Exposition

Motion Perception: Interactive Video and Spatial Awareness (2011)

Nell Breyer

About this exposition

Interactive video art is increasingly woven into urban public places around the world. A dominant argument about this growing form of public art is that it offers potential for new social, political and physical engagement with public space. However, there is little consensus or even analysis of just how such engagement is taking place. The exposition is an attempt to specify what drives the ‘physical engagement’ in this genre of work. It develops the argument that movement-centric and body-centric visualizations provide multi-modal movement representations, and that these can direct spatial attention through immersive and particularized experience. With reference to examples, the exposition concludes that interactive video art can offer a chronotopic experience in which space is understood through the time it takes to move the body.
typeresearch exposition
date01/01/2011
published20/11/2011
last modified15/10/2012
statuspublished
share statusprivate
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/11138/11171
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/jar.11138
published inJournal for Artistic Research
portal issue1.


Simple Media

id name copyright license
11418 Theoretical Framework Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11419 Footnote 1 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11420 Introduction Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11421 Quotes Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11422 Picon Reference Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11415 DTW Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11416 MIT Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11417 MIT diagram 1 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11414 MIT Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11413 fenway Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11408 Method and Discussion Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11409 Method and discussion Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11410 conclusion Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11411 Conclusion Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11412 sewanee Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11401 Discussion text Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11402 Method and results text Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11403 Examples and Resources Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11404 Resources and Examples Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11405 Discussion Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11406 Discussion Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11407 Conclusion Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11400 mit drawing Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11399 MIT drawing 2 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11398 MIT 3 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11397 mit building Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11396 dtw facade Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11395 dtw outside Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11394 dtw inside Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11393 mit cropped schema Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11392 dtw cropped schema Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11391 dtw schema cropped 2 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11390 wfc color Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11389 black Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11388 grey Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11385 Context text Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11386 context text Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11387 grey feet 2 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11384 title for video Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11383 wfc Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11375 1-4 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11376 1-3 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11377 1-2 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11378 FN1 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11379 line Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11380 audience experience Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11381 Diagrams Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11382 "Time and the hour run through the roughest day" Nell Breyer 2008 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11369 section 2 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11370 test Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11371 Main Text Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11372 1-7 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11373 1-6 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11374 1-5 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11361 FN2 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11362 FN1 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11363 bibliography Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11364 appendix Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11365 section 6 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11366 section 5 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11367 section 4 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11368 Section 3 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11353 Context Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11354 FN27 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11355 FN23 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11356 FN22 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11357 FN21 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11358 FN20 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11359 FN17 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11360 FN3 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11352 FN28 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11161 the "i:move" series 2 change visualization #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11149 i:move 2 series - volume excerpt #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11147 i:move 2 series looper excerpt #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11145 "i:move" 2 series - "notation" excerpt #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11141 The "i:move" series 2 - contour #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11170 DTW - site boy #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11168 boy 2 #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11166 audience #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11277 Nell Breyer, "Jump" (2006) #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11275 Nell Breyer, Alissa Cardone, Lorraine Chapman, Bronwen MacArthur, The Disappearing Woman - still image by Nell Breyer (2009) #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11273 Nell Breyer, Jonathan Bachrach, Goran Bogdanovski, Dejan Srhoj, the "i:move" series 2 - change (2004) #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11271 Dragonfly camera used in the i:move series for live stream processing #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11269 Nell Breyer, Jonathan Bachrach, Goran Bogdanovski, Dejan Srhoj, the "i:move" series 2 - volume (2004) #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11267 Nell Breyer, Jonathan Bachrach, Goran Bogdanovski, Dejan Srhoj, the "i:move" series 2 - symbols (2004) #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11265 Nell Breyer, Jonathan Bachrach, Goran Bogdanovski, Dejan Srhoj, the "i:move" series 2 - contours (2004) #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11255 Nell Breyer, Jonathan Bachrach, Goran Bogdanovski, Dejan Srhoj, the "i:move" series 2 - time (2004) #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11247 Nell Breyer, Jonathan Bachrach, Goran Bogdanovski, Dejan Srhoj, the "i:move" series 2, documentation (2004) #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11241 the "i:move" 2 series - excerpt #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11239 the "i:move" 2 series - excerpt volume #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11237 the "i:move" 2 series #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11235 the "i:move" 2 series - excerpt text #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11233 the "i:move" 2 series - excerpt contourz #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11231 Nell Breyer, Jonathan Bachrach, Goran Bogdanovski, Dejan Srhoj, the "i:move" series 2, documentation (2004) #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11205 "The i:move series 1" untitled pastel drawing by Nell Breyer, 2003 #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11203 Facade of MIT Media Lab , I.M. Pei Plaza. Photo by Nell Breyer #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11201 DTW facade, street view. Photo by Nell Breyer #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11199 Diagram of camera and projector angles in "The i:move series 1" by Nell Breyer and Jonathan Bachrach. Sketch by Nell Breyer #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11197 "the i:move series 2" by Nell Breyer, Jonathan Bachrach with Goran Bogdanovski and Dejan Srhoj #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11195 black #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11193 grey #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11191 black #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11189 grey feet 2 #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11183 Camera, screen and projector angles for "Time Translations" by Nell Breyer, World Financial Center. Sketch by Nell Breyer #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11181 Display, camera and light box positions for "Time and the hour run through the roughest day" by Nell Breyer 2008. Sketch by Nell Breyer #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11179 Equipment layout for "The i:move series 1" by Nell Breyer and Jonathan Bachrach. Sketch by Nell Breyer #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11327 dtw facade #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11323 imove 2 - place description #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11351 the i:move series 2 - excerpt "change" #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11349 i:move 2 - still frame #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11347 imove series 3 - still image #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11345 imove 2 still image #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved
11333 hand #0 Nell Breyer All rights reserved

comments: 2 (last entry by Sabine Gebhardt - 21/11/2011 at 22:50)
anonymous 21/11/2011 at 17:02

In general, I consider the topic of the submission as interesting. However, I wish the artist’s actual practice and research questions would connect to the given theoretical framework more convincingly.

 

The structure of the paper and the English used are very good, most of the times a pleasure to read. Furthermore the submission’s references are well chosen - it would have been nice to see a few of my interactive video favourites added (Toshio Iwai, Scott Snibbe, and David Rokeby), but of course the list of examples never can be complete.

 

I believe that quite often the facts (e.g. under the section ‘Theoretical Framework’) don’t connect well with the author’s conclusions and assumptions. For this reason I suggest reformulating suggestions made by the artist (making usage of the word ‘may’) as questions.

 

The intended research also could have more impact on the execution of the final piece — I have seen frame difference visualisations in a lot of different pieces, with a lot of different explanations for them, so I would like to see something new and more to the point.

Sabine Gebhardt 21/11/2011 at 22:50

The project intends to provide one methodological approach, which helps articulate how computation, video, projection, and interaction can direct and more fully explain our physical experience and comprehension of contemporary public spaces. This is a very interesting goal of crucial impact on research and artistic practice today. The project tries to combine a theoretical research goal with an artistic output. To use video as an instrument of aesthetical research is convincing, too. But the outcomes of the project can only be regarded as ‘first results’. The main cause of the ‘weak’ aesthetical form of the project seems to be rooted—first in the simple concept of bodies—not taking into account the discourses marked by eminent authors like Judith Butler and Amelia Jones. The reflection of contemporary critical media theory in relation to video art is too selective. References to important works such as Sigrid Adorf’s Operation Video (Bielefeld, Transcript 2008) or Georg Christoph Tholen’s Die Zäsur der Medien (Frankfurt 2002) are lacking.

 

The project should receive further funding and proceed in collaborations with international video-artists to sharpen the theories reflected upon and to improve the outcomes!

 

The impact on the project is possible in the fields of media-theory, philosophy (especially in the field of so called ‘New Phenomenology’), media enhanced performance art, technological devices to track movements and performance studies.

 

The submission contains a clear description of the research questions, which it wants to address. The author knows the state of the art in research on public spheres and concerning the tracking of movement in time and space. The submitted project enables a lot of new thoughts, either on the technical level of tracking and morphing or on the concept of bodily movements. Hélàs; the form or the aesthetical output is on a starting level or beginners state and should be developed further. Furthermore the debate on bodily styles, performative space and new media theories in Video art should influence the description-texts of the project, too. The submission provides—from my point of view—new tools for tracking bodily movements over time. This can lead to new insights if the critical reflection and the video-documents are reworked. The research process is consequent, and the methods in use are adequate and correct, but they should be clarified and strengthened.

 

The design and navigation support of the exposition are good. It is correct and feasible according to referencing. The readability of the submission is perfect.

 

The submission is worth to be published after a slight rework. The strengths of the project are: the contemporanity of the topic, the state of the art in research topics in art in public spheres and the interdisciplinary working concept of the project between artistic production and reflection. The author should rework before publishing their theory on bodily styles, media theory of the genre video art and the philosophy of time; he should seek also new collaborations with artists using camera-tracking such as Zilla Leutenegger or Douglas Gordon.

Comments are only available for registered users.