Emotional Machines - Composing for Unstable Media.

Thorolf Thuestad

Emotional machines – composing for unstable media. Thorolf Thuestad In partial fulfilment of PhD in artistic research The Grieg Academy, Department of Music, Faculty of Art, Music, and Design, University of Bergen, 2021 The artistic research project Emotional machines - composing for unstable media explores how non-representational kinetic objects may afford affective and emotional responses, in particular experiences of kinship and relation between an audience and animated objects. Further possibilities for artistic expression are opened through composition and dramaturgy, in works where the animated objects perform alongside human performers and other media, such as light and sound. How may such animated non-representational physical objects be developed? How does animating the physical objects change the potential for experience of kinship and relation between audience and object? How does context modulate the potential for experience of kinship and relation between audience and animated physical object? How does the potential experience of kinship with the animated object differ for the creator of the object, and audience? These questions have been investigated through the creation of a set of animated kinetic figures. These figures have performed in a series of artistic presentations such as gallery exhibitions and stage presentations. The artistic research concludes with two complementary public artistic presentations taking place in bergen in June/July 2021; a time-based stage production at Cornerteatret and a gallery exhibition at Lydgalleriet. The presentations are considered connected and have the common title For one – for many – for all. This is an exposition of the research that presents the kinetic figures, the process of developing them, the questions they have contributed to explore, resulting artistic works (with particular emphasis on the final artistic presentations taking place in June/July 2021), the additional artists contributing to these public presentations, and a series of reflections resulting from the research. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emotional machines – composing for unstable media Thorolf Thuestad. Denne eksposisjonen presenteres som del av gjennomføring av doktorgrad i kunstnerisk utviklingsarbeid ved Griegakademiet, Institutt for musikk, Fakultet for kunst, musikk og design, Universitetet i Bergen, 2021. Emotional machines - composing for unstable media utforsker hvordan ikke-representative kinetiske objekter kan skape affektive og emosjonelle responser hos mennesker. Spesifikt opplevelse av slektskap og relasjon mellom et publikum og animerte objekter. Det åpnes ytterligere muligheter for kunstneriske uttrykk gjennom komposisjon og dramaturgi i verk der de animerte objektene opptrer sammen med menneskelige utøvere og andre medier, som lys og lyd. Hvordan kan animerte ikke-representative fysiske objekter utvikles med dette startpunktet som inspirasjon? Hvordan endrer animasjon av de fysiske objektene potensialet for opplevelse av slektskap og relasjon mellom publikum og objekt? Hvordan modulerer konteksten de animerte objektene presenteres i potensialet for opplevelse av slektskap og relasjon? Hvordan er den potensielle opplevelsen av slektskap med det animerte objektet forskjellig for skaperen(e) av objektet, og publikum? I Emotional machines – composing for unstable media har spørsmålene har blitt undersøkt ved hjelp av en gruppe animerte kinetiske figurer. Disse figurene har opptrådt i en rekke kunstneriske sammenhenger hovedsakelig galleriutstillinger og scenepresentasjoner. Prosjektet ble avsluttet med to utfyllende offentlige kunstneriske presentasjoner som fant sted i Bergen i juni/juli 2021: En tidsbasert sceneproduksjon vist på Cornerteatret og en galleriutstilling vist på Lydgalleriet. Presentasjonene er tilknyttet hverandre og har fellestittelen For one – for many – for all. Denne eksposisjonen presenterer de kinetiske figurene, prosessen med å utvikle dem, spørsmålene de har bidratt til å utforske, resulterende kunstneriske verk (med særlig vekt på de endelige kunstneriske presentasjonene i juni/juli 2021), kunstnerne som bidro til disse offentlige presentasjonene samt en rekke refleksjonstekster drevet frem av arbeidet med prosjektet.

The figures

This composition was developed over several months and started with creating two animated figures, numbers 11 and 12 in the series produced for the research project Emotional machines – composing for unstable media.

Most of the figure's body is 3D printed in an off-white filament. This gives the texture of the material a bone-like quality. The figure consists of three main parts, with two almost identical structures easily interpreted as limbs attached to a central body that appears somewhat similar to a human pelvis. At the end of each "leg," a small wheel is attached. The wheels utilize one-way needle pin bearings, so they are only able to rotate in one direction.

I am readily able to associate this sculpture with the lower part of a primate body, but one oddly lacking flesh and having a very unusual bone structure. This figure follows up #9 and 10 in that it attempts to create mobility through the use of "legs." The limbs are actuated using two large Nema 17 stepper motors turning small pulleys driving a G2 timing belt wrapped around a large pulley rigidly mounted to the figure's trunk at the "pelvis" end. This causes the legs to bend at the base.

Generative design

Figures #11 and 12 were developed with the aid of generative design to "grow" the shapes. This process involves defining load points, meaning specific sections where physical forces act on the model, such as joints or axel mounts. This was done by drawing up small boxes intended to join together, some of which have circular holes designed to hold axles. These are made up of rectangular boxes, straight angles, and symmetrical shapes that can quickly be joined using standard fasteners such as screws and nuts.

The generative process creates simulations of material joining the load points using genetic design algorithms with cloud-based rendering. The algorithms deliver many different solutions that fulfil the load and structural requirements and leave it to the instigator of the design process, in this case, me, to choose from the selection of solutions. Typically this type of generative design results in shapes that are perceived to be organic looking.1

The organic shapes make figure #11 and 12 a departure from the other figures in the collection in that there are no straight sections and few straigh lines. Forms like these are unintuitive and very difficult to create using standard computer-aided design methods(CAD)where the use of consecutive lines and symmetrical angles can be hard to circumvent.

In addition to CAD, the shapes generated for these figures depend on CAM(computer-aided manufacture), in the form of 3D printing, to be realized as physical objects. The 3D printer I have available can only print up to a certain size, large compared to most 3D printers, small compared to most sculptures. Since I wanted Dog to be larger than the printer's maximum size capacity, more or less the size of a mid-sized child's legs and hip, I needed to break each leg into three parts that, when assembled, could be attached to the central hip-like body.

The figure named Dog ended up having a very organic looking form with a couple of peculiarities. Firstly each of the two legs is precisely the same as the other, which seems at odds with their organic shapes. Secondly, the squares used to attach the sections to each-other seem like out of place square protrusions coming out of the flowing form of the limbs. The overall impression is an organic bone-like structure with odd symmetrical squares forming part of the body and with a peculiar symmetry in dissonance with the shape's organic quality.

Computer-assisted design

When creating the figures in this research project, many factors guide or influence the design process. For example, the possibilities afforded by CAD software and which features that software makes more readily available over others. My own manufacturing skills, available materials, and cost are also influential considerations guiding the design process. The creation of Dog differed because the shapes created by generative processes are quite remote from those that are intuitively easily created using a CAD system targeted at traditional parts design.

An interesting side effect to the use of generative design is that I found it changed my experience of agency in the process of making. When the forms are algorithmically developed, I feel my own perception of myself as the creator to be challenged. Usually, I consider the tools and technologies I use as subservient (at least conceptually). Having used generative design to "grow" the shapes instil a feeling that most of the design is not created by me. In fact, the question as to whom(or what) made the shapes for Figures #11, and 12 appears fuzzy. Does the credit belong to the software engineer and mathematicians that created the algorithms that facilitated the generative design rather than me? Is it the generative software itself since the shapes it generates are not predictable by the authors of the algorithms used to create them?

Tools and their agency

When designing shapes using software or making sound using software, many decisions are strongly influenced by that software's layout. Artistic decisions taken by a creator when using such tools are never uninfluenced by the means themselves. When employing generative design to create forms, this fact becomes explicit.

Suppose making is understood as transforming matter from its current state to another. In that case, the process of making is the interaction between materials used, the tools used to shape them, and the maker. In the exchanges between tools, maker, and material, what Tim Ingolds describes as a "dance of agency,"2 they are partners taking turns leading the dance of making. As a maker of animated figures, I experience this exchange daily. I accept that my creative decisions are determined by what I know of the tools I employ and the material I apply them to.

Any computer-aided process of making, for example, using CAD software or modern audio production tools, the interactions between myself and the software are complex exchanges of adaption on both parts. In my personal narrative I still consider myself the maker. However, when employing a generative mechanism for creating a design, the question seems more ambiguous. When creating shapes in CAD software by drawing up an outline and extruding it into three-dimensional computer-simulated space, I still experience myself as the primary actant determining the form, albeit as an actant aware of the influence and limitations of the tools used to do so. In generative design, the computer-simulated equivalent of thin air is populated by shapes drawn by an algorithm working in ways of which I have no understanding. I don't know why or how it makes the shapes it does, and I feel that much of my agency creating that shape is removed. I instigated the process by determining some parameters, such as the extent of the form and how strong it should be given the material chosen, but how those requirements are fulfilled is outside my control. Conversely, when using CAD software, I am still able to hold on to the idea that there is a conscious decision guiding every aspect forming the shape towards its final form(although investigating the process can cast doubts). When using generative design, I experience my status as creator seemingly entering a grey area between creator and curator.

Selected design of front part of the leg, after some modeling, shown as mesh.

Some of the generative outcomes.

Tip

Tip

The figures

Generative design

Computer-assisted design

Tools and their agency