Electronic Art

[Karen ann Donnachie, PhD // Doctoral Thesis: Full-text]
This multidisciplinary, practice explores the phenomenon of the selfie (understood as a networked, vernacular, photographic selfportrait) in order to propose a new critical understanding of its effect on wider photographic self-portrait practice, and photography in general.

Significantly, “The Human Use of the Human Face” depicts the selfie as more than a mere vernacular object or action and is not satisfied with the dismissal of the selfie as a direct remediation of the traditional self-portrait. Instead this thesis maps the complex, and sometimes controversial genre of amateur self-portraiture as it sits somewhere between performance, narcissism, social tic, intrinsic desire for self-projection and a possibly irrational quest for authenticity in the photographic image.

This practice-led research is articulated through the creation of original digital and electronic artworks including speculative camera design, social media web apps and immersive installation; through interviews with contemporary artists; and finally through the discussion of cultural, aesthetic and photographic theory. This research examines the privileged position the selfie holds inside a rapidly expanding and evolving social media ecology as it becomes both vehicle and tool, a symbol of personal, social, cultural and political identities. Along with the prevailing concerns surrounding the selfie and its reflection on contemporary society, this thesis inserts notions of human affect, connectedness, belonging and being human into the discussion concerning the motivations behind, and social consequences of, the selfie in three areas: first life, second life, and afterlife.

This thesis was presented in 2016 for my PhD (Art), awarded from the School of Design & Art, Curtin University, Western Australia, 2017.

La preocupación por la identidad cultural en el diálogoentre lo vernáculo y lo extranjerizante, lejos de seruna cuestión clausurada en los programas artísticose historiográficos del siglo XX, plantea desafíos quese renuevan en la agenda multiculturalista del arteglobal. El presente trabajo retoma esta problemáticapara el terreno, aún poco indagado, del arte low-tech.Como parte de una etapa de investigación todavíaexploratoria, se ensaya una estrategia de lecturaheterocrónica del campo, con el fin de rescataralgunas fibras temporales (vinculadas a un imaginariotécnico-científico local de larga data) que tienen elpotencial de organizar una perspectiva localizadadel fenómeno. El objetivo es ampliar el horizontedesviacional con el que generalmente se caracterizanlas estrategias estéticas low-tech, para descubrir enellas la presencia de memorias descentradas.

The Library of Nonhuman Books centres around a custom-made reading-machine which uses machine-learning to abridge and ‘artificially illuminate’ physical books through a combination of algorithmic interpretation and digital palimpsest. Newly illuminated texts are offered as alternative futures of the book. The project speculates on the book to come, where a post-literate society defers its reading to nonhuman counterparts.

[Karen ann Donnachie, PhD // Doctoral Thesis: Full-text] This multidisciplinary, practice explores the phenomenon of the selfie (understood as a networked, vernacular, photographic selfportrait) in order to propose a new critical understanding of its effect on wider photographic self-portrait practice, and photography in general. Significantly, “The Human Use of the Human Face” depicts the selfie as more than a mere vernacular object or action and is not satisfied with the dismissal of the selfie as a direct remediation of the traditional self-portrait. Instead this thesis maps the complex, and sometimes controversial genre of amateur self-portraiture as it sits somewhere between performance, narcissism, social tic, intrinsic desire for self-projection and a possibly irrational quest for authenticity in the photographic image. This practice-led research is articulated through the creation of original digital and electronic artworks including speculative camera design, social media web apps and immersive installation; through interviews with contemporary artists; and finally through the discussion of cultural, aesthetic and photographic theory. This research examines the privileged position the selfie holds inside a rapidly expanding and evolving social media ecology as it becomes both vehicle and tool, a symbol of personal, social, cultural and political identities. Along with the prevailing concerns surrounding the selfie and its reflection on contemporary society, this thesis inserts notions of human affect, connectedness, belonging and being human into the discussion concerning the motivations behind, and social consequences of, the selfie in three areas: first life, second life, and afterlife. This thesis was presented in 2016 for my PhD (Art), awarded from the School of Design & Art, Curtin University, Western Australia, 2017.

A catalogue essay for the exhibition 'Video: an art, a history, 1965-2010' held at the Singapore Art Museum in 2011. The essay identifies three salient characteristics of electronic media that may be specific to their use and amplitude in Southeast Asian contemporary art.

El presente trabajo se enmarca dentro de mi tesina de grado de la Licenciatura de Gestión del Arte y la Cultura en esta misma Universidad, titulada “Formatos digitales, música y memoria. Experimentación sonora en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires”. En esta ocasión se analizará uno de los casos en el trabajo: la obra “Oveja eléctrica”, un software que diseñó Santiago Peresón entre 2003 y 2008. La idea de Peresón fue crear una máquina que pudiera componer música de manera independiente, sin interacción humana. El resultado es un agente de Inteligencia Artificial, el cual invoca varias problemáticas que se explorarán en el artículo.

Art and science have encountered each other since the beginning of time, in all kinds of interesting ways - cave paintings, medical history, architecture or Leonardo da Vinci. One of the more recent encounters - and most relevant for the field of electronic art - was in 1967, when Billy Klüver, an electrical engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, founded Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) with Robert Rauschenberg. The artists involved in the project are now legendary in the contemporary art world but little is known of this initiative in the contemporary science communications world. Perhaps no wonder—the engineer at the helm decries any effort to force art and science into a meaningful union.

Find out more about Billy Klüver in this interview with Garnet Hertz from 1995.

This paper discusses three methodological themes employed by contemporary media artists who reuse obsolete information technology hardware in their work. Methodologies include the exploration of the hidden “blackboxed” layer of technology by circuit bending artists like Reed Ghazala, the tactical use of technologies to bring social change by artists like Natalie Jeremijenko, and the archaeological use of outdated technologies to intervene in history by artists like Tom Jennings. These themes are presented as useful tools to construct a language of reuse which serves a valuable function in a culture increasingly confronted by electronic waste and assists in critiquing assumptions of obsolescence, technological progress and understanding digital culture primarily within the framework of “new media.”

Este libro reúne un conjunto de ensayos sobre la historia y la actualidad del arte tecnológico en América Latina. Organizado en cuatro capítulos temáticos, brinda un panorama sobre el desarrollo histórico de esta producción, las reflexiones y nociones estéticas que pone en movimiento, las consecuencias sociopolíticas de su aparición y los desafíos que abre su circulación institucional y presentación expositiva.

'Toward Responsive Architectures' is a part of the exploration of the interconnectedness of what surrounds us. The focus of the Responsive Architectures: Subtle Technologies collection is on a new generation of interactive systems within science, art and architecture that are based on constantly evolving relationships. Using a wide definition of architecture that includes both built and natural realms, we examine dynamic systems and environments of scales from molecules to cities. A responsive environment can be described as a networked structure that senses action within a field of attention and responds dynamically with programmed and designed logic. Focusing the issue of responsiveness more precisely within the field of architecture raises multiple questions: which parameters of such environments might a designer address in order to imaginatively employ their capacities for dynamic transformation and interaction? These projects cast light on the subject of responsive architecture from diverse viewpoints derived from current architecture, science, and art practices. They examine the relation between a physical environment and its inhabitants and focus in particular on professional practice. How do responsive systems affect us? Scientific research, art and architecture come together in this multidisciplinary forum documenting the 2006 Subtle Technologies Festival of Art and Science. Subjects include electronic art and performance installations, research in cell structures and natural systems, and design of interactive buildings. Discussions include historical context and contemporary implications.

The emergence of a society increasingly pervaded by technology and science and who rely on it begins to pose problems not only in itself but also in societies and organizations. In a Century – 1900- pervaded by technology and characterized by its rapid development also art and artists began to first represent it and then to implement it in its work. The positions, the aesthetic issues and technologies are very different, but all seem to converge on some points, especially on a born-again and re-established (through technology) relationship with the public. In this text Frank Popper illustrates the principles and questions on which in 1983 created the exhibition called “Electra”.

Published in 2009 by Ediciones Polígrafa with a foreword by Lynne Cooke, 640 pages and nearly 1000 illustrations, this highly readable monograph is the most comprehensive and in-depth treatment of Gary Hill’s work to date, written in close connection with the artist, and offers an essential theoretical and  scholarly frame for continuing study.

Gary Hill (Santa Monica, 1951), one of the most accomplished artists of his generation, is regarded as a major contributor to new media art from the 1970s into the present. His early forays into the interconnections between language and electronic imaging and the discovery of a principle of “electronic linguistics” opened new territory in art, with implications for language art, consciousness, thinking, and extended possibilities in electronic composition. His work generates resonant philosophical and poetic insight as he explores the formal interplay of electronic visual and audio elements, often in conjunction with the physical body and with exploration of many aspects of “physicality.” With experimental rigor, conceptual precision, and imaginative leaps of discovery, Hill’s work in video is about, and itself comprises, a new form of writing.

The authors, George Quasha and Charles Stein, poets/writers/artists themselves, met Gary Hill in the mid-1970s and have worked interactively and performed with him for three decades. Their long direct experience of the work enables them to reveal and analyze the main currents running through the artist’s whole career. They pay special attention, for instance, to the single-channel video work that is the foundation of Gary Hill’s better known installations. In addition to detailed discussions of the major works from the 1970s to the present, presented in a Prologue, seventeen chapters, and a long two-part conversation between the authors and the artist, there is a selection of seminal writings by the artist; a descriptive index of the 104 works discussed, including production and technical details; full bibliographical, biographical, and exhibition listings; and an index of names, titles, and concepts.

NOTE on the present text: This is a PDF of the book that served as the final proof, which retains some very minor typographic errors. For readability we recommend enlarging the text on screen. Updates on Gary Hill's work and the publication of this text in an enlarged edition will appear on www.garyhill.com.

I analyse five forms of images: electronic, digital, interactive, networked and living, all of which challenge traditional descriptions and expectations. I analyse them from the technical-ontological, phenomenological and cultural perspective to demonstrate different ways in which they discuss and deconstruct the notion of an image. Finally, I try to propose a new context for understanding the discussed forms of new imagery, i.e. the context of post-imagery.

El presente ensayo tiene como objetivo explorar las ecologías de saberes y conocimientos técnicos, teóricos, metodológicos, experimentales y procesuales tejidos entre las artes electrónicas, el radio arte y las ciencias ambientales. Para cumplir con este propósito se consideran obras de tres proyectos latinoamericanos: el colectivo Interspecifics (Emmanuel Anguiano, Leslie García, Paloma López y Felipe Rebolledo), el colectivo Electrobiota (Gabriela Munguía y Guadalupe Chávez), y el Laboratorio de Ecologías Invisibles (Gabriela Munguía).
Interspecifics, Electrobiota y Ecologías Invisibles logran captar el cambio de la escucha de un ser-en-el-mundo en tránsito a ser-mundo mediante el proceso de censar la materialidad vibrante, energética, de entidades biológicas y/o geológicas con el propósito de escuchar redes cognocentes e inteligencias no-humanas. Sus trabajos proponen pensar la posibilidad de una ontología relacional sonoro-matérica, que para este ensayo evidencia un tecno-animismo interespecies mediado por epistemes sónicas.

There came a pin point in my life where I realised, I could not live without a mobile phone. It’s a simple technology yet, I depend on it get through the day. It dawned on me, we humans rely on technology 24/7 and without it functioning life would be chaotic. Today, electronic technology has become widespread and is difficult to survive even without basic means of it. The electronic technology evolves parallels with national development. Indirectly during the era of modernization has been to divide the Malay community with the temptations of secularism, set aside the question of deity and took Humanism whereas it is based on self-interest and the nature of greed (Zainal Kling, 2009)

And when unwanted and broken down technology are thrown away, they
become electronic wastes. And there’s an abundance of it. Though it is sad to see the wastes from these gadgets that we depend on so much destroy the environment and us slowly but surely. E-waste contains the electronic component that can be manifested and represents an aesthetics meaning, reaction of different era of technology (timeline/chronology) and a special history. This is because certain technology are created to suit especially for consumer needs. Foreseeing the danger, as an artist, this is a warning.

Bikini Beach Zombie Massacre was designed as a critique of the tensions between sex and violence in digital games.  It was created as a part of the Critical Gameplay project.  The project is an ongoing effort to create alternate play experiences that critique the conventions of digital play.  The games in the collection are designed to reevaluate player perspective on gameplay experiences.  They are offered as social critique demonstrating that conventional play is riddled with its own problems, complications and assumptions.  Bikini Beach Zombie Massacre is unique to the 10 game collection in that it relies on conventional mechanics, but unique content.  The game contains a collection of sexual images, innuendo and cultural references that are explicitly sophomoric and hyper-masculine.

This text is an investigation into planned obsolescence, media culture and temporalities of media objects; we approach this under the umbrella of media archaeology and aim to extend the media archaeological interest of knowledge into an art methodology, following the work of theorists such as Erkki Huhtamo [3] and others who have given the impetus to think about the complex materiality of media as technology – from Friedrich Kittler to Wolfgang Ernst and Sean Cubitt. Hence, media archaeology becomes not only a method for excavation of the repressed, the forgotten, or the past, but it extends itself into an artistic method close to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture, circuit bending, hardware hacking, and other exercises that are closely related to the political economy of information technology. Media in its various layers embodies memory: not only human memory, but the memory of things, of objects, of chemicals, and circuits.

El arte electrónico es la primera experiencia artística que ha nacido al mismo tiempo que su crítica e historia, y evoluciona al paso de la tecnología en que se sustenta. Además de los agentes habituales que encontramos en los otros caminos del arte, esto es, artistas, críticos/historiadores y un público muy participativo, aquí debemos citar a científicos y tecnólogos. Su relación con los medios de comunicación y su experiencia de caseta de feria, condujo algunos trabajos-no siempre los más logrados-hacia los titulares periodísticos casi desde sus comienzos. Esta popularidad lo ha teñido con un cierto halo de magia y cosa extraña. ¡Pasen y vean!

Publicado en 2013 en el nº 253 de Litoral. Revista de poesía, arte y pensamiento. "Arte y ciencia, vasos comunicantes". ISSN: 0212-4378

Zombie media addresses the living deads of media culture. As such, it is clearly related to the earlier calls to investigate "dead media" by Bruce Sterling and others: to map the forgotten, out-of-use, obsolete and judged dysfunctional technologies in order to understand better the nature of media cultural development. And yet, we want to point to a further issue when it comes to abandoned media: the amount of discarded electronic media is not only the excavation ground for quirky media archaeological interests, but one of the biggest threats for ecology in terms of the various toxins they are leaking back to nature. A discarded piece of media technology is never just discarded but part of a wider pattern of circulation that ties obsoleteness to recycling centers, dismantling centres in Asia, markets in Nigeria, and so forth - a whole global political ecology of different sorts where one of the biggest questions is the material toxicity of our electronic media. Media kills nature as they remain as living deads.

In the field of computer music research the development of new input devices for musical performance and sound in- teraction plays an important role. This paper explores the cultural implications embedded in the use and concept of the notion of the instrument in such fields. Cultural implications in this particular context are the meaning structures that evolve from knowledge expressed through language and developed through practices. The main focus of this inquiry is based on the potential to detect the impact of new computer music research on its socio-cultural environment. Concepts such as assemblage and ecology will propose alternative ways to address the hybrid relational (interdisciplinary) networks that create such input devices. This approach proposes alternative models to conceptualize interaction as performative relations between humans and non- humans, as outlined in the domain of Science and Technology Studies. Computer research interweaves the cultural dimensions with a social context and foregrounds the political implications signified by its practices and technologies.

Keywords: instrument, (epistemic) cultures, ecology, environment, network, assemblage, apparatus

Sound and visual installation where resources close to artificial intelligence are applied in the composition of a musical and visual flow in continuous transformation, without formal resolving elements throughout the installation time, whatever its duration, dynamically built, to starting from a database accessible in the IP space and initially made up of materials obtained by reading words from world women's literature, spoken by diverse female voices in as many languages as possible and constantly and dynamically maintained. At present there are sound samples from 60 languages. The process began with languages spoken in Barcelona. Currently, any language is welcome (https://deas.sonoscop.net). Images are dynamically constructed from the graphic treatment of texts in the various languages and alphabets, chosen according to spectral characteristics of sounds and procedures selected at variable time intervals. Its instantaneous behavior is reactive in real time to the general dynamics of sounds. Despite the continuous change in the sound and visual flow that is generated as a consequence of ethical-aesthetic reasons dictated by the need to construct works avoiding the traditional musical forms marked by patriarchy, I consider the problems of the distillation of the essence and the maintenance of the identity of the work of art, which, in this case, is achieved through the “intelligent” manipulation of the timbral colorations of voices and the balance of the images. To this end, recordings of readings and the appearance of texts are subjected to various forms of signal processing; in particular, transposition, juxtaposition, superposition, convolution, fragmentation, granulation, filtering, and spatialization.

Le propos que nous souhaitons développer se situe dans les rapports physiques et les relations au virtuel. En effet une nouvelle ère de création artistique est apparue depuis plusieurs décennies.
Quels en sont les enjeux ? quels en sont les outils de compréhension, théoriques et pratiques ?
Les axes de recherches se trouvent tout à la fois :
Dans la corporalité avec les notions de présence, d’espace, de distance, de puissance sonore, de projection, de performance…, dans les échanges de data, ou encore  dans le contrôle à distance…Et enfin dans l’effacement de certaines frontières notamment entre public et artistes avec la  participation, les ateliers, les échanges, les démonstrations et l’interaction.

The proliferation of information and network technologies has led to a situation where at least some degree of technological skill has become a precondition for social participation. The challenge of facilitating technological literacy has been addressed differently from various players, from the commercial providers of software and hardware, the official educational system, the 'maker movement' as well as from the critical approaches of 'open knowledge' communities. Do we all have to be 'makers'? What does technological critique mean in the 21st century? Artistic Technology inquires the " artistic " in technological arts, in a world which is largely dominated by technology. The conditions of technological interventions are questioned, with artistic-technological research and practice. The focus is on the engagement of communities of artists and interdisciplinary researchers with the intention to facilitate technological literacy and to inspire a critical understanding of the social consequences of technology.

Caligrafías inmersivas is an artistic installation.
This document briefly presents the conceptual and investigative explorations underlying the art work, a big-format & immersive installation consist of hand-drawn hanging paper, a neon sign, and Arduino-controlled light play.  The minimum dimensions required to the exhibition space are: 5m. (length) x 3.50 m. (width) x 3.50 m (height)

The installation results from crossing two immersive sensorial experiences: one is the contemplation of life on a Lily pond, and the second one is the hypnotic, hallucinatory and des stabilizing experience in the city of Hong Kong, plus a link to Bruce Nauman's 1986 EAT WAR.

En el ojo la imagen no se proyecta sobre un plano sino sobre una esfera visual. El Renacimiento se percató de esta diferencia y “naturalizó” la perspectiva “artificialis. La homogeneidad, producto de la imagen perspectiva, muestra que es observada con un solo ojo, afín a la máquina de fotos, y que el espacio representado indica solo posición, infinito, constancia, es la matemática pura opuesta al espacio perceptible, psico-fisiológico, no es un espacio dado sino un espacio construido.
Según Panovsky el Renacimiento tuvo que preguntarse si iba a construir una perspectiva regida por la posición del espectador para ser mirada de cierta forma o es el espectador el que está obligado a ubicarse en algún lugar preciso e ideal. Se plantea una distancia del objeto en relación con el sujeto para su propia independencia y dar validez a sus propias leyes. A través de las matemáticas la perspectiva construyó  un sistema de relaciones espaciales en la conformación de las imágenes representadas.
En la misma época también resurgen los estudios sobre la cámara oscura que se vale de las matemáticas y la perspectiva para la representación. Según Benjamín en la fotografía y el cine, la técnica re-configura y confirma un sistema de reglas regido por los aparatos.
En la caracterización de las Imágenes técnicas basadas en complejas relaciones matemáticas, Jodi Alberich especifica que ya no se trata de la mimética del cine, la tv y la fotografía. Ahora se trata de un modelo de síntesis y virtualización. Aunque veamos una imagen sobre una pantalla, esto responde solamente a una simulación gráfica, no tiene peso, ni medida como antes podíamos pensar la imagen, son números.

Esas mismas matemáticas presentes en la técnica, posibilitan eventos donde el espectador no solo elige desde donde observar sino que modifica intrínsecamente las obras, a tal punto que las podemos considerar “organismos vivos”.

Cette annexe contient : (I) le début abandonné de ce que aurait été le deuxième chapitre de l’Essai sur la radio et le cinéma, ayant pour titre « Données immédiates de la radio et du cinéma », chapitre mentionné dans le texte que nous avons établi comme « Chapitre 4 » ; (II) la transcription de ce manuscrit par Sophie Brunet ; (III) les notes manuscrites de Schaeffer pour le quinzième paragraphe, « Des idées aux choses et des choses aux l’idées », de l’Essai sur la radio et le cinéma ; (IV) la transcription de ce manuscrit par Sophie Brunet ; (V) la transcription complète du texte de l’Essai sur la radio et le cinéma tel qu’il se présente dans le premier cahier du dossier 960 avec des notes interprétatives de Carlos Palombini et les premières corrections de Sophie Brunet ; (VI) un extrait du Journal de Schaeffer avec le compte-rendu de la visite du 6 mai 1942 à André Malraux.

Este anexo contém : (I) o início abandonado do que teria sido o segundo capítulo do Ensaio sobre a rádio e o cinema, intitulado “Premissas imediatas da rádio e do cinema”, mencionado no texto que estabelecemos como “Quarto capítulo”; (II) a transcrição deste manuscrito por Sophie Brunet; (III) as notas manuscritas de Schaeffer para o décimo quinto parágrafo, “Das idéias às coisas e das coisas às idéias”, do Ensaio sobre a rádio e o cinema; (IV) a transcrição deste manuscrito por Sophie Brunet; (V) a transcrição completa do texto do Ensaio sobre a rádio e o cinema como ele se apresenta no primeiro caderno do dossiê 960, com notas interpretativas de Carlos Palombini e as primeiras correções de Sophie Brunet; (VI) um excerto do Diário de Schaeffer contendo o relato de sua visita de 6 de maio de 1942 a André Malraux.

Como extensión al arte electrónico, las artes electrónicas suelen referir un conjuntos de mecanismos y conocimientos para encarar el nexo entre arte ciencia y tecnología, que no necesariamente es aplicado a la creación de obra artística,  utilizando estos conocimientos de distintas formas, entre ellas para la creación de bienes y servicios relacionados al arte.

This dissertation reports on discoveries, hypotheses and conclusions of research on a kind of collaborative production that connects arts, science, activism, innovation, design, among other areas. It focuses on the appearing, in recent years, of the so-called experimental labs – network articulated spaces in which such a production comes into being. Under that perspective are approached denominations such as media labs, hackerspaces, Fablabs, among others. The research analyses some of these models against the background of techno-utopian imaginary, which asserts information technologies as tools to fight against burocracy and allienation of society. With the goal of questioning the usual association of experimental labs in general to the development of cybernetics and particularly to the history of MIT Media Lab in the USA, the research explores other narrative threads for the multiple fields that influence the formation of labs. Attention is paid to the dialogue between, on one side, the contemporary context of labs in different parts of the world, and on the other the contribution of the idea of a particularly brazilian digital culture – which over the last decade offered the possibility of building a discourse that draws closer free (open) software, cultural diversity and public policies for social inclusion. Two particular axes of the brazilian digital culture are discussed: the compensatory, which seeks to correct historical distortions by including populations in the so-called information age; and the exploratory, that seeks to criticize and influence future paths of the articulation of technology and society. The dissertation reports as well on field research undertaken in Finland, where were experimented the preparation of an international festival on arts and technology, visits to different spaces situated on the field of experimental labs, and personal contact with members of groups and collectives that work on the border of culture and technology. Such experiences contributed to the understanding of important elements of experimental labs, especially the aspect of non-conformation to the expectations of a society increasingly ruled by the transformation of every cultural expression into economic value. This understanding is deepened by the end of the dissertation on the image of the experimental lab as a blank space that, as well as working as an interface between digital networks and the particular dynamics of the places in which they are located, are also situated as instances of resistance and reinvention before the cybernetical informational capitalism. Keywords: cyberculture, media labs, experimental labs, media arts, digital culture.