Paul D. Found

Number Seventeen

2010-03-08T05:40:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 8th March 2010

It is over a year since I updated this blog, mainly because I no longer needed it as a place to archive my research and thoughts. I have decided to update it now to show the final result of my previous research, experiments and general musings.

I have attached photographs of the 3D forms I eventually produced using a process of real-time data capture and generative 3D modelling in Processing, and fabrication using rapid-prototyping processes. Beneath each photograph of the "actual" model, is a computer rendering of the digital file used in the manufacturing process.

The first images represent light levels, the length of each "prong" showing the amount of light every hour, for 12 hours.

The following pair of images represent sound levels, each vertical slice showing the amount of noise each second. The whole form shows 30 seconds of time.

The final images represent temperature levels, the size of each outer sphere positioned around the central sphere showing the amount of light every hour, for 12 hours.

Is it art? I still do not know but what is certain is that the process of turning real-time digital data into actual 3D form is possible...

Number Sixteen

2009-02-19T03:40:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 9th February 2009

Procrastination is still winning, again brought on by software issues making it impossible to do certain tasks in Processing that I need to do. It is of course possible (probable) it my own deficiencies as a programmer that are to blame. Nobody said it was going to be easy... I have however, acquired use of an Arduino (thanks Joe) so I can start developing the processes I will need once I get the software that is not working, to work.

A visit to the Natural History Museum proved to be surprisingly inspiring. The Minerals Gallery, while on the surface rather mundane is actually rather interesting and for some reason reminded me of the abstract forms I intend to create. Maybe I could display my "forms" in a similar way - in a glass case.

Number Fifteen

2009-02-19T03:23:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 2nd February 2009

There is not much to write about for this week, as procrastination has been winning. There are still doubts about my major project - not the overall concept, but with the underlying reasons and justifications for doing it, and ultimately what the outcome will be.

There has been some progress on the extraction of MoCap (C3D) data in that I have found a piece of software that will convert it into usable numbers. The "slight" problem is that it does not seem to work. Frustration leads to procrastination...

Number Fourteen

2009-02-03T02:34:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 26th January 2009

I've decided that reading does not do me any favours at all, and I'm contemplating giving it up. In an attempt to establish a grounding for my magnum opus, I've read two Sian Ede books this week, "Art & Science" and "Strange and Charmed: Science and the Contemporary Visual Arts". Both explore how science and art have increasingly converged to the point where each can aid the understanding of the other, and images from science indeed being "art". Before commenting on why this reading has been bad, I should highlight some positive outcomes, thoughts and musings.

Art & Science

pg. 2 - "...in our clever, curious and materialist world "art" is as vital to our existence as "science". Visualising, abstracting, imagining, inventing, pretending, storytelling, re-presenting and ceaselessly reinterpreting things are as important as indications of human achievement and communication as rational discourse and the presentation of empirical evidence.

Real scientific progress could not happen without daydreaming: intellectual research and logical planning are essential for the making of art".

This is quite a comforting thought - art (creativity) is as valid/important as science, although I suppose that depends on the quality of the art.

pg. 3 - "If art is "about" anything, it is reflection of human experience in complexity and it emanates from an inventive individual with an unusual and sideways view on things, communicating with vigorous visual acuity and daring, its intellectual content, like that of poetry, conveyed through hints and ambiguities. Artists don't "do" prettification, product or propaganda for the public understanding of science. But they do engage with it and create images which suggest alternative ways of seeing".

This is really what I am aiming for - a "sideways" or ambiguous 3D realisation of "scientific" data, or at least data rooted in science.

pg. 10 - "Good artwork is always more than the sum of its parts and operates like poetry, making suggestions, hinting at associations, teasing emotionally, challenging intellectually and expecting the viewer to play a part in making new meaning from it".

pg. 190 - Digital technology is transforming art as it is science but to be other than alien, the artist has to find a connection with the viewer's felt physical and temporal experience".

this connects to synaesthesia (a temporal and sometimes physical experience) but suggests the synaesthetic response TO an artwork may be more valid than using it as the source and inspiration FOR an artwork.

And of course, that old chestnut "Beauty" makes an appearance...

pg. 137 - "There is already rather too much bad and boring body-scan art around, often grindingly literal..."

I need to avoid being "grindingly literal" by either not producing "art" per se or by ensuring synaesthesia is a part of the process or underpinning, and not used to produce literal version as form.

pg. 13 - "When I first became interested in science and found myself in the company of scientists, I was regularly struck by the frequent use of a word that is scarcely ever heard in the arts. That word is beauty".

Ede does offer an explanation as to why this is though...

pg. 16 - "...was not the experience of Beauty largely reconstructed in the eighteenth century as an affirmation of bourgeois capitalist identity?

"Rich and powerful men desire to possess it (beauty) as a sign of their wealth and power - their lovely architectures and landscaped vistas, the art and clothes, their beautiful women and children, indicative of their superior position, health and happiness".

This seems to be more a discussion of what is "beautiful" rather than being a discussion of beauty itself. However, in the context of Ede's thesis the difference is beside the point.

"...scientists are not talking about the domestication of Beauty. For them real Beauty is altogether a more profound entity and is aligned with truth..."

The discovery of how something works, the discovery of patterns to prove hypotheses or perhaps the designing of a process can be "beauty".

pg. 28 - "Rejoicing in the beauty of computer images which show symmetries in structure and system, glorious with evolving colour patterns and multi-dimensional topologies, sinuous with order verging on chaos and snaking back to order again, scientists can sound ecstatic. This isn't simply an image. It is literally the meaning of Life. And it is beautiful. Who needs art?"

The final question is rather wide in scope but the general point is well made. Images (or forms?) derived from science and scientific data can be beautiful and therefore art, without the original intention of their production being to produce art. The process may be what matters...

Strange and Charmed

pg. 69 - Ken Arnold, "Between Explanation and Inspiration: Images in Science", pp. 68-83

"...both art and science are expressions of a common intellectual curiosity - the profound human desire to know things, which often starts with a possibility of envisioning and therefore of making a picture of them".

pg. 81 - "...much of this technological art raises important questions, not least about what actually is the art in techno/computer art. Can a computer meaningfully be said to produce art?"

Exactly. Can a computer process produce art, or just empty, meaningless form? And so to my original point about reading. It of course, raises interesting points and opens possible new areas of research but it also seems to bring up the same questions repeatedly, without producing many answers. It is raising doubts about whether I can validate the project I want to do. Should I be a) producing art, b) using synaesthesia as a basis for the project, c)design a process, the outcome of which is largely irrelevant, or d) concentrating on customisation, morphing and modification of form for some more practical purpose? Damn you Gutenberg.

2009-01-25T04:01:00.001-08:00

Number Thirteen

Week commencing 19th January 2009

I am at that point this week, where I need to just step off the cliff and start my major project. For some reason, it's quite unnerving even though I know (somewhat) where I want to go with it, and the research has reached a point where I can start. Maybe it's the feeling that once I start there's no going back...

I'm currently looking at some artists of relevance Carol Steen (herself a synaesthete), Tony Cragg (sculptor), and Marius Watz who has done some interesting things with Processing and rapid-prototyping.

The current book of interest is "The Elements of Color" by Johannes Itten. As my "forms" my well be driven be colour it is worth looking at some aspects of colour theory.

(pg. 12) "Developments in color chemistry, fashion, and color photography have aroused a broad general interest in colors, and color sensitivity of the individual has been greatly refined. But this contemporary interest in color is almost wholly visual material in character, and not grounded in intellectual and emotional experience. it is a superficial, external toying with metaphysical forces.

Colors are forces, radiant energies that affect us positively or negatively, whether we are aware of it or not".

This links with my research into synaesthesia, where colours are, for some synaesthetes, a force or energy exactly.

(pg. 13) "Having spoken of three different points of view for purposes of studying color constructional (symbolically), expressional (emotionally) and impressional (visually) - I would not omit to say this: Symbolism without visual accuracy and without emotional force would be mere anemic formalism; visually impressive without symbolic verity and emotional power would b banal imitative naturalism; emotional effect without constructive symbolic content or visual strength would be limited to the plane of sentimental expression. Of course every artist will work according to his temperament, and emphasise one or another of these aspects".

Assuming I am using colour as the driver of form, which of these aspects will I emphasise? There are links too to the previously discussed question of "What Is Art?". Itten seems to offer a reasonable definition - art must contain elements that are symbolic, emotional and visual.

(pg. 75) "...shapes also have their "ethico-aesthetic", expressive values".

"As is true of the primary colors, red, yellow and blue, the three fundamental shapes - square, triangle and circle - may be assigned distinct expressive values"

- "The square corresponds to red, the color of matter".

- "The triangle...is matched by lucid yellow".

- "The circle...corresponds among colors to transparent blue".

(pg. 76) "If we look for shapes to match the secondary colors, we find the trapezoid for orange, a spherical triangle for green, and an ellipse for violet".

This could be the basis of the basic forms and colours to be explored in my project(s) - the association of colour is a common occurrence in synaesthetes.

2009-01-25T03:36:00.001-08:00

Number Twelve

Week commencing 12th January 2009

Like all New Year's Resolutions, I have failed in mine embarrassingly early thus I am behind with these blog entries again. There's not a whole lot to write about but I have to get back into the habit of doing this...

The first week back (disregarding the two weeks spent doing assignments over the Christmas/New Year "holiday") and whatever was stopping me from making progress with my projects has disappeared and I seem to be back on track, reading books and doing other research.

I've started two new modules:

Digital Cultures which seems like it will need a lot of thinking about, which is good because the "design context" is (one of the) gaping holes in my knowledge. It's early days of course, but so far it makes sense, and should add to the theoretical underpinning of my work in the future.

Lens-based Media should be challenging because I can only just hold a camera the right way up. I should learn much from this, and it is probably a good sign that I fee inspired already. The ideas I have now will probably develop and change, but it seems the may well link to my major project ideas.

Oh, I also went to the zoo this week. Purely a work-related exercise, though sadly nothing to do with mine.

Number Eleven

2008-12-29T12:19:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 15th December 2008

I'm getting a bit behind with these posts again. New Year's Resolution - write my blog entries during the weekend of the relevant week!!

This was the final timetabled week of the semester, and what a way to end it - Research Methods. While I recognise the importance of being able to find information/research material it is not the most enjoyable or intellectually stimulating of activities to have to undertake. It is especially arduous if the information being unearthed is only being used for the Research Methods module rather than any live projects - as was the case here. Still, it is all done now (written aspect aside) and no doubt the purpose will become clear at some point in the future...

Number Ten

2008-12-29T11:55:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 8th December 2008

A return to proper learning this week, and very welcome it was to have something to really focus on. This week was the second week-long intensive module, this time Reverse Engineering. The context for Reverse Engineering here is the capture of digital geometric data from real objects, using what is essentially 3-dimensional scanning.

GOM have a very interesting piece of equipment (the Pontos) which can dynamically scan movement in 3-dimensions. As this creates (in theory) a 3D digital model of movement, it should be possible to capture real-time movement, and then use the one or some of the previously investigated rapid-prototyping techniques to make the forms. This may prove to be a simpler process than using the thus far temperamental Vicon motion-capture system. Apparently, Loughborough University have a Pontos system, so it may be worth enquiring about what they use it for and whether it might be possible to borrow it.

Similarly eye-opening is the Photon laser-scanning system from Faro. It can scan an entire room in under thirty seconds, and provides a "point cloud" of hundreds of thousands of points in 3D space. These can then be converted into a usable file format such as an .STL, which can then be used to RP the information as tangible objects. Unlike the GOM Pontos system, I cannot yet see an application for this but it as certainly made me think about what could be possible in terms of scanning very large objects and spaces. Of course, the process from scan to usable CAD data to tangible object is not as straight-forward as imagined but it is not beyond me either. Having done the RP module I can see much potential in experimenting with both of these technologies in the context of my Major Project.

Number Nine

2008-12-06T02:50:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 1st December 2008

I thought I had "hit the wall" a few weeks ago but apparently I had not if this week is anything to go by. Progress on most fronts seems to have ground to a halt. From reading two or three books a week earlier in the semester, I now have not read one for three weeks. It has been pointed out to me that it is getting towards the end of the semester which is true, so what could be happening is that my brain is subconsciously following a process described by Ben Fry in "Visualizing Data" (pg. 5), when he discusses using data:

Acquire > I've spent 9 weeks acquiring data

I think/hope I am therefore going through the next three stages in the process, and thus, like the Processor in this computer performing tasks in the background, doing more than I think I'm doing:

Parse > order and categorise

Filter > isolate interesting data

Mine > find patterns and connections

If this is indeed the case it is to be hoped that the transition to the final three stages is an organic, natural process in itself:

Represent > basic visual representation

Refine > improved visual representation

Interact > access, control and manipulate the data

I suppose this blog could be seen as the "Represent" stage, with text being the simplest mode of visualizing any thoughts, musings and occasionally rantings I feel the need to preserve.

At least Monday (or possibly Tuesday - with all this data processing going on I can't remember) was productive. Although the Vicon system is still deficient in working cameras department to the tune of three, it might not matter because the marker blind-spots create some rather weird, abstract motion capture animations which, while still representing Kate's dancing and movement are not consistently recognisable as human in origin. I sense that this could be an avenue worth exploring, whereby a fault in the system/process is used to the benefit of the idea. It might be feasible to create a mini-project for the The Inside Out conference, depending on my ability to invent a worthwhile process.

My brain had better be back on form next week as it's the intensive Reverse Engineering module.

Number Eight

2008-12-03T05:47:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 24th November 2008

It dawned on me this week that I spent an inordinate amount of time in the last few weeks trying to find out “what is art?” and “what is design?” only to arrive at the conclusion that, at this stage of proceedings at least, it probably does not matter. Hopefully, when the issue does matter, the process will prove itself to have been constructive and the brain-cells I have sacrificed will not have died in vain.

The motion capture is still beset with technical problems but I have probably learnt more about the process because of them, than I would have if it had been trouble-free. The main issue really is that I still have not worked out how to get the raw numerical data I want out of the software. It is there for the ripping, but in code rather than the much more convenient pure numerical data.

The synaesthesia research is creeping along too. Thus far I have been concentrating on background reading to gain a more detailed overall feel for the condition but even that has given some valuable insight into the kinds of synaesthesia that exist, and which may be useful for my work. At the moment, the most relevant is grapheme-colour synaesthesia, where letters and words induce the perception of a colour. This could be the basis of some works, although until I have gained a fuller picture of synaesthesia, it is not possible to say whether it will ultimately be the most relevant. That said, it seems that the variants, which concern colour and form will be most suitable.

Other versions include, lexical-gustatory synaesthesia whereby words or sound induce a taste, and as argued by Simner and Holenstein, Ordinal Linguistic Personification whereby “sequential linguistic units e.g. letters, numerals, days, months” are attributed such characteristics as personality and gender. There is the potential for using these as the basis for 3D works if an appropriate process can be conceived.

Number Seven

2008-11-26T04:04:00.001-08:00

Week commencing 17th November 2008

An oddly paradoxical week, in that I did not seem to do much but in fact achieved quite a lot.

The reason for the steep learning curve on setting up the Vicon motion capture equipment was finally revealed and overcome – I needed and now have administration privileges for the network. The vital “Set Origin” button now does what it is supposed to do. Despite the fact fewer and fewer cameras work (now four out of seven), they now at least point in the right direction. Many thanks to Pritesh for his help.

“Everything Bad Is Good For You” (Stephen Johnson). That is not entirely true of course, but the general theme of Johnson’s book has much merit. Ignoring the actual content of computer-games, TV programmes, films and so on, the basic tenet is that as the structure of popular culture is more complex, and requires more cognitive engagement than it used to, these media develop ways of thinking such as problem-solving, mapping social networks, and decision-making.

Thursday saw the Future of Creative Technologies Conference, a long but instructive day with a tremendous free lunch thrown in.

The Design Workshop sometimes veered away from the use of Creative Technologies in design, towards business and creative industry. That is not to say the discussions lacked relevance however. The discussion started by highlighting which recent technological advances have had an impact in the design process. The three highlighted were:

- Connectivity and the formation of “communities”
- The ability to locate people via their phone etc.
- “Open-ness” in terms of Open Source software, collective commons knowledge sharing etc.

We also talked about which technologies designers would like to see emerge, and impact on the design process:

- “Thought” keyboard/control devices to grab ideas – neural interfaces
- Ubiquitous displays which could be unrolled or even painted on to surfaces to aid the communication of ideas in any venue
- Intuitive interfaces, which use a less analytical process to output/communicate creative thought i.e. a move away from mouse, keyboard and screen. (The conflict with the latter point is that the more intuitive interfaces such as Photoshop have a limited set of tools, which reduces the ability to use less analytical processes. Open source software allows a less analytical approach, but is less intuitive).
- Real-time collaboration tools not dependent on file format, like a universal file viewer/editor. As an extension of this, it would be useful to have a similarly file-format free asset management system – similar to a combination of human memory and the Post-It note.

The Three Professors

Jim Hendler (www.cs.rpi.edu/~hendler) – Web 3.0 and beyond

A brief synopsis of Jim’s presentation:

Data is easy but linking it is a challenge. Web 3.0 will link contexts as well as content.

Powerset.com – semantic search, which organises the search result information rather than just listing links and references.

Twine.com – allows the sharing of Web content in a community.

Freebase.com – an open “wiki database” which allows more than text to be stored and presented in a database.

It is possible to create data clouds of web-links based on content and data sets but how will this b used? This area is crying out for a “marquee application”, following Web 1.0 data sorting sites (e.g. Amazon, Google), and Web 2.0 social and collaborative data content (Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook).

Web 3.0 will reflect trends of the web:

- data explosion i.e. the amount of data available and thus,
- lower data integrity
- non-fixed display formats – computer, phone, PDA
- trust and privacy issues
- community and social context – not only who you are and what you like, but also where you are now, who you are with, what you are doing.

Probable developments include:

- social pages which pop-up as you use the Web allowing ease of tagging
- “tetherlessness” – phones store your calendar and know where you are, and will soon know what you like, who else is nearby etc. These mobile devices could process information in the background, such as weather news and travel information, then relay it when needed.

Privacy and access of course will become an even greater issue the more information/data there is available on the Web.

Lev Manovich (www.manovich.net) - Cultural Analytics: Visualising Culture Patterns

1. Data revolution – the “digital universe” in 2011 will be 10x larger than is was in 2006.
2. Interactive Visualisation (1988), for scientific applications such as astronomy and genetics
3. Data mining (2000)
4. Massive digitalisation of existing cultural assets e.g. books, video, art and architecture but the viewing interfaces are basically slideshows or photo-albums.
5. The rise of user-generated content (2005) - 70% of the “digital universe” is created by individuals, and this is the fastest growing area of an exploding digital universe. Software + consumer electronics = social media
6. Parallel expansion of professional cultural universe – agencies (museums, companies, education establishments), actors (cultural producers/artists, students) and publishing (books, blogs, websites). Access to these cultural objects, information and tools has been decentralised away from a few countries, cities, and institutions. www.coroflot.com demonstrates this globalisation of culture. It is no longer possible to generate cultural theories based on small envelopes of “product” e.g. Italian Renaissance. World capitals are no longer the cutting-edge of cultural change.
7. 1998-2007, visualisation emerges as a new area of culture. It has become a new form of public art e.g. NY Times building (www.visualcomplexity.com)
8. The rise of “culture visualisation” i.e. the graphical mapping/display of cultural patterns (www.culturevis.com). This is “Cultural Analytics”.

The question is how can data visualisation be used? Mapping trends? Predicting trends?

Howard Rheingold – Participatory Media

www.cooperationcommons.com

Participatory media are such things as blogs, wikis, Flickr, tagging etc. The use of these media as a teaching aid is increasing, and using them is a learned skill e.g. how do you create a blog.

http://socialmediaclassroom.com

The key to teaching is keeping the students engaged. Instead of planning a syllabus get the students to ask questions that are important to them – what do they want to know (in the context of the subject-area)?

Encourage reflection (also a learned skill) in the context of social media.

Technology MIGHT facilitate this engagement but it is not necessarily necessary. A laptop has just replaced pen and paper, so the teaching method must still fit the class. Much also depends on learning styles. Students will gravitate towards a certain style (lecture, reading. workshop, practical (VAK)). Teaching can be collaborative - we teach each other but we are also self-taught by personalising our own teaching/learning but there is nothing wrong with “chalk and talk” lectures. Just do not do it all the time. The two (learning styles and teaching methods) work together. The students need guidance but they need to be self-motivated too. This comes from keeping them engaged with what is being taught.

Technological literacy (as opposed to mastery) can open opportunities by enabling the use of blogs, wikis and so on. Students do not need to know everything about computer science, but they may be fully literate with wikis, blogs, Facebook etc. so why not use them?

This got me thinking that should I go back to teaching (a likely scenario), I will use some of these media. They are particularly relevant in creative subjects as blogs etc. can be used to log the design process and collate research.

The Three Professors Q&A

1. Privacy

Privacy and access are major issues with web-based media. How do we control our personal data when we do not “own” most of it ourselves?

www.garlik.com

Is it possible to regulate this now anyway? It is possible to link partial data from many sources to build a full data profile. Aside from this, there are always “work-arounds” in any system.

2. Data visualisation

The quality of the data is key. Graphs are often taken as representative (fact), but is the underlying data reliable? Databases tend to have a bias to start with e.g. online art databases will include works that are easier to access (US/Europe) than for example, Korea. This can skew the perceived cultural patterns being mapped.

3. Seamlessness

The web is approaching seamlessness – or is it? While it is generally possible to access the Web across many hardware and software configurations, being a commercialised entity, it has meant we are sometimes required to acquire updates or add-ons to ensure we can do what we want to do. However, these “extras” then allow us to create seamlessness by providing applications, which then allow us to do what we ant to do. It is not seamlessness, but compatibility.

Friday allowed some intellectual probing of Howard Rheingold and Lev Manovich, so I thought it would be good to ask Lev, whose work crosses many disciplines, where he stands on the whole “what is art?” and “what is design?” debate.

The thrust of Lev’s very comprehensive answer was that the distinction has been forced over recent history. Artists were generally designers in that they worked for clients in answer to a brief, rather than expressing a self-motivated artistic vision. It was their ability to paint and sculpt that was in demand. The concept of “Fine Art” is only around 200 years old, and “Design” has only really been in existence for around 85 years, since the establishment of the Bauhaus.

The distinction is being blurred again, as art is borrowing from other disciplines such as fashion design and computer programming in order to move forwards.

As a final definition, Lev suggested that the difference is actually between “Digital Art” which investigates process first with the outcome/concept secondary, and “Traditional Art” which is about concept with process secondary.

Finally, I met with artist/sculptor Annie Cattrell who was nice enough to sacrifice an hour of her Friday afternoon to talk to the likes of me. Annie has used rapid-prototyping to sculpt/realise MRI scan images, and she has thus worked in a vaguely similar area to the one that interests me i.e. the 3D representation of the virtual or unseen.

She thinks it is unnecessary at this stage for me to be too concern with labelling whatever I am going to produce, and it is more beneficial to concentrate on the process. Sound advice indeed. She also suggested I look at science and art (The Wellcome Trust Art Collection www.wellcomecollection.org being a starting point), the work of sculptor Tony Cragg and get a general feel for contemporary sculpture in general. Thanks to Annie for her time and insight.

Number Six

2008-11-24T01:47:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 10th November 2008

Another strangely slow but not altogether fruitless week, I started my research into synaesthesia by contacting a couple of researchers in the field, Dr. Jamie Ward at University College, London, and Dr. Julia Simner at the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Ward offered some useful links and suggestions for further reading, while Dr. Simner offered more material help in the form of four journal articles she has co-authored. There is much research for me to do in this area, but at least now I have a starting point, and have started to establish some specialist contacts.

Equally exciting is that I have finally managed to finish “What Is Art?” It contains much very thought-provoking material but it is not the easiest of reads.

(pg. 338) Schopenhauer highlights exactly why I needed to consider these questions in the first place. “An arbitrary playing with the means of art without a proper knowledge of the end is, in every art, the fundamental characteristic of the dabbler. Such a man shows himself in the pillars that support nothing, aimless volutes, juttings and projections of bad architecture, in the meaningless runs and figures, together with the aimless noise of bad music, in the jingling of the rhymes of senseless poetry, &c.”

I do not want to be a dabbler, so whatever I produce MUST have significant reason, and scientific, theoretical and/or contextual foundation.

(pg. 339) “The mother of the useful arts is necessity, that of the fine arts superfluity”.

Again, the aim of “useful arts” (design) is function of some description.

Hegel offers a reasonably clear definition of what constitutes art.

(pg. 342) “(1) A work of art is no product of nature. It is brought into being through the agency of man.

(Kant makes a similar assertion).

(2) It is created essentially for man, and what is more, it is to a greater or less degree delivered from a sensuous medium, and addressed to his senses.

(If using sensor data and/or synaesthesia, this is literally the case)

(3) It contains an end bound up with it”.

(pg. 355) he also argues that “art” is not such if it merely imitates nature. Indeed, invention (design?) is more worthy than imitative art, “…mankind may feel more proud of having invented the hammer, nail and so forth, than in making themselves adept as imitators”.
Is there a grey area here, whereby using data streams, sensor output etc. is merely imitating that data? Perhaps not, as Hippolyte Taine (pg. 385) states, “The end of a work of art is to manifest some essential or salient character, consequently some important idea, clearer or more completely than is attainable from real objects. Art accomplishes this end by employing a group of connected parts, the relationships of which it systematically modifies”.

If using data, there is no “real object” to improve upon.

(pg. 403) William Morris, “Now the fine arts must be divided into two classes or kinds: the first what we call the intellectual Arts, represented by painting and sculpture address themselves wholly to the mind of man; they have no necessary connexion with any articles of material use, I mean…[B]ut besides these strictly intellectual Arts, there is a large body of art (or the pretence of it) which forms matters of our daily life; our homes, our furniture, our utensils for eating and drinking, and our clothes are ornamented by this lesser kind of art, which cannot be dissociated from the things which we use every day and this is commonly called decorative or ornamental art…”

Art (large ”a”) is not meant to have a use or function other than the intellectual, otherwise it becomes a “lesser art”, or design.

Finally, before I must arrive at some kind of conclusion, Tolstoy offers many enlightening points for consideration.

(pg. 406) “What is art? What a question! Art is architecture, sculpture, paintings, music and poetry in all its forms, usually replies the ordinary man…Art is such an activity as produces beauty, says such a(n educated) man”.

He discusses which of these statements is most correct, concluding that in fact, neither is.

(pg. 407) “Instead of giving a definition of true art, and then deciding what is and what is not good art by judging whether a work conforms or does not conform to the definition, a certain class of works, which for some reason please a certain circle of people, is accepted as being art, and a definition is then devised to cover all these production”.

(pg. 408) (And in the same way) beauty, or that which pleases us, can in no sense serve as a basis for the definition of art; nor can a series of objects which afford us pleasure serve as the model of what art should be”.

“People will come to understand the meaning of art only when they cease to consider that the aim of that activity is beauty i.e. pleasure”.

“In order to define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means of pleasure, and to consider it as one of the conditions of human life”.

Art is not about beauty or affording pleasure, or even fitting in with what a “certain circle” or elite consider art. It is based on “this capacity of man to receive another man’s expression of feeling, and experience those feelings for himself”.

(pg. 415) Somewhat reassuringly, Tolstoy believes, “If the work does not transmit the artist’s peculiarity of feeling, and is therefore not individual, if it is unintelligibly expressed, or if it has not proceeded from the authors inner need for expression – it is not a work of art. If all these conditions are present, even in the smallest degree, then the work, even if a weak one, is yet a work of art”.

So to my conclusion, which will be kept incongruously brief. Design is the creation of something, which serves a purpose or has a practical function or application, whereas art is the creation of something, which conveys emotion, feeling, and the “human condition” or represents something that cannot be represented in another way i.e. it is the pure expression of creativity. On the other hand, maybe I’m completely wrong…

Number Five

2008-11-24T01:44:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 3rd November 2008

For some reason, this week has been one of those weeks where I seem to have been really busy but on reflection do not actually appear to have done anything of great significance. That is not to suggest it has been an idle week however.

Kate and myself have finally begun to tinker with the Motion Capture equipment, and although it needs setting-up properly we have managed to capture some well, motion I suppose. The learning curve has been particularly steep so far but it will be worth the time and effort once I/we can go through the process without having to refer to the documentation – or by using trial and error – and capture large sets of motion, and then process said information. Watch this space.

In the seemingly endless quest for answers in the whole what is art, what s design, where does my work fit in debate, I secured a meeting with Dr. Nick Higgett. As a designer primarily, he seemed to share my general view that art and design differ in that the latter should (must) function, and the former does not need to. Yes, art has functions but not in the sense that a design/product must if it is to be good design.

I also had a very enlightening meeting with Prof. Martin Rieser about a similar subject, the upshot of which is that if I am producing “art” there must be a definite scientific, theoretical underpinning to the project if it is to be valid, in a similar way that design must answer a problem if it is to be valid. Of most value, was the way this focussed my project on what will at least be a starting point for continued research – synaesthesia.

More musings from “What Is Art?”

(pg. 98) St. Augustine, “In all the arts it is symmetry that gives pleasure, preserving unity and making the whole beautiful…”

(pg. 130) Francis Hutcheson, “…there is scarcely any thing ever fancy’d as Beautiful where there is not really something of this Uniformity and Regularity”.

Art then, is Beauty and Beauty is symmetry, regularity and uniformity. It that is the case I’m in trouble because I work with asymmetry, irregularity and randomness. Of course, this is a historical view, and the Classical tradition art was seen simply as whatever was beautiful, symmetrical and uniform. This may not be a definition of art that still fits.

(pg. 170) Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, “…all I want to establish is that among the ancients beauty was the highest law of plastic arts”…”Rage and despair degraded none of their productions: I dare mention that they never painted a Fury”.

Joshua Reynolds also questioned the Classical Tradition (pg. 176), “It is the lowest style only of arts, whether of painting, poetry, or music, that may be said, in vulgar sense, to be naturally pleasing”.

(pg. 182) “Upon the whole, it seems to me, that the object and intention of all the arts is to supply the natural imperfection of things, and often to gratify the mind by realising and embodying what never existed but in the imagination”.

Therefore, art not only does not need to be beautiful or pleasing but also does not need to represent (imitate) nature. It can “embody” what the mind can imagine – be an outlet for creativity.

(pg. 194) Archibald Alison, “…matter is not beautiful in itself, but derives its Beauty from the expression of mind”.

(pg. 228-9) Immanuel Kant offers some facets of creative output, which constitute it being considered “Art”.

“Art is distinguished from nature as making is from acting or operating in general, and the product or the result of the former is distinguished from that of the latter as work from operation”.

“…where anything is called absolutely a work of art, to distinguish it from a natural product, then some work of man is always understood”.

Art therefore comes about only due to the process undertaken by humans. There is a conscious process, whereas nature is an “operation” that occurs by chance.

He also argues that art is different to science as, “To art that alone belongs for which the possession of the most complete knowledge does not involve one’s having then and there the skill to do it…” It is the process or idea that is important in art, not necessarily the execution – or rather it is the idea and inspiration that matters, not the skill to execute it in a particular form.

Art is also distinct from handicraft (design?), “The first is called free (art), the other may be called industrial art. We look on the former as something which could only prove final (be a success) as play, i.e. an occupation which is agreeable on its own account; but on the second as labour i.e. business, which on its own account is disagreeable (drudgery) and is only attractive by means of what it results in e.g. the pay…”

While arts of course make a living from their work, I think it is valid to suggest that artworks should not be produced with a view entirely to commercial ends.

(pg. 238) Kant does touch on the difference between art and architecture (design), “To plastic art (…) belong sculpture and architecture”…”In architecture the chief point is a certain use of the aesthetic object to much, as the condition, the aesthetic ideas are limited. In sculpture mere expression of aesthetic ideas is the main intention…”

The basic difference is that design must serve a practical, mechanical, functional purpose. It must do something or perform a task. Art is intended “only” as a creative expression, although there may be a deep meaning to this expression. At this time, this distinction sounds about right.

Number Four

2008-11-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 27th October 2008

This time last week, I did not know that SL, LOM, FDA, 3DP and LS are all LMTs. Actually, I did not know what some of those were. I now know that LMTs are Layer Manufacturing Technologies, and Stereolithography, Laminated Object Manufacturing, Fused Deposition Modelling, 3-Dimensional Printing and Laser Sintering are all kinds thereof. Yes, it was Rapid Prototyping module week and rather enjoyable it was too. The 3-hour exam (my first exam for 13 years) was rather a shock to the system though.

I managed to gain much information gained that may well prove useful at Major Project time, as I now at least have some understanding of what the processes can and cannot do, what kind of work or artefacts they may be suitable for and so on. Not only that, but I like Rapid Prototyping/Manufacturing as a concept anyway, so it was good to see the machines in action, and think about potential uses for them.

Sadly, no time for anything else this week so further enquiries into the nature of beauty and art will commence next week.

Number Three

2008-11-18T03:32:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 20th October 2008

The intention of this week was to get somewhere close to answering the question “What is art?” with the help of the book “What Is Art: Aesthetic Theory From Plato to Tolstoy” (Edited by Alexander Sesonske). Our editor says in his introduction that, ”What is Art?” is not a question, but a whole cluster of questions disguised as one”. Thanks very much. I assume therefore that there will be a whole cluster of answers, none of them definitive.

I must confess that I got a rather side-tracked for the whole week by the Ancient Greeks, or more specifically Plato (or I suppose Socrates because Plato was writing what the former said). The thrust of ancient Greek thought was that Art = Beauty. If art = beauty, beauty = art. This naturally leads us to asking “what is beauty then?” The question is not “what is beautiful?” as that is a subjective judgement. The question is what is the entity that is beauty, of which beautiful objects contain elements to make them beautiful? It is a difficult question, as it is trying to quantify something, which we do not normally consider an object. To look at it another way, a chair has elements of “chair” within it, but what is the universal, total entity that is “chair”? This is not overly relevant, but it was a train of thought I just could not shake…

I admit that I should have better things to do than spend a week thinking about this, but I did manage to squeeze in a few other things too.

I read John Maeda’s book “Laws of Simplicity”, after the subject of simplicity came up last week. Maeda has always been an inspiration to me for his design and creative work but he has much to say about life too. Below is a brief outline of some of the ideas in the book, most of which seem obvious or a matter of commonsense, but are no less valuable for that.

(pg. 1) “The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction”.

(pg. 9) “Lessen what you can and conceal everything else without losing the sense of inherent value”.

Law One – Reduce

Shrink – smaller
Hide – more streamlined
Embody – “quality”

Law Two – Organise

Sort
Label
Integrate
Prioritize

“The Pareto Principle” – 80% of data can be managed at lower priority and 20% requires the highest level”

“Groups are good; too many groups are bad because they counteract the goal of groups in the first place”.

Law Three – Time

Speed up the process or hide the dimension of time

Law Four – Learn

“Knowledge makes everything simpler”.

Basics are the beginning
Repeat yourself often
Avoid creating desperation
Inspire with examples
Never forget to repeat yourself

(pg. 39) “The best designers marry function with form to create intuitive experiences that we understand immediately – no lessons (or cursing) needed”.

Law Five – Differences

(pg. 45) “Simplicity and complexity need each other. The more complexity there is in the market, the more something simpler stands out”.

Law Six – Context

(pg. 53) “…become a light-bulb instead of a laser-beam”, i.e. “either brighten a single point with laser precision, or else us the same light to illuminate everything around you”.

Also, a balance between the known and the unknown (“foreground and background”) offer a rhythm.

Law Seven – Emotion

“Form follows function”, yet “Feeling follows form”. People buy the simplicity of the iPod then accessorize it.

“Art – a reason to live, is tempered with design – the clarity of message”. THIS QUITE POSSIBLY DEFINES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ART AND DESIGN!!

Law Eight – Trust

The ability to press “Undo” gives you no reason to trust yourself.

Law Nine – Failure

“Some things can never be made simple” – but failure is a learning experience.

Law Ten – The One

“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful”.

AWAY – “More appears like less by simply moving it far, far away” – (Google searches are an example of this)

OPEN – “Openness simplifies complexity” – Open Source software “the many outweighing the few”, and API (Application Programming Interface) i.e. open functionality not blueprints.

POWER – “Use less, gain more” – electrical power.

Also this week, I have secured use of the Motion capture equipment in the Fused Media Lab. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to use it for, but I have a notion of capturing motion and using the numerical data as the data for producing or generating “something” in 3-dimensions. Thanks to Prof. Ibrahim and Armaghan Moemeni.

I have also acquired the use of a dancer (or rather have had the use of one acquired for me) so will have someone with rather more grace and elegance than me to don the motion capture suit. Maybe there will be a collaborative project. Thanks to Kate.

There was a very enlightening meeting with Bret Battey in the Music Technology department. The methods and technologies surrounding the capturing, transmitting and parsing of data were discussed, and although not immediately relevant, they will be once the practical implementation of the major project begins. Thanks to Bret.

I visited the Innovation Centre to meet a PhD student who is doing very interesting things in the field of Rapid Prototyping, Rapid Manufacturing and customised products. Again, a very informative and inspirational visit which will also prove useful for the major project, as well as the forthcoming Rapid Prototyping module. Thanks to Noemi.

By the way, what is beauty? I have still no idea, and to quote Plato/Socrates, “I think I now appreciate the true meaning of the proverb, “All that is beautiful is difficult”.” Maybe when I actually finish the book I’ll know.

Number Two

2008-11-13T03:24:00.000-08:00

Week commencing 13th October 2008

When asked (or rather compelled) to answer the questions “What Is Art?” and “What Is Design?”, what is the first thing to do? Yes, go to the library and find out if there are any books called “What Is Art?” and “What Is Design?” Conveniently, and somewhat surprisingly both exist so were swiftly borrowed.

I started with “What Is Design?” by P.J. Grillo for two reasons; one, I think I know the answer, and two, it looks much less heavy going than “What Is Art?”, so it is probably a more likely candidate to get the mind ready to start thinking about the subject clearly.

What Grillo has to say is this:

(pg. 9) – “Design is everybody’s business; we live in it, we eat in it, pray and play in it”.

“Design is an end in itself. It is the achievement of man’s logic in adapting his creations to his natural environment and way of life”.

The contention here is that the point or purpose of design is to make life easier for everyone.

“Each true work of design should be a complete achievement in itself. It should be a permanent solution that cannot be duplicated in time or space”. Generative design especially can do this if the data sources are live, but will it be design or art? Unless the outcome does something “useful”, it is true design although Grillo also says (pg. 15), “Everything man makes is design, whether with material as hard as granite or as elusive as thought”.

Maybe he does not know what design “is” either – or rather how it is distinct from art. Grillo is an architect of course, which as a discipline fancies itself as somewhere between the two. (pg. 193) “…the highest and most subtle approach to function and efficiency – what we call character – is the deciding factor toward the best fitting solution, and the most efficient. This is what makes of architecture an art, a s no science, however transcendental, can solve this problem in the expression of human character”. So it is character that defines art, or more precisely “an art”, with a small “a”.

Design and art (small “a”) are interchangeable for Grillo. He does however, endeavour to offer some clear ideas of what design itself is:

(pg. 212) “No design is done strictly to be looked at. It has to be lived with …” i.e. design has to function. On which he offers this, “We may safely say that function is the main intention of any design, if we care to give the word function its widest sense of something that works not so much as a plumbing fixture but as fulfilling an intention”.

Elsewhere, Grillo seems to suggest that the distinction between design and art may not really matter (pg. 225) “…no creative work has any value if it does not represent an original idea”.

(pg. 226) “Progress in culture and civilisation still boils down to what we have to say and what creative ideas we bring forth to the world, no matter how we say it”.

Maybe then, what is important is not so much that design and art are, but what they represent – the creative expression of new, original ideas. Which is really where I started – what are design and art, and how does my work fit in. Broadly I suppose it is more art than design because there is not necessarily a true function in creating form from data streams, but does it qualify as art? Hopefully, “What Is Art?” will offer some answers…

As an aside, Grillo also makes an interesting point (pg. 234) “The real truth is that everybody is afraid of honest simplicity because it hides nothing”. Ben Fry in Visualizing Data (pg. 17) states, “Just because it can be measured doesn’t mean it should. Perhaps making things simple is worth bragging about, but making complex messes is not”. Next week, another trip to the library to investigate “simplicity”.

Number One

2008-10-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

Week commencing 6th October 2008

So, now I’ve finally been declared not a “Spam threat” I can actually start posting some of my fevered rantings. Due to the briefly aforementioned technological issues, the first couple of entries will, although written in the present, be a couple of weeks behind the actual date in the real world, but I should think most of what they say still stands. Still, opinion is a fickle mistress so maybe I don’t agree with myself any more.

Week 3 of the Masters in Creative Technologies and research-wise I seem to getting somewhere for no apparent reason – or alternatively getting nowhere but with great purpose. Is that even possible?

I’m trying to learn Processing and have made some progress, which from a foundation of nothing is quite satisfying. So far everything amounts to a few simple “visual toys” which would probably amuse a small child for five minutes but they are 2D and 3D in nature, and could prove useful stuff for “The Big Project” – although I do not know what that will be yet.

I’m currently reading “Collective Intelligence in Design” and “Visualizing Data” which are a great help in that they are providing much inspiration and making me think, but at the same time are causing internal debate such as: Where do you draw the line between art and design, and when do generative processes actually become art/design? I blame the aforementioned architecture publication, because architecture is a design discipline but with a philosophical underpinning closer to that of fine art. I’m straddling (or floundering might be more accurate) this swampy middle ground at the moment.

Just one simple, two-part questions to answer then – “What is art, and what is design?” Oh, and which of these does what I do fall into. If either. Maybe both. Or neither…

Musings on Commons and Collective Intelligence

It is quite handy that I’d decided to fill my empty days by starting to read “Collective Intelligence In Design” the week before Research Methods started as it covers some of the same ground, among other issues, within the context of modern architectural practice.

Pg 5. – “…international, trans-disciplinary, decentralized practices” emerging more frequently in architecture, and thus offering an example of Marshall McLuhan’s “global village”.

Also discussed, is the term “post-Fordism” whereby mass-production and rigid labour/production practices are replaced by mass-customisation and mobile/global markets.

Pg. 9 “…innovative design does not concern the novel appearances of objects but rather constructing new manifolds for the production of knowledge that transform the objects given by known tools and sets of practices”. This for me is a definite truth, in that to be innovative is to find new design processes, or finding new ways of using existing technologies/processes/methods.

And this is where we get to the Collective Intelligence part:

Pg. 39 – “Social software, which supports group communications has a dynamic that cannot be understood from the individual agents alone. These operations are collaborative, responsive and emergent”.

There are of course some potential downsides to “collaboration”:

Pg. 51 – “At its best collaborative practice can achieve a sum greater that its parts and result in true insight and innovation. At its worst, it is used to exploit another’s talent and resources behind the façade of “collective co-operation”. This is relevant for open source software, where it is possible for users to contribute nothing in terms of developing the program but benefit from the work of those who do. Whether this is exploiting the system in the most positive or negative interpretation of the word is a matter for debate.

Pg. 71-72 – “I think the ubiquity of design, which you point out, is linked to a general transformation of economic production occurring today that places more emphasis on what might be called immaterial products” i.e. knowledge itself. The production of ideas and concepts (the knowledge economy)…

“What defines metropolis for me is the production of, and access to, the common – the common wealth in all its forms, including common knowledges, languages, habits”.

“The common is a difficult concept… One can start from the early modern conception of the commons as open land, which was subsequently privatised by acts of enclosure. ()…This is a good starting point, but the analogy is limited because the common I am referring to today is generally no something that is natural and pregiven, like the land, but rather something that is constantly created through social interactions. This is clear, for example, in the case of common knowledges and common languages”. Of course, Open Source software, wikis etc. can be added to Hardt’s list of examples

(all quotes from Michael Hardt)

This strikes me as rather Socialist in outlook, and much of this is somewhat reminiscent of Proudhon’s famous remark “Property is theft”, especially if knowledge becomes a commodity. The www.cooperationcommon.com paper “The Second Enclosure Movement” discusses the fact that the human genome has been patented but the structure of DNA was/has not. Knowledge is theft?

Rousseau once said “The first man who put a fence around a piece of land and put it in his mind to say, “This is mine” and found simpletons who believed him, was the true founder of bourgeois society. How many vices, how many wars, how much murder, misery, grief the person might have prevented who would have torn down the fence posts, filled the ditches and cried out to his fellow man, “Do not believe this trickster! You are lost if you forget that the fruits belong to you all, the soil to no-one”. (J.J. Rousseau, Discourse On Inequality, 1754).

Also from www.cooperativecommons.com, the paper “Commons in the New Millenium” argues that self-governance of resources i.e. “fairness”, leads to trust which leads to co-operation for the good of all. Also, “Origins of Virtue” (M. Ridley) on the same website espouses “the collective good” which is maintained by the punishment of non-cooperants. The theory is that “the masses”, if allowed to govern resources, will do so for the benefit of all. Open Source software e.g. Processing is a prime example of this, because as Open Source software, the users have a right to distribute it, and collective debugging/hacking has improved the software for all users. “The Success of Open Source” paper at (www.cooperativecommons.com) discusses this concept further.

On a connected theme, “The Wisdom of Crowds” argues that diversity, independence, decentralisation and “bottom-up” decision-making can allow “laymen” (the many/the masses) to make better decisions than experts (the few), through their collective knowledge/intelligence. This is evident with Web 2.0 whereby the shift has been from privatised/commodified information being published, to decentralised, user-participation-led content in the form of wikis, P2P, Open Source software etc. The web-users know more than the few who used to publish the information on Web 1.0.

The term for this is “emergence”, whereby the whole is greater than its parts e.g. ant colonies. When ants are building a colony, each individual does not know that it is building a colony but by their collective actions they are able to work as a freeform team, able to finish the job. To come almost full circle, Emergence is a theory of increasing importance in the fields of design and especially architecture. No doubt I’ll be reading about it in the coming weeks…