Conceptual foundations of the exhibition
- The approaches developed in the project so far to perform transpositions are also used to structure and produce the exhibition (e.g. use of dynamical systems, complication as artistic strategy, etc.)
- The exhibition exposes the concepts and practices developed in the project. This does does not need to be "readable" on the surface level, but it informs our making of the exhibition.
- All exhibits/works are connected spatially and temprarily. The time-based exhibits (videos and sound works) are connected using a simulated dynamical system.
- The dynamical system defines the relationships between the works and their interaction, exhibiting a particular over-all behaviour.
- The dynamical system is excited by "noise" from the environment (floor vibrations) and the audience (interactions with certain exhibits, such as the trigger buttons, the headphone patchbay, and the piano keys) and triggers exhibits.
- The exhibitions should afford an experience of the interconnectedness and reactivity of the network of exhibits.
- The connections between the 8 exhibition spaces should be audible and visible (leaking of sound from one space to the others, visualisation of the dynamics system connecting the spaces, temporal relationships between triggers in form of "echoes").
- The dynamical system's evolution should be displayed in a visual form. A space in which such display could be placed seems to be room no. 6. In our overall concept this space is the "belly" of the exhibition, meaning the "hidden", instintive, even irrational part of the the exhibition. It seems natural to place there the dynamical systems displaing as a sort of unwanted, independent "interior" self-movement.
- The Matrix form seems to be a recurring element in the exhibition. Probably this arises from the fact the the data we are dealing with is mostly organised in a matrix form. The format in which the material we are dealing with is organised had therefore an effect on our way of thinking and ultimately on the form we choose in display our works (e.g. the matrix of Headphone Patchbay and the Loudspeaker Matrix).
- How should the single works be named? Apart from the working title with which the works are described here, under which name should the appear in the exhibition? One possible idea is to use coherent naming convention (as in "tp_lansner_spikes_noosc_200s") implying that the works belong to a "series", the "transposition series" and further equal "nodes" in the dynamical system.
Optical Seismograph
The Optial Seismograph (OS) picks up virbrations from the floor in room (1). A flat dish containing liquid (water or oil) is placed on the floor centrally in the room. The reflection of a laser beam directed at the surface from above is projected via a small mirror on the wall below the window in room (2). The light point on the wall draws a trajectory related to the ondulation of the liquid – a transposition of the floor vibration through the dynamics of the container/liquid system. The light point is picked up by the built-in webcam of a laptop sitting on the floor in front of the wall. The laptop impersonates a cyclops observer, slighly reminiscent of Nam June Paik’s TV-Buddha. Blob tracking is used to (re)construct the trajectory (as a series of [time, x, y] triples) and a low resolution grey scale dynamic pixel map is extracted. The pixel grid is drawn on the wall in pencil. The noise picked up by the OS is the main continious input to the DS, a kind of "ground state" which can lead to spontaneous activations of the other exhibits. The other inputs to the DS are the triggers, the headphone patchbay and the CEUS.
Headphone Patchbay
The Headphone Patchbay is a 9x9 matrix of headphone connectors. When a headphone is connected the patchbay detects at which colum and row the connection is made and can select audio material accordingly. This could be audio tracks from the video wall (e.g. 9 tracks for each video, representing the 9 hypercolums, which would allow for the first time to also perceive inhibitory effects when other than the selected hypercolum is active). The headphones will be open headphones creating a mixed perception of external and headphone sound. The events audible in the headphone and from outside (piano, speaker matrix, compass installation) will be coordinated to achieve a hybrid private/public listening experience, enhancing the perception of the connectedness of the time-based exhibits. The affordance of the patchbay (select one among the 91 possibilities, extract/insert connector) allows the audience to enact choices, even though they may not necessarily understand them. The patchbay is also reminiscent of the old telephone operator system.
Bösendorfer Imperial CEUS (1,76m x 2.90m, 600 kg)
The CEUS can be used as a visual (keys, pedals) and auditory (solenoids, strings) actuator and a tactile sensor (keys, pedals). For displaying the OS input or the ground state, we could map the 9x9 pixels directly to 81 keys, but without depressing them fully and playing notes, i.e. only as a visual display (the solenoids moving the keys will also be audible slightly). This way we would use the CEUS technolopgy without the piano part, i.e. without hitting string and playing notes. In the exhibitions situation, playing notes should be a rare exception. The audience can also play the instrument, which will be fed to the DS and may trigger other exhibits. The CEUS may also be triggered to play fragments from Paulo's performance when he is not around. When Paulo is performing, this could also trigger other exhibits, so he may have a special way of performing the exhibition (through/against the DS). Artemis will compose a piece for the CEUS and Paulo based on the galaxy cluster data set. We (Paulo, David, Artemis, Gerhard) will test the CEUS on Feb 15 at Bösendorfer and come up with ideas about how to integrate Paulo.
Triggers
A number of triggers (probably 3) will be distributed in the exhibition to allow for a more or less direct (i.e via the DS) triggering of exhibits. The triggers are visually very typed, large emergency stop buttons as they are used e.g. at ski slopes to halt the ski lift in case of an accident.The buttons will be mounted on white heave (i.e stable) plinths. The transmission of the trigger is wireless. They can only be mounted close to power outlets. One trigger will allow to operate the compass installation, another one could trigger piano fragments and a third one neuronal spikes played on the speaker matrix, i.e. trigger are always linked to exhibits and their representation in the DS.
Video Wall (3x3)
9 wall-mounted HD display play different videos from the Lansner case study, either without sound or sound over headphones and the Pathcbay (see above). Videos will be triggered from the DS. Details to be discussed.
Loudspeaker Matrix
A 6x6 matrix of small loudspeakers will play spike trains from the Lansner case study. The speaker will either lie on the floor and project upwards or be mounted very low on a wall, touching the floor. The 36 cables for the speakers have to be connected to a larger piece of hardware (converters and amplifiers) and the cables will be run openly on the floor (laboratory situation). The spike trains will be triggered (through the DS) by a trigger button nearby, or through other events, or spontaneously by the DS - similarly to how the neuronal activation is imagined to work.
COMPASS Installation
The installation will use the detector data. Each detector will be represented by a piece of wood lying on the floor and excited with a solenoid. The events in the data (hits of the detectors) will be played in extreme slow-motion. On the wall an orthographic projection of the detector will be drawn with a pencil, which will line up excately with the wooden slabs representing the individual detectors. The installation will be triggered by a trigger button (through the DS).
Dynamical System Display
The dynamical systemis composed by a net of nodes (or mass), each node representing one of the time-based installations. The nodes (drawn as points) are placed in space such to resemble their actual position in the exhibition space and are interconnected by gravitational-like forces: these connections are drawn as lines.The Sensors distributed in the exhibition space, provide impulses to the nodes causing them to slightly move from and around their neutral position. Being all masses interconnected the whole network would react and will be deformed .
As one node gains energy (moves faster) it will also gain intertia (mass), growing heavier (the point will be drawn with a bigger radius) and therefore exerting a bigger attractive force on all the other nodes. When a certain mass threshold is reached the corresponding installation would be triggered and the node would suddely loose all the mass it has gained (and return a smaller dot in the visualisation). The sudden change of mass would input a big impulse in the whole network possibly triggering other installations
DNA fragments
To be decided how this will actually be caculated, but based on the local network of 'foldings' around a section of DNA, this will need to be bent (oer even streched) in such a way as to accomodate this network.
The piece itself will ignore the network; only bent pipes will be displayed, maybe lackered and lying on the floor. Size and amount to be decided, also depening on budget.
CNC Tubebending
Upstairs wall mural
The wall all around the upstairs gallery space will be read like a timeline to display 2 sequences. Starting on the right as one enters (and thus anti-clockwise) is one sequence and starting on the opposite wall (thus clockwise) is another one. Whatever we have as footage is mapped onto this space - at the moment, this might be data from Lansner and from Compass - i.e. very long data and very short data all mapped onto the same length of space. Those two will be slightly offset i.e. the one is slightly higher than the other. Materials: pencil/pen for the lines and some form of wash for the fields.
There will be large, photocopied pages of the future catalogue wallpaper-glued onto this as well as other frames works hung onto it and also projections.
This basically fills the complete upsairs walls - with some massive white gaps in it, naturally.
Light bulb
The DS of the show is tranlated very simplistically into either the lightbuld modulating or the ambient lights of a room doing the same - nothing more.
Compass Connectors
Absolutely unclear about size of this, but they could be a handfull of small objects on plinths - probably rapid prototyped objects (crystalline?) that would fit into the trajectories.
Data Rush Work List
There is a problem with the notion of the “work” in the Data Rush exhibition. We are foregrounding apparatuses and procedures/algorithms/processes. The artistic (research) work consists in chosing or designing the apparatuses to transpose the data, i.e. the apparatuses are chosen or designed as tranpositional devices. Most “works” (i.e. exhibition elements) are aggregates of units of the same kind (e.g. the piano is considered as an aggregate of keys/tones). There is actually only one work, which is the whole exhibition. From the point of view of the dynamical system articulating the exhibition elements, the exhibition is also an aggregate, as the elements are treated indifferently (most of them as triggerable events / episodes). Aggregated forms aim at exposing differences between instances of data constellations or their transpositions, i.e. the identity of a “work” is not central, it is the difference between the elements which counts.
Key Aggregate
The 96 keys of the Bösendorfer CEUS are used to transpose the galaxy cluster and neural network data.
Hammer Aggregate
44 solenoid hammers hitting wooden structures transpose hits data from the CERN COMPASS detector.
Video Aggregate
9 video screens expose different transpositions of neuronal network data.
Headphones Aggregate
81 audio tracks (arranged as a 9 x 9 matrix of plugs) allow for selectively listening to transpositions of individual neurons in a network simulation via headphones.
Loudspeaker Aggregate
36 loudspeakers forming a 6 x 6 matrix spatially project a transposition of the state of a neural network.
Feedback Aggregate
2 microphone/subwoofer couples pick up the environmental noise, feed it into the dynamical system articulating the elements of the exhibition aggregate, and transpose the noise spatially in the exhibition venue.
Bulb Aggregate
8 incadescent light bulbs expose the state of the exhibition aggregate.
Time-based elements [Sensors or/and Actuators of dynamical system]
A very heterogeniou set of elements, objects, works are connected through the dynamical system (DS). They function as sensors [S] or/and actuators [A] of the DS. They will form different constellations in time and space formulating hybrid "messages".
- Optical Seismometer (9x9 outputs) [S]
- Triggers (3) [A]
- Headphone Patchbay (9x9 outputs) [S/A]
- Loudspeaker Matrix (6x6 speakers) [A]
- Video Wall (3x3 videos) [A]
- Compass Installation [A]
- Bösendorfer CEUS [S/A]
List of possible guests for symposium day
Trond Lossius (contacted, but not available)
Agostino di Scipio (see text ->)
Volker Straebel (see text ->)
Luc Derycke (catalogue)
Cecile Malaspina (already invited)
