid, walk barefoot for best experience

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.17.17

 

Woodland: european woods, cold-ish climate, conifer and broadleaf trees,

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.21.18 Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.21.37

 

Desert: changes temperature (really hot during the day, cools down at night), open space, dunes, maybe oasis in the middle of the room?

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.21.51

 

Arctic: ice cold, maybe have jackets at the entrance? can only step on ice floe to move around.

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.22.04 Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.22.17

Sky: thunder clouds? A constant breeze? (I’ll add the missing links asap)

(http://io9.com/5892356/artist-suspends-real-clouds-in-the-middle-of-the-room)

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.23.18

Seaside: boats, sand, breeze, sandcastle, fake beach, lighthouse, sound of seagulls screeching, waves, ocean smell?

 

 

Underwater: fish tanks? sunken ship, mermaids, make look like it’s actually underwater

 

 

Mountains:

 

Space: planetarium kinda scenario:

 

 

Cave: bats? Dampness? stalagmites and stalactites, dark, torches on walls?

 

Initial idea R&D

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We started of with a very different idea to the one we’re woking on now! Well not VERY different but definitely with more of a “wow” factor!

We all really quickly came to the conclusion that we wanted to create an arts festival or exhibition. The festival would take place in different locations maybe have different themes and concentrate on students work. I would have been another way for students to get their work out there. We thought of having a theme per location but adding to the existing collection maybe even have one big piece of art that would be worked on and changed in every location.

Because we wanted it to be something for students we thought of having it take palace on different university campuses. We not only thought about different themes as in topics of the exhibitions but also using different forms of media. So that one place would focus on photography, the next on graphic design, and then maybe short films. As you can see, lots of ideas but nothing specific enough. However we developed it all further and it changed from a festival to a contest for students. Possibly taking place in the summer break. Each week students would have to work with a different media form as mentioned before. The best work would then get pick and submitted to the contest, starting of as regional competition and then at the final exhibition the best would have gotten picked. So far so good but nothing SPECIAL again. Nothing where you think: Oh my god, I want to be part of it.

Our idea now is much more over the top but it makes it really awesome and special and I can’t wait to pitch it and possibly start making it. The following is a rough outline of what we want it to be.

Project Idea:

  • Whole event is based around anonymity.
  • Huge blank white cube that pops up in different locations around the country.
  • Themes like: (rain)forest, desert, arctic, sea, underwater, highlands, space etc.
  • Each theme will be an immersive experience based around that theme. (e.g. rainforest will include a walkthrough downpour where each member never gets wet (Similar to the Barbican Rain Room [Guardian: https://youtu.be/EkvazIZx-F0 ]).
  • Touches on all 5 senses (sight, sound, hearing, taste, touch).
  • Futuristic outside + set up phase vs. inside of a different world -> themes.
  • Staff members identity will be anonymous to match the theme of the event.
  • Enter at your own risk
  • It’s free!

 

Why would I go?

  • Limited number of miniature cubes given to the first guests with individual QR code.
  • Cube puzzle containing smaller coloured metal cube. (Maybe coloured to relate it to the next theme. (Ocean – Blue Cube)
  • Each exclusive Cube (out of the 100 for example) would have a QR code, where you can scan and add it to the website/app. This would result in your image being placed on a blank canvas. The next stage of the puzzle is the formation of a big picture through the use of the exclusive website/app. This picture will act as the exclusive prize and maybe even relate to the next theme.

 

Use of Social Media:

  • Working in conjunction with the main website, each time the cube is resurrected, using the two main forms of social media: Facebook and Twitter, the location of the cube will be given out through longitude and latitude data.
  • Using hashtags and also using well known people/celebrities/people of influence to begin trend of cube.

 

Names:

  • Qube
  • CYUBE
  • Q0BE
  • C0B3
  • AtmosCube
  • atmosCUBE
  • ATMOScube
  • Atm0sCUBE

 

Construction:

  • Matte based material(?) OR Canvas?
  • possibly lights up at night?
  • change colour e.g. white at beginning of exhibition, black by the end.
  • Marque Manufacturer?

 Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 11.56.07

The Staff:

  • Staff members identity will be anonymous to match the theme of the event.
  • aka. not dressed as plants or part of the scene but “normal” people when exhibition is taking place.
  • Crew setting up dressed in white, dressed in black to take it down again -> going with theme of anonymity also futuristic.

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 11.56.27

Themes:

e.g. year 1> landscapes / biotope

year 2 > decades

  • Rainforest: tropical greenhouse
  • Woodland:
  • Desert: changes temperature (really hot during the day, cools down at night)
  • Arctic: ice cold, maybe have jackets at the entrance
  • Seaside:
  • Underwater: fish tanks?
  • Mountains:
  • Space: planetarium kinda scenario:
  • Cave: bats? Dampness?
  • Sky: thunder clouds? A constant breeze? (http://io9.com/5892356/artist-suspends-real-clouds-in-the-middle-of-the-room)

 

Budgeting:

Realistically thinking about the budget, we are intending on having a different theme every time the Cube is erected, and we want it as realistic as possible, so we have to come to terms with every nook and cranny.

 

Possible companies to approach for budget:

  • Mintel Reports – Business/Marketing statistics
  • Social Media: Facebook and Twitter.
  • Google (due to use of google maps).

Sponsors:

  • Social media (fb, twitter, etc..)
  • Newspapers?
  • Woodland Trust (Forest Theme)
  • Independent Crowdfunding (Licence Cube Manufacturing)
  • Submission of work
  • Banksy?

 

(Having sponsors who can also advertise is a good idea, like we can find supporters from like the BBC, because they can advertise and support it at the same time) – Maybe, I’m just throwing ideas out there.

 

Website/App:

  • Minimalistic style, black and white colour scheme.
  • Timer on the page counting down to when the event is going to happen.
  • Display longitude and latitude (however it’s only displayed after the timer has counted down.
  • Once countdown hits zero, the location details will be given out on all forms of social media.
  • For the App, it has a QR scanner adding the QR code to make a full image of the next theme.

 

Website Mockup:

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.00.38 Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 11.59.37Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 12.00.12

Proposal feedback

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I’ve been thinking about whether i should just copy and past the feedback I got or if it was better to only put some parts in this post. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll “just” copy and past it, but not because it’s easier (because it is) but because this way I’ll have ALL the feedback here. So if I need to access it and can’t find it in my emails, I won’t be missing parts.

Hi Francisca,

I’ve now read through your Independent Study proposal – here are a few thoughts. This is great stuff, and looks to have the makings of an exciting dissertation.

You make a distinction between ‘control’ of technology and ‘mutation’ through exposure – this could be developed in interesting ways, particularly if part of a broader consideration of the collapse of various dualisms central to humanist thought, such as self/other, mind/body, free will/determinism, organic/technological, culture/nature, human/animal, one/many, etc.

Haraway’s work is a good way into this, though it might be useful to find a contemporary source that responds to or develops specific points of Haraway’s argument which relate to biotechnology.

You could also consider her recent writings and talks on the subject of the Anthropocene. In a sentence, the Anthropocene is a term geologists are now using to describe the idea that we have now entered the ‘age of man’, an age that can be measured geologically, namely by the scarring of the earth. There are broader implications related to such an idea, particularly concerning the temporality of such an age – if the age of the human is simply a brief moment in the deep time of the planet, then the human is clearly not at the centre of all things, as we have previously assumed. This is nicely outlined in a piece by Claire Colebrook (a key writer on the posthuman) in the context of memory: http://thememorynetwork.net/the-anthropocene-and-the-archive/

The Braidotti book you mention should certainly be a key source. There are a couple of recent books you could add to it – Cary Wolfe’s What Is Posthumanism?, and a collection called The Nonhuman Turn edited by Richard Grusin. I attach pdfs of the introductions to both books.

Ray Kurzweill’s rapturous writings could certainly play a key role in your study if you wish, but it is not a theoretical text so you would need to use it in a different way to the other material. The Latour text might be a bit heavy going – perhaps it would be better to look for texts that directly apply Latour’s idea that ‘we have never been modern’ to media technologies.

I would suggest avoiding the Curran text you cite. He is rather caught up in the old representationalist model of media theory, and you are doing something much more interesting here. Perhaps you could substitute this text with some of the material on accelerationism I mentioned? Deleuze and Guattari, key figures associated with discourses of acceleration, were inspired by Nietzsche’s call to ‘accelerate the process’. It might be interesting to explore links between the somewhat post-political acceleration of the ‘Extropians’ and the political discourses of accelerationism. As a taster, I attach part of the introduction from The Accelerationist Reader.

The Thacker essay you mention is derived from a longer book – Biomedia, published in 2004. Here’s a blurb on the book, I have a copy of this if you’d like to read it: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/biomedia

Finally, I would recommend going back to a text we used for Society, Aesthetics and Digital Media last year: Life After New Media by Sarah Kember and Joanna Zylinska. Specifically, take a look at the passages in which they refer to Bernard Stiegler’s notion of ‘originary technicity’. This is in the library, but let me know if you can’t get hold of a copy.

In terms of focusing your attention as you progress, I think your proposal to examine various ‘fictive visions’ should provide you with a structure. I would recommend that you avoid any concern with how ‘realistic’ these might be, and instead consider how such visions are symptomatic of a crisis in traditional humanism, and/or serve to express the emergence of such debates in society more generally. In this sense, any references to policy documents, regulation, etc., should be made in response or as an aside to such visions. So, I would recommend that you begin compiling some potential fictive visions of the posthuman, and then over the coming weeks we can reduce this list to two or three key examples that can be examined in detail. Off the top of my head, the film Ex Machina, and the Channel 4 series Humans (broadcast this summer) might be interesting, though there are plenty of other less obvious ways you could approach this. Perhaps your selection of fictive visions (the key examples around which you might structure your essay) could individually focus on specific realms of crisis, e.g. crisis of the human body, crisis of human consciousness, etc.

See you in week 3,

Rob