network-performance-talk

2003 sister0 trinity sessions.

Where experimental research was conducted by learning to use translocal media, especially use of the former KeyWorx platform, wireless, and metaphysical networks. Here are some old archives http://sistero.sysx.org/sisterOtrinity/index1.html, this was a very experimental time before mobile platforms were commonly being used and the idea that people could communicate over a network was only being grasped by artists at least.

To practice of performance with the electronic medium often requires one to have an acute awareness of a world outside the reach of our own senses.

Networked art or performance could be defined as signature work by the artist who is also thinking about the inter-corporeal level of using a networked computer, instead of an independent agent they begin to experience themselves in an engaged networked, or socio-centric sense, rather than an egocentric sense or purely autonomous, individual.

It could be a collaboration with another human or humanoid/bot, avatar or entity of some sort.

There are artists who keep on experimenting with technology in an innovative way who also contribute to its development, and others who can clearly be seen to have the tendency to consume or reflect on the possibilities already offered by software and hardware.

A few examples of works that slip & unfold in non-local and local space. Many of these artists I describe have a practice that works with carefully crafted instructions, the key is the audience whom they sensitise into participation, and in doing so the viewer becomes an active part of the work.

On the contrary – a viewer of a static object has a more passive engagement, but we cannot say the viewing is entirely passive, as this act also requires active reflection : ) The artists invite us or in some cases even provoke us to experience and reflect on different ways of being together in a machine-mediated world.
Some people label this as relational aesthetics a relatively new term, & other people call it networked performance – which comes from a century of cross-overs in experimental arts and computer hacker culture, that stem from Futurism and Dada movements – I am in the later camp.

Many of the works are public sculptures dealing with networks and making these tangible. They ask us to reflect upon how we deal with the tensions of collaboration and physical separation as we negotiate relationships through video imagery, computer software and digital networks. The audience of the work may have to consider the detail in a scene that might otherwise be consumed in a momentary glance; the light, the mood of the space, the position of the objects in the frame and the subject behind the view. Other works clearly show how our collective memory is distributed across space and time and locale, mediating what it means to be human. Some of the works are more than 5 years old, and they at the time anticipated a media practice of perpetual recording and sending that is currently ubiquitous.
AFK – AWAY from Keyboard – Michelle Teran, Isabelle Jenkins http://www.9nerds.com/isabelle/AFK/  medium: onsite/online performances – series of images – message key
description: AFK stands for ‘Away from Keyboard’. These and many other abbreviations are commonly used in online chatrooms and on mobile phones to send SMS/ text messages.

In the series AFK each performance involves sending a message coded in this way in front of public webcams monitoring urban and non-urban landscapes. The short messages capture moments of mobility and presence. A Message Key was a key element in the work used by the artists in relation to inscribing physical space monitored by the PUBLIC webcam.
MESSAGE KEY –  ? – what? @COLL – at college @HM – at home @SCHL – at school @WRK – at work ^)^ ^(^ – Two people talking ~~~c___ Beach :-|:-| Deja’ vu 1DAFUL – wonderful 2 – to, too, two 24/7 – 27 hours a day, 7 days a week 2B – to be 2BCTND – to be continued 2D4 – to die for 2DAY – today 2L8 – too late 2MORO – tomorrow 2NITE – tonight 4 – for 4E – forever 7K – sick 8 – ate A/S/L? – Age/Sex/Location
You can try such a thing yourself with your own Local Public webcams – start here: with a google search for yourself – there are many all over the world and locally.
Vatnajökull (the sound of) – Katie Paterson http://katiepaterson.org/sounds/katie_paterson_jokulsarlon.wav
medium: A live phone–line to Vatnajökull glacier. description: In her work, she uses television transmission or telephones (as in Vatnajökull (the sound of)), which often obscure distance and the elapse of time, in order to reverse this effect. By orchestrating encounters with the sound of a prehistoric glacier or images that are 13.2 billion years old, it brings the viewer into greater awareness of the expanse of both distance and time.
Blinkenlights – CHAOS COMPUTER CLUB http://blinkenlights.net/blinkenlights
medium: large scale interactive matrix. description: On September 11th, 2001 the famous “Haus des Lehrers” (house of the teacher) building at Berlin Alexanderplatz has been enhanced to become world’s biggest interactive computer display: Blinkenlights. The upper eight floors of the building were transformed in to a huge display by arranging 144 lamps behind the building’s front windows. A computer controlled each of the lamps independently to produce a monochrome matrix of 18 times 8 pixels. During the night, a constantly growing number of animations could be seen. But there was an interactive component as well: you were able to play the old arcade classic Pong on the building using your mobile phone and you could place your own love letters on the screen as well.
Loca: Set To Discoverable – Drew Hemmet http://www.loca-lab.org/
medium: networked site specific installation via Bluetooth. or BLUEJAKING Bluejacking is the sending of unsolicited messages over Bluetooth. description: An artist-led project on grass-roots, pervasive surveillance using mobile phones. The premier full presentation of at ISEA2006 and ZeroOne in August 2006 combined art installation, software engineering, activism, pervasive design, hardware hacking, SMS poetry, sticker art and ambient performance.
I See You (2003) Medium: 2.4 GhZ frequency video recording of found signals in the public radio spectrum in Salamanca place. Digital Video : 03-min 57-sec : Audio : Colour. Projection dimensions 145cm width x 111cm length. Info: In collaboration with Michelle Teran we engineered a process of freeing data, opening up space and re-directing it for my needs from it’s usual applications of controlling the citizen. Once places, tools and objects took on another significance, for instance, talisman and other such paraphernalia served the purpose of deep contemplation. In a world obsessed with convenience and expedience, perhaps the ritual significance and connection to the place and object used to interface with the ‘so called’ public domain needs to be revived. I asked What do the cameras see? Is the data simply recorded via an automated process and stored? Is there an alert system? – i.e after an amount of motion does it trigger someone to take more notice? How is this information interpreted? Is security an illusion? To answer some of these questions, in this particular work ‘I See You’, you see video-stills of a 12 hour ‘ritual’, a walk that consisted of crossing through the CCTV security camera operating on Public frequency on the hour every hour for 12 hours… The notion of watching & recording the CCTV cameras that were watching, in the hacker world it is well known as ‘Video Sniffing’ which comes from the practice of picking up signals broadcast by wireless CCTV networks using a cheap video receiver. However, I was interested in exploring and moving through the zone of these charged ephemeral stages, these transmissions could be seen as a type of imperilled and uncolonised space that opened up, when I scanned and recorded these wild moments with a 2.4GhZ receiver plugged into a DV Camera, which in turn also picked up wireless webcams unveiling the public space. http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/sister0/videos/porthole02.avi
BLOODBATH Artists Linda Dement, Nancy Mauro-Flude, Kate Richards, Francesca da Rimini, Sarah Waterson http://www.bumpp.net/
medium: live networked performance feeding of a ROLLERY DERBY GAME with 5 embedded artworks (described below) description: BLOODBATH features five artists and artworks with recognised track records in new media, data visualisation, mediated performance and/or work with embodiment or violence. At an all girl flat track roller derby game, sensors on the helmets of players feed data to their five artworks, generating digital elaborations of the moves and collisions on track.
BRUISE – Linda Dement The screen shows skin. A bump signal, from sensors on players in the roller derby game, causes a bruise to appear. The bruise fades through red to blue to green to yellow to brown, then morphs into a flower. The next signal triggers a new bruise; if it comes before the last bruise has finished its metamorphosis, the new bruise is stronger. An ecstatic moment of fury inflicts injury, venting intolerable rising energies: obstruction, desperation, humiliation, need. Connection is made between the physical and the unendurable. There’s a sudden change in direction, speed, intention, strategy. Swelling starts and pain begins to throb. There’s a visible, tangible lesion in the flesh. The bruise can later be cleaned and anointed and take its time to heal. The pain will gradually fade to an itch. The body can process and transform the damage. If healing is interrupted, the next injury is worse, compounding the existing haemorrhage. Either way, the body will never be the same again; trauma will leave its mark.
READ_RUN_EXECUTE_ : Pirating the archaic energy – Nancy Mauro-Flude Pirating sensor data from the Roller Derby players to use as framework to trigger text feeds – past, present & realtime from skaters, audience and artists. Expanding the action on the track, the screen displays a data-mash: live tweets & text feeds, mapped with the cyclic rolling energy of the skaters, building vibrancy. A montage of conversation, description, conjecture & moments pirated from history and literature. The fervor of the game and the text transmissions charts a poetic reflection of the spaces in-between, the status updating frenzy, augmenting live action with fragments of experience, a hovering layer of meta-reports unfolding over time, channeled into a new stream. Moments replaying, systems change states in the networked space, a place of release like a telepathic field. Tuning into the archaic energy: ecstatic movements, painful moments, and amorphous chaos. People meeting physically and virtually, sending data through nodes and cells, flows & currents, simultaneously transmitting and receiving. Sub-channeling direct & indirect action via the data feed. Excessive body states on the track, going into the zone, the triggering of intensity, the abstraction of energy, a rush, a stack smudges the line. Building up meaning together but remaining autonomous. Different entry points, we are inhabitants of many worlds and can appear in any one we wish. Do you want to add to the channel, a twitter bridge perhaps? https://twitter.com/bloodbathbybump #bloodbath
AFFECTIVE RESONANCE: Jostle and Jam - Kate Richards Roller Derby originated in Depression era America, and – like music, vaudeville and the chorus line – was a way for women to escape poverty and to work, survive and thrive. The Roller Derby revivals of the 1960s and in Texas in the 1990s were also fueled by women looking to empower themselves, to escape domestic drudgery and make some money. In Australia today the immense pulling power of womens’ roller derby remind us that playing, fighting, skating, jostling and jamming are intense, immersive experiences for both participants and audience – the roller derby is an event in which imagination, power and gameplay shift through the interacting bodies. As an artist I am interested in intense embodied experiences and connections across time and space, and in creating affective compositions that explore relations and flows within a fast moving, energised public sphere. By incorporating live resonant data from a contemporary SRDL game, and using it to manipulate, mashup and effect archival footage, I’m playing with similarities, connections and gaps between Roller Derby then and now.
I-ROLLER; the Screen of Changes – Francesca da Rimini
Girls, you are gazelles! The future lies beneath your feet.  —Derby fragment Two teams, warriors all, enter the great cycle of pain, humiliation, and exhilaration. Different women take the lead, driven by a new and ardent desire. Some come from the Furies, expressing the unappeasable anger of the dead, while alluring others are descended from the Sirens, liberated from their meadow starred with flowers. Streaming forward are the daughters of the Sibyls, each violent twist and collision triggering a momentary collapse in time through which their bodies can sing the future. Fragments of ecstatic prophesies spit out through the screen, interrupted by an occasional image of life at its most minuscule, revealing universes within universes. We struggle to make sense of the formless, the imperceptible. We struggle to name our fear, yet once we recognise it, we become liberated. Over time the women’s power and courage increases. They are formidable, licking the future into shape. As they fall to their knees, the Invisible emerges through a bed of skulls into the yawn of radiance. I-Roller programming by Ali Graham
AXLE GRIND - Sarah Waterson
Axle Grind borrows the electric violence of the roller derby pack and transforms it into noise, vibration and the rock power chord. Axle Grind maps the collision data from the roller derby players to Joan Jett’s I Love Rock n’ Roll. A robotic pink electric guitar hangs in the space, activated by the ramming of the derby blockers on track. Axle Grind is about jamming with the jam, generating a soundtrack of spectacle. As each hit happens a power chord is played to progress the song, a marshalling of stacks, a G-force Jam. I love rock ‘n’ roll So come and take your time and dance with me. Owwwwww! Axle Grind Max/MSP/Jitter programming by Jon Drummond