A Future In The Past
(2024)
author(s): Theodore Parker
published in: Research Catalogue
A Future In the Past is a research project engaging with the application of methods from Historically Informed Performance and Media Archeology towards problems found in the practice of Live Electronic music. In doing so the project sought to expose lost discourses in the medium as viewed from the performer’s perspective. Three pieces by composer Udo Kasemets were chosen as case studies. All compositions were originally written and performed prior to the 1990’s boom in digital processing. Each case study explores themes related to Liveness, Audience Interaction, and Hyper Instruments. In developing the historical context for each work several strategies were undertaken. Kasemets’ archives were reviewed at the University of Toronto, performers of the original pieces were interviewed, and investigations into period specific instruments were conducted. Additionally, Kasemets’ own published writings were used to reference his aesthetic ambitions as well as for comparison with his contemporaries. Rehearsals were carried out with The Estonian Electronic Music Ensemble, where the historical data and performer experiences were combined to create an individual interpretation for each composition. These interpretations were then presented to an audience and alongside contemporary issues currently debated in Live Electronics
Ephemer(e)ality Capture: Glitching The Cloud through Photogrammetry
(2021)
author(s): Tom Milnes
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
Ephemer(e)ality Capture: Glitch Practices in Photogrammetry details artistic practice using cloud-based photogrammetry that actively invokes glitches through disturbance of the imaging algorithm by utilising optical phenomena. Reflective, transparent, specular and patterned/repetitive objects were used to confuse the imaging algorithm to produce spikes, holes and glitches in the mesh and textures of the 3D objects produced. The research tests the limits of photogrammetry in an effort toward new image-making methods. It builds upon the research of Hito Steyerl’s Ripping Reality: Blind spots and wrecked data in 3D in which she outlines the errors of 3D scanning media in her work and contextualises amongst thought surrounding the objectivity of photographic media. This research explores the potential gaps in Steyerl’s approach, building upon investigations into 3D scanning’s ‘constructed imagery’ through methods which explore ‘fractional space’ more thoroughly through glitches caused by capturing of optical phenomena. Through practice, the research investigates the possibilities of conducting a ‘media archaeological’ investigation of cloud-based technology using methods akin to ‘Thinkering’(Huhtamo) and ‘Zombie Media’ (Hertz & Parikka). These investigations sought to ‘hack’ technologies through focused technical adjustments or adaptations, centred on media that were ‘local’ or accessible to the artist - artists that have been able to open the machine’s hardware to change circuitry or to access and change the software code. With cloud-based media’s materiality being inaccessible, the investigation utilised techniques which actively disrupt and confuse the image-making process; a form of ‘digital détournement’ which develops techniques which reference Guy Debord’s approach to disrupt the powers of image-making culture. The research is discussed with regards to similar approaches in contemporary glitch practices and aesthetics. Prior (2013) posits that glitch practices form a ‘paralogy’ of the Lyotardian notion of ‘performativity’ of the contemporary techno-economic conditions; acknowledging that paralogy is a method that contributes important critical discourses to culture and research. Previously, ‘local’ glitch practices focused on the internal affordances and functionality of the machine, whereas this research demonstrates practice which is focused externally – through the optical nature of images selected to disrupt the algorithm in photogrammetry rather than through ‘hacking’ the algorithm directly. Through these investigations and a discussion of their methodology, the research encourages a critical reflexivity of the artist/user through use of a dynamic methodology. This is to reflect the issues of technological flux which sees imaging algorithms being updated and refined, forcing techniques and practices into obsolescence.
Everything That Shines Sees: Flash Light, Photography and the Acheiropoietic.
(2020)
author(s): Dominique Somers
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition takes a close look at the concepts of self-origination and mediation for a better understanding of the photographic image engendered by a flash of light and its natural radiation. Starting from my own artistic experiments with fulguric and cosmic rays, performed in cooperation with a lightning simulation lab in Oxfordshire (UK) and with the nuclear research centre CERN in Geneva (Switzerland), it puts forward a speculative approach that looks beyond static and traditional assumptions about what it entails to 'be photographic'. Through the exploration of the creative role fulfilled by a sudden burst of light across different time periods and different manifestations (fulgurites, imprints, photograms, sound), focus is laid on the part the acheiropoieton can play in this revitalized apprehension of the photograph as a technical image and of the agencies involved in its mediation. The research projects discussed thus aim to foreground the involvement of nonhuman contributors in the formation of contemporary images and their epistemology as a possible way to re-think perception in a time increasingly shaped by a reliance on (artificially induced) visibility.
Passages of Light: Analogue and Digital Moving Image Installation.
(2019)
author(s): Alexander Nevill
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
Within a rapidly changing media landscape, light remains an intrinsic and potentially expressive aspect of moving imagery, regardless of the shape, form and resolution that specific capture and display devices might take. The practice of light in moving imagery is typically considered through an arrangement of sources, filters and modifiers that sculpt the aesthetic appearance of a two-dimensional frame and is often studied in relation to mainstream Hollywood films. This practice-research investigation seeks to compliment such discourse by extending the consideration of lighting practices beyond conventional cinematography to an installation context. Through the presentation of several artworks, this exposition reveals a distinction between the light ‘of’ an image and the light ‘within’ an image. It also explores the material considerations of a practitioner’s control of projected light. Each artwork seeks to create an interoperation between analogue and digital moving imagery, weaving together various technologies in order to reveal an array of textures and qualities of light. Drawing primarily on autoethnographic notation captured during the creation of these artworks, as well as discussion of a range of film and video texts, this exposition investigates material tensions of mediated illumination.
Where are the Ears of the Machine? Towards a sounding micro-temporal object-oriented ontology
(2015)
author(s): Morten Riis
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Drawing on micro-temporal media archaeology paired with object-oriented ontology, this paper will develop new ideas regarding non-human conceptualizations of sounding media, memory, time, and sound objects. Studying the way in which music machines collect and store auditory data enables us to get closer to the inner functioning and self-reflections of our sounding apparatuses, creating alternative perspectives on mediated representation and the various temporal processes unfolding within technology. Thus an interweaving of object-oriented ontology and media archaeology is unfolded, taking its starting point in a practical engagement with electro-magnetic recording devices which execute what could be described as applied ontology, something that generates awareness of the moment when media themselves become active archaeologists of knowledge.
The magic of projection : augmentation and immersion in media art
(last edited: 2022)
author(s): Sophie Ernst
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Sophie Ernst’s doctoral thesis is an artist’s contribution to media art theory. It focusses on the role of projection as material for sculpture. Her research addresses the question in what manner are projections applied in contemporary art and what image traditions does this relate to. She considers projections to be either immersive, like a cinematic experience, or augmentative, in the sense of a mixed reality. Immersions, the dominant mode in projection art and large parts of the theoretical discourse, presuppose a willing suspension of disbelief. Augmentation, on the other hand, can be seen as ‘magical’. It is a technique in art to ‘make strange’ by creating a distance that can be either pleasant or unsettling. Ernst argues that augmenting projections are persuasive, not because they are materially ‘real’, but rather since they make visible what we could imagine as real.