Mixed Realities

The thesis of this essay can be stated quite directly: Slavoj Žižek, despite having little to say about mashup and remixing in any direct way, engages this new media phenomena in both theory and practice, providing contemporary culture with both a conceptual understanding of the mashup and a carefully executed illustration of its methodology. The examination of this will proceed by way of two movements. The first investigates how Žižek's work, especially his general interest in "short circuiting," provides theoretical insight for understanding the mashup and its cultural significance. The second turns things around, demonstrating how the mashup explains and describes Žižek's own compositional practices. In other words, the first part explains the mashup by way of Žižek, while the second explains Žižek by way of the mashup.

This special issue of 'Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies' offers an original and provocative contribution to debates around adaptation and appropriation in film, television and new media.

The issue is organised in four sections, each dealing with a different form of cultural borrowing. Part I examines 'Hollywood Cinema and Artistic Imitation' and provides three complimentary historical accounts of the development of adaptation within US cinema. Part II looks to the future and examines the contemporary practice of 'Found Footage and Remix Culture'. Shifting focus onto more imitative forms of appropriation, Part III focuses on 'Modes of Parody and Pastiche.' Finally, in Part IV, the focus shifts away from the predominant focus on US media to consider the contribution that 'Transnational Screen Cultures' can make to our understandings of the adaptive act.

Contributors are: I. Q. Hunter, Jason Scott, Stijn Joye, Eli Horwatt, Emma Cocker, Sérgio Dias Branco, Brigid Cherry, Darren Elliott, Jordan Lavender-Smith, Austin Fisher, Neelam Sidhar Wright, and Pamela Atzori.

The affordances of digital technologies increase the available semiotic resources through which one may speak. In this context, video remix becomes a rich avenue for communication and expression in ways that have heretofore been the province of big media. Yet recent attempts to categorize remix are limiting, mainly as a result of their reliance on the visual arts and cinema theory as the gauge by which remix is measured. A more valuable view of remix is as a digital argument that works across the registers of sound, text, and image to make claims and provides evidence to support those claims. After exploring the roots of contemporary notions of orality, literacy, narrative and rhetoric, I turn to examples of marginalized, disparate artifacts that are already in danger of neglect in the burgeoning history of remix. In examining these pieces in terms of remix theory to date, a more expansive view is warranted. An approach based on digital argument is capable of accounting for the rhetorical strategies of the formal elements of remixes while still attending to the specificity of the discourse communities from which they arise. This effort intervenes in current conversations and sparks enhancement of its concepts to shape the mediascape.

RESUME
Cette oeuvre d’art web (Net Art), est une performance d’art relationnel où un joueur ou interacteur entre dans un dialogue, par le jeu, avec l’interface. Mon dispositif enligne est accessible sur le site http://www.genevievegilbert.com. Ce jeu-parcours interactif se veut être une expérience sociale à partir de certaines actions de la vie quotidienne.

En explorant ce téléjeu (Chevassu, 1995, p.136), l’interacteur apprend à connaître les participants à des performances filmées pendant trois rituels banals de la vie de tous les jours. Dans un esprit ludique et participatif, l’interacteur peut choisir d’interagir et d’écouter les rencontres entre les trois protagonistes et moi-même. Il côtoie Pascale, Patrick ou Simon et les observe passer par des étapes d'attente, de toilettage et enfin, de rendez-vous : des actions banales qui mènent à un échange souvent drôle, spontané et inattendu. Les participants ont accepté d’être les cobayes de mon investigation sur les processus opératifs du désir dans le quotidien. Au sein du ludiciel, l’interacteur peut choisir dans quel ordre franchir les scènes. Il accumule des points en manipulant
des éléments visuels et sonores, et découvre quelques vignettes vidéo cachées derrière un certain nombre d’artefacts. Il peut donc expérimenter le jeu dans le but d’accumuler des points ou simplement en déambulant de manière exploratoire dans chacun des trois mondes.

Cette oeuvre interactive utilisant les techniques et supports reliés à l’Internet à été précédée de plusieurs prototypes, et testée par des groupes témoins. Un rapport d’enquête a été mené à terme et le public cible de choix se trouve âgé de treize à trente-trois ans.

MOTS-CLEFS: INTERNET, NET ART, WEBART, JEU, LUDICIEL,
COMMUNICATION, INTERACTION, PARTICIPATION, RELATION, ART,PERFORMANCE, THÉÂTRE QUOTIDIEN, MULTIMÉDIA, DESIGN, VIDÉO.

This essay investigates the figure of the author and the concept of authorship in audio mashups and remixing. The analysis traces the development and functional aspects of this particular authority figure, entertains the recent crisis in authorship that has led to claims of the “death of the author,” and investigates the way both aspects shape our understanding of and responses to the mashup. The objective of the investigation is not to provide an authoritative account that will decide things once and for all. Instead, it concludes with a more sophisticated understanding of how the question concerning authorship needs to be situated and deployed.

As part of my ongoing research on communicational and interpretational strategies in contemporary post-internet art, I am deeply interested in web based art projects and their collaborative potential for their viewer.
As a facet of this research, I did a semiotic analysis of responses to Watching Martin Kohout  YouTube video cycle to uncover on which variables and to what extent is the meaning of the work dependent, how the meaning can be developed and interpreted by the recipient of the work, and how this recipient by his very response further influences or actively develops the meaning of the work for its other recipients, thus explaining why diametrically opposed readings of the work are activated and maintained (as reflected in responses). The term ‘response’ is used here in its widest sense, meaning any form of viewer’s interaction with the work traceable on YouTube and with the potential to influence or alter the meaning of the original artwork.
For this purpose a special taxonomy of responses to YouTube videos has been developed, set according to the degree of participation on the project and its further creative shift or extension.
Although designed specially for net artworks, this taxonomy is basically applicable on every YouTube video.

¿qué resonancias genera el modelo del software libre cuando ingresa a la escena del arte contemporáneo en Argentina y algunos países de Latinoamérica?
El modelo de producción, circulación y recepción "participativa" que practica y difunde el movimiento de software libre, tiene múltiples resonancias entre los artistas -potenciales y
realizadas- en tanto creadores de “programas” y usuarios de herramientas digitales para la creación y circulación de sus producciones. Estas resonancias se producen en un contexto socio-cultural amplio -del cual forman parte incluso, las interacciones “globales” de las que participan los actores
locales- que incluye a las prácticas artísticas institucionalizadas así como también a aquellas
sucediendo en las esferas de la comunicación cotidiana; estableciendo ecos y retroalimentaciones diversas entre los campos en interacción.
Las preguntas claves y mutuamente compartidas giran alrededor del estatus artístico de las herramientas digitales, y de las producciones resultantes, así como de sus copias; o de la naturaleza del proceso creador, cuando intervienen tecnologías previamente diseñadas para otros usos; sobre el
grado de conocimiento y control por parte de los artistas de estos nuevos materiales y procedimientos; o el potencial de ruptura e innovación de un nuevo medio, o incluso, su capacidad
de generar “convergencia” y poner en diálogo campos disciplinares en principio alejados como son la informática y el arte.
Muchas de estas preguntas no son nuevas para los artistas, desde la invención de la fotografía en adelante, pero localmente, han tenido respuestas vagas y diversas a lo largo del siglo XX por parte de la institución artística, en contraposición a una intensa experimentación por parte de los artistas. Todo ésto teniendo lugar en el marco de países mayormente receptores de tecnología, y en cierto sentido, también de “tendencias” artísticas.

By incorporating mixed-reality technologies in everyday experience, designers endeavour to overcome physical limitations and surpass human abilities, exceeding the realms of the feasible. Experience design involves the creation of the content and the context for meaningful and satisfying experiences to unfold among those participating. In parallel, contemporary notions of aesthetics embrace a pragmatic perspective, supporting aesthetics as aesthesis that emerges while interacting within particular physical and artificial worlds. The posthuman philosophy aspires the transcendence of human presence and experience on account of technological advancement, offering a thorough “view of the body as field of relational forces in motion and of reality as immanent embodied process of becoming”, as presented in the Posthumanist Manifesto. Based on Hassenzahl’s view on experience, in the context of this paper, we will analyze how human experience is modified in the contemporary mixed-reality world, and how design, and experience design in particular, are influenced by integrating the physical, the potential, and the unexpected, through a posthuman perspective.

Contents
1. Meditation 2
1.1 On the Meditation Practice 3
1.2 Meditation in Eastern Christianity 4
1.3 Hesychasm 4
1.4 Meditation in Medieval Europe: The Sermon of Meister Eckhart 4
1.5 Dream as a State Close to Meditation 5
1.6 Meditation and Consciousness 5
1.6.1 Meditations as a Journey Inside Oneself 5
1.7 Our Unconscious self 5
1.7.1 Can the Unconscious Be Socially Controlled? 5
1.8 Symbols 5
1.8.1 Symbols in the Variety of Their Manifestations 5
1.8.2 Masonry 6
1.8.3 Simple Geometric Symbols 6
1.8.4 Trinity 6
1.8.5 Cross …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………7
1.8.6 Numerical Symbol Eight 7
1.8.7 Mandalas 7
1.9 Concluding Remarks 7
1.10 An Auto Training Experiment 7
1.11 The Triad 8
1.12 Freedom 8
1.13 Slavery 8
1.14 Dignity 8
1.15 Symbols 9
1.16 Experimental Experiences 9
1.17 The Unconscious 11
1.18 Mandala 11
2 Meditation and Knowledge 11
2.1 Knowledge as an Experience 11
2.2 Create Scientific Activity as Unconscious Meditation 11
2.3 Time 13
2.4 Holisticity of the world 13
2.4.1 Reincarnation 13
2.4.2 Other Realities 14
2.5 Potentiality 14
2.6 Knowledge and Love ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………14
2.7 World View 14
2.8 The Bayesion Syllogism 15
2.9 Consciousness and Knowledge 15
2.10 Conclusions 16

This work of Net Art is a relational art performance in which a player (or interactor) engages in a dialogue with the interface. This game is available online at http://kastorfakto.com/game. Its interactive journey is a social experience through simple daily life activities.

Exploring the interactive game (Chevassu, 1995, p.136), the interactor gets to know the protagonists and watches them perform three routine activities. In an entertaining and engaging spirit, the interactor can get involved and listen as I speak to three different persons. They can mix with ‘Simon’,‘Pascale’or ‘Patrick’ and watch as these participants groom themselves and wait before eventually meeting me. These ordinary activities lead to a fun and spontaneous exchange. The protagonists agreed to be the guinea pigs in my exploration of the operative process of desire in daily life. When entering the game, the interactors can select a scene. They collect points by manipulating visual and audio elements, and discover videos hidden behind some of the artefacts. They are able to experiment with the game either to improve their score, or just for the pleasure of exploring the three stages.

This interactive online work results from several developmental versions, and has been tested by various control groups. A research report has been conducted and the target audience age ranges between 13 and 33 years old.

KEYWORDS : INTERNET – NET ART – WEB ART – GAME – GAME SOFTWARE – COMMUNICATION – INTERACTION – INDIE – RELATIONAL – ART – PERFORMANCE – DAILY LIFE – MULTIMEDIA – DESIGN – VIDEO.

Mixed reality systems integrate virtual reality with real-world perception and cognition to offer enhanced interaction possibilities with the environment. Our aim is to demonstrate that mixed reality technologies strongly affect our aesthetic sense and mental models. So, in designing such technologies, we need to incorporate perspectives from different disciplines. We present different approaches and implementations of cognitive enhancement and cognitive technologies, consider some practical applications of mixed reality systems and discuss how they impact the user perception, body image and aesthetic sense.

In this work-in-progress paper, we investigate the creation of a technical framework (the Pedagogical Virtual Machine or PVM) which provides a layered analysis of the technical and pedagogical processes that are interacting together for any given learning activity (in the context of learning about embedded computing). We particularly focus on describing the structure of the pedagogical layer and how it handles the computational objects within it. This model is used as a means to create more effective tools for students who are studying embedded computing, which are typified by topics such as the internet of things, pervasive computing and robotics. This approach aims to enrich the experience for learners by constructing a meaningful view of the invisible things around us. Finally, we propose an embedded computing scenario that makes use of the PVM model.

The immersive installation Postcatalog, developed ad hoc for the exhibition Unchained Catalogs organized by the Vice-Rectorate of Culture of the University of Malaga (12-17-2020, 01-29-2021), addresses two lines of inquiry. Firstly, the project delves into how to make high-dimensional spaces derived from computational image processing physically experiential. Secondly, the project raises the question of how traditional catalog ordering will take shape in a media ecology where the focus on books has recently shifted toward new scenarios of mixed realities that include viewers as active entities in their ambivalent cognitive-emotional dimension.

We hope this email finds you well! Currently, we are in the process of editing a forthcoming publication entitled Mobile Technologies and Augmented Reality in Open Education, to be published by IGI Global, an international publisher of progressive academic research. We would like to take this opportunity to cordially invite you to submit your work for consideration in this publication. We are familiar with your research interests and expertise in open and distance education, augmented reality and/or mobile learning and we are certain that your contribution on this topic and/or other related research areas would make an excellent addition to this publication.

... | Ayuda. El arte público en las páginas web de los ayuntamientos españoles. Autores: JesúsPedro Lorente Lorente; Localización: Arte, poder y sociedad en la España de los siglos XV a XX / Miguel Cabañas Bravo ( aut. ), Amelia López-Yarto Elizalde ( aut. ...

There is a distance between the idea of a design in the
imagination and its representation, communication and realisation. Architects use a variety of tools to bridge this gap. Each tool places different demands on the designer and each, through inherent characteristics and affordances, introduces reinterpretations of the design idea, thus imposing a divergence between the idea and the expression of the idea. Design is an activity that is greatly complex, and influenced by numerous factors. Most researchers of Mixed Realities (MRs) have focused on their use as presentation or simulation environments. It has been suggested that MR can empower designers to express, explore and convey their imagination more easily. For these reasons the very different nature of MR with its unique properties may allow architects and learners to create designs that other instruments do not offer. There has been inadequate exploration in the use of these realms for the acts of designing, as well as in educational contexts of design-learning.

This presentation proposes a short overview of a pilot application developed by FMSH-ESCoM for the European R&D project LOGOS (6th FP) called « People and Cultures of the World » (PCM standing for “Peuples et Cultures du Monde”).
PCM is a video portal based exclusively on re-appropriated videos (i.e. re-described, re-indexed, re-published,... videos with respect to specific user communities and needs).  Its URL is: http://semioweb.msh-paris.fr/corpus/pci/EN/Default.asp
PCM is a concrete example for user-centric re-appropriation strategies of digital heritage resources by the means of sophisticated semantic (semiotic) technologies available through a technical platform enabling any (habilitated) user to work with video resources and to publish them following his/her specific needs and desires.

In this Critical Remix Video (CRV), the three 'official' versions of 'Do They Know It's Christmas' from 1984, 1989 and 2004 are mashed together with the most recent version, from the TV musical 'Glee' (2009). All four music videos are combined with footage from the Occupy Wall Street movement, contrasted against footage from the Arab Spring uprisings, in particular, those which took place in African countries in 2011.

Experiences matter. We're all driven by them, no matter how good or bad they are. Experiences teach us how to interact with the world: where we want to go shopping, study, work, or just have fun. So when a design needs to engage its users, it needs to perfectly choreograph an experience down to its little details. This is a workshop in experiential design as it combines design and tech to create, through dimensions of space and time, an engaging narrative. It involves the orchestration of research, storytelling, user behavior, aesthetics, cognitive stimulation, and purpose for the creation of meaningful experiences. Examples of experiential graphic design include wayfinding systems, architectural graphics, signage and wayfinding, exhibit design, retail design, and themed/branded spaces. Increasingly, experiential design involves the use of ubiquitous technologies that present dynamic content which makes possible the development of rich interactions between people and the information systems that surround us. In this workshop, students will exercise problem-solving skills through projects that will address a wide range of needs. While applying multidisciplinary techniques they will blend interaction with visual communication, thus becoming more comfortable in operating at the intersection of art, science, and tech.

Current video work is addressing technology and the variety of effects it has on identity issues within an increasingly digital world. In certain works, television is examined not only for its content but also for its ability to intrude into the everyday lives of its viewers. Kristin Lucas, a video artist working out of New York, creates works that portray the psychological response of the television viewer within a collaged environment that references the structure of television itself. Lucas's examination not only demands that we question our relationship with what we watch on television, but also encourages us to acknowledge TV's influence upon other computer-based systems. Toronto artists Jubal Brown and Istvan Kantor also examine the impact of technology through video art. Brown's videos seem to visuaIly illustrate the psychological intake of signals emitted from the television screen. His rhythmical use of imagery, a technique common to several contemporary Canadian video artists, contains an aggressive feel ing of attack towards the television set. Although the subject matter of Istvan Kantor's work is not television specifically, the artist's message about the "constant noise" of the current generation undoubtedly fits into a discussion about the mental disarray of a society raised on television. Video art is questioning the media absorbed viewer by allowing a personal viewpoint to disrupt the landscape of the media, rather than the other way around.

" This work of Net Art is a relational art performance in which a player (or interactor) engages in a dialogue with the interface. This game is available online at http://kastorfakto. com/game. Its interactive journey is a social experience... more

This article investigates recent Northern European examples of how AV-industry’s micro-companies have innovated their output by applying some of the principles of “remix cinema” or “crossmedia production”. In terms of analytic input the article discusses theoretical integration among select approaches that, despite their disciplinary distance, are connected by putting an emphasis on the remix phenomena observed in culture. The discussion focuses on the potential of ‘cultural semiotics’ (Yuri Lotman, et al.) to interpret the form innovation as facilitated by remix practices in cultures. It could be understood as a valuable complementary approach to Lawrence Lessig’s normative approach to the contemporary “remix culture”. The empirical part of the paper discusses the challenges select ‘crossmedia productions’ (from Northern Germany, Denmark, Latvia, Sweden and Estonia) have met and how the new remixed crossmedia forms could be understood to facilitate new institutional forms of production.

Facebook: sociální síť jako prostor pro umění
Přímá uživatelská zkušenost se sítí facebook v průběhu posledních několika let ovlivnila nejen naše používání internetu a chování, ale také svět umění; a to nejen umění vystavované v galeriích, ale ještě citelněji způsoby prezentace umění na internetu a především pak také umění internetové.
V rámci facebooku vznikají specifické formy internetového umění, životné právě v tomto prostředí („facebook-based net art“), stává se prostorem pro živé performance, ale také speciální umělecké galerie, výstavní prostory, kurátorské projekty nebo umělecké rezidence. Umění na facebooku se potýká se zcela specifickým temporálním zatížením, se kterým se při jiných formách své prezentace setká jen stěží. Uživatelé bývají navíc nezřídka využíváni nejen jako publikum, ale také jako materiál pro internetové práce umělců.
Samostatnou kapitolu pak tvoří přenos specifického vizuálního nářečí a vyjadřovacích prostředků facebooku do externího prostředí a další kreativní práce s nimi.

Tarantino é o mestre do Avant-pop. Algoz irônico e antropofágico da indústria hollywoodiana e do entretenimento pasteurizado, aqui não há lugar para patrulhas que desprezam a cultura de massas, tratando seus produtos como lixo industrial. Ela está no nosso horizonte e seus clichês estão aí para serem devorados pelas inúmeras estratégias de haqueamento simbólico.

Critical evaluations of audio mash-ups and remixes tend to congregate around two poles.  On the one hand, these often clever re-combinations of recorded music are celebrated as innovative and creative interventions in the material of bland commodity culture.  On the other hand, they are often reviled as derivative, inauthentic, and illegal because they do nothing more than appropriate and reconfigure the intellectual property of others.  This essay does not side with either position but identifies and critiques the common understanding and fundamental assumptions that make these two, opposed positions possible in the first place.  The investigation of this matter is divided into two main parts.  The first considers the traditional understanding of technologically enabled reproduction and the often unquestioned value it invests in the concept of originality.  It does so by beginning with a somewhat unlikely source, Plato's Phaedrus—a dialogue that, it is argued, originally articulates the original concept of originality that both determines and is reproduced in the theories and practices of sound recording.  The second part of the essay demonstrates how the audio mash-up deliberately intervenes in this tradition, advancing a fundamental challenge to the original understanding and privilege of originality.  In making this argument, however, the essay does not endeavor to position the mash-up as anything unique or innovative.  Instead, it demonstrates how mash-ups, true to their thoroughly derivative nature, plunder, reuse, and remix anomalies that are already available in and constitutive of recorded music.

This video is an educational piece designed to raise awareness of the issues surrounding copyright infringement and freedom of expression that are so prevalant in our online societies today. You Tube are removing so called 'infringing' material at the behest of large media companies such as the BBC, Paramount Pictures and MGM and deleting accounts left, right and centre. This is a terrible shame as a lot of the highly creative work being produced today is video remix work and many people may never see these entertaining pieces if they are 'erased from existence' by big corporations. For anyone else who has experienced this, make sure to send a counter notice when a video of yours is removed that is clearly fair use. Otherwise, the bullies will win. Viva la Revolution!

Networked art practices share conceptual overlaps with current discussions about pedagogy, particularly those that encourage interactive and collaborative methods of meaning-making in response to contemporary digital culture. Decentralized processes of learning, which exist in participatory artworks and nonhierarchal art education, are embraced by the open source movement. In this paper, we argue that open source media can be used to demonstrate a quest for knowledge that is not representational but rather performative-based - a temporal epistemology that is about critical inquiry of media and the ongoing discovery of creative ways of interacting with, and remixing, our reality. This paper incorporates the above ideas into a proposal for a team-taught digital studio/theory course that explores the “remix” phenomenon, operating online and utilizing open source culture. Drawing upon previous online teaching experience, the pedagogical intentions and anticipations for this course will be discussed.