What is the plugin to install for <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a new hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the plugins installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml.
concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some to primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that uses plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art that does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of disparagement, doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're using it.
looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my own work or much of the work discussed at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is interactive audio work.
> Hi Christina, > > What is the plugin to install for > <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a new > hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the plugins > installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml.
> concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some to > primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that uses > plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art that > does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of disparagement, > doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're using > it. > Well, just for a quick thought here, the Baroque is a very rich period in music, visual art and architecture, rich because its sense of space and meaning is hybrid and has an interest in interactivity, interpolation, recursion, reversal, reflexivity, juxtaposition and emergence. Think Bach, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Piranesi, Bernini, Borromini. The term 'baroque' has an idiomatic connotation of a quality of excess or immersion, totalizing, over the top.
I suspect that an argument could me made to link analogically between aspects of the nature of electronic space representation and affect and the space generated by the Baroque. Troy Innocent identifies some aspects of electronic space (excerpts), which I link (very anecdotally), in the spirit of play, to Baroque spatial obsessions in the following imaginary dialogue. (Apologies to Troy for misapplying his very finely tuned definitions and wholesale lifting out of context, my fault entirely):
(TROY)"….Feedback loop. A combination of direct control and immediate feedback create a strong sense of engagement between the user and the electronic space… "
(CHRISTINA) In the Baroque, the inside space of the work attempts to stimulate a constant shifting so that as you engage with the space it opens up volumes that invite imaginative projection beyond themselves… The feedback loop is in the function of the 'user's kinaesthetic memory inside the baroque space
(TROY) - "the starting point is a void, these spaces do not need to follow the rules of the real world - fantastic new experiences may be created based on their own rules of existence. "
(CHRISTINA) Baroque aesthetics of space often involve emergence from darkness, doubt, the unknowable, the unseeable, and towards transformation, transfiguration, excess, illumination, and back, to shadow. An interest in complexities of form arising dynamically and in unstable combinations, cliff hanger specials, out of the darkness.
(TROY)… "intense focus is placed on the user's immediate experience of the virtual world. This connection is often strong enough that, psychologically, the user is inside that world…."
(CHRISTINA) The affective space of the Baroque wants to draw you into itself, absorption is the watchword rather than independent status. Cartesian space is not privileged. What you see may not turn out to be what you can know; complex transformations are just offstage and about to come on.
(TROY)…."This sense of immediacy is partly to do with the way these spaces are perceived. Engaging with the real world is an experience that immerses the body in their surroundings. Direct and peripheral vision, sound resonating within the environment, being able to move over, around, through, in and out of spaces, and the ability to observe and manipulate solid objects all contribute to this feeling of being in the world…."
(CHRISTINA) Obviously this could not happen in a pre electronic space in such a literal, hands on way. But, did it not, does it not, happen in human imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance and recursion inside the spaces of the Baroque?
(TROY) "…Transmutational space. Electronic spaces are artificial constructions - simulations where the entire virtual world is a code, every part of the space is a re-representation. They allow multiple forms of representation to easily coexist and be blended with one another, creating hybrid systems of signs."
(CHRISTINA) Especially so in the Baroque, I imagine…created in a time of breakdown and clash of ideologies, loss of normative or rule based cultural standards, nearly continuous warfare, and rapid commercial and technological advances, leading to a taste for fragmentation, the edge of chaos, dissolution at the edge of organization–generally, a hybridity, a fluidity of forms, to quote Eisenstein.
> looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my own > work or much of the work discussed at > http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is interactive > audio work
Probably true enough..
> > are you 'reclaiming' the term 'baroque'? > That would be far too grandiose an aspiration!
Significantly, Eisenstein recounts that he came up with the idea of montage from studying the Carcieri series of Piranesi, a series of imaginary prisons with irrational spatial configurations. My vrml piece, to which you refer, was inspired by Eisenstein's remark:
Why would it be disparaging if the internet itself is, structurally speaking, baroque?
On Friday, Sep 26, 2003, at 01:51 America/New\_York, Jim Andrews wrote:
> Hi Christina, > > What is the plugin to install for > <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a > new > hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the > plugins > installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml. > > concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some > to > primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that > uses > plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art > that > does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of > disparagement, > doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're > using > it. > > looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my > own > work or much of the work discussed at > http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is > interactive > audio work. > > are you 'reclaiming' the term 'baroque'? > > ja > > ba
> There should be music fragments in interactive crashes, that are > stimulated > by the users exploration but at least on my server the sound isnt coming > across. Does it work on yours? I sincerely apologize if the sound isnt > working as it is crucial to the sense of space in the work.
No problem with the sound, once I got the plugin.
Interesting music. What is the music, Christina? Is it baroque? Is it run backwards? What did you do to make the sound?
It's a very attractive concept, what you've done with the writing linking out to pieces related to the writing. A compelling mix of the 'essay' and art, which I am always on the lookout for.
You make an interesting case for the influence of the baroque era in the digital soup, also.
The internet is complex and recursive, isn't it, like Liza points out. yeah it's pretty friggin baroque. a couple of friends of mine who have a passing connection to it are beginning to complain angrily about its dangers and complexities. it's getting hard for the non-hardcore to approach it casually without virus protection, firewalls, and a critical eye on scam spam viri and whatnot. Like it's no place for the innocent with its multi-levelled gotchas, come ons, and the software's 'fatal errors' exacerbated by commercial and prank hooks. Part of me likes that, though, the difficulty of it, the dark mysterious willfulness of it, like a piece of net.art; part of me is annoyed like my friends, or annoyed for them and those like them, annoyed for what it might mean for it as a mass medium, ie, retreat from the net–or is that just not possible, in the long run?
You make me want to read more about the baroque era and its art, Christina, thank you. Also, I will spend more time with your post and its links. Are you going to put the writing up as a url with the links in it?
The sound is from my suite of electronic piano compositions, Naxsmash Suite (2001-2003). All of the music on naxsmash is made from various mixes of it. The suite consists of six 7.8 minute long pieces named after each section in the piece 47REDS http://www.naxsmash.net/47reds/about47reds.html. – eyes, relay, shift, smash, snow, ropes. Each soundwork has matching large scale digital prints by the same name. At present I am producing new video at the full length of each piece: the work reddance uses smash as a soundtrack and will open at the performance cinema symposium in san francisco tomorrow.
The total time adds up to (almost) the prime number 47, but of course it doesn't exactly, suggesting a play on the idea of things constantly falling into or out of prime, an entropic edge, or a little like, an a sharp minor that just keeps wanting to slide back down into an a in a blues progression.
The name naxsmash derives from NAX, a performance video that was the starting place out of which all the work on the voice of the cyborg, trauma, memory and virtual architecture has been built. Naxsmash listens to the voice of a cyborg behind the screen. Fmi there is another linked essay on NAX and performance/atopia on <http://www.naxsmash.net/public_html/texts/McPheeNaxsmash_files.htm>
I composed improvisationally at a Yamaha keyboard and sent the signal into OS9 mac where I recomposed everything in recursive loops, inversions, etc , backwards/forwards etc, using the old macromedia program soundedit. It took about a year to get the basic material together in the longer lengths of seven+ minutes each. There is also voice recording (my performance voice).
For piranesia, I made very tiny fragments that would interface harmonically, ie they are all within some weird dorian mode, or 12 tone kind of feel; I worked this out by ear. Shane Carroll plugged my wrl microsounds into the vrml code so that the sound reacts by being approached, or "touched" –strange attractors.
> The internet is complex and recursive, isn't it, like Liza points out. yeah > it's pretty friggin baroque. Another thing that interests me a great deal is how recursion and reflexivity in the baroque soundspace of the net is also an aspect of aphasic speech. Thus the cyborg speaks, but as an impaired, or breaking-down, or ruined voice or place of voices. Baroque goes neural (see <www.neural.it/english>.
Part of me likes that, though, the difficulty of > it, the dark mysterious willfulness of it, like a piece of net.art; part of > me is annoyed like my friends, or annoyed for them and those like them, > annoyed for what it might mean for it as a mass medium, ie, retreat from the > net–or is that just not possible, in the long run?
It's a mass medium no matter how arcane it gets as long as the url is hooked up to a few search engines. Even the idea of dead sites hurtling around in 'space' outside the net has its asteroidal charm (I think Bruce Sterling has written about this somewhere).
> You make me want to read more about the baroque era and its art, Christina, > thank you. Also, I will spend more time with your post and its links. Are > you going to put the writing up as a url with the links in it?
Hello Christina, Enjoyed the work and your thoughts on a net baroque.
It would be interesting to explore the idea of these spaces having what can be described as ?agency? ie. electronic space can be populated with ?intelligent entities? that interact with the user. Clearly the moving image/sound fields in piranesia have agency in that they pursue the viewer in order to immerse them in loops of image and sound. ie. what ?happen(s) in human imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance and recursion inside the spaces of the Baroque? is also happening within the ?mind? of the machine in its model of the player/user. It is not only the perception of the space that changes in the mind of the player/user, but an electronic space can literally change / mutate / reform / loop around etc.
Perhaps this agency is embodied in the religious associations of Baroque experience in that they are mediating / simulating experience of other mysterious / spiritual forces. The notion of the ghost in the machine / cyborg could be perceived as a new manifestation of this ?other? force.
The immediacy of the space and its actualisation of abstract logics / codes through simulation makes the difference ? the space interacts with the user in a literal / real way.
Troy.
> >> Hi Christina, >> >> What is the plugin to install for >> <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a new >> hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the plugins >> installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml. > >Blaxxun for pcs >http://www.blaxxun.com/services/support/download/install.shtml >Cortona for mac >http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortonamac/ >> >There should be music fragments in interactive crashes, that are stimulated >by the users exploration but at least on my server the sound isnt coming >across. Does it work on yours? I sincerely apologize if the sound isnt >working as it is crucial to the sense of space in the work. > >> concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some to >> primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that uses >> plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art that >> does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of disparagement, >> doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're using >> it. >> >Well, just for a quick thought here, the Baroque is a very rich period in >music, visual art and architecture, rich because its sense of space and >meaning is hybrid and has an interest in interactivity, interpolation, >recursion, reversal, reflexivity, juxtaposition and emergence. Think Bach, >Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Piranesi, Bernini, Borromini. The term 'baroque' >has an idiomatic connotation of a quality of excess or immersion, >totalizing, over the top. > >I suspect that an argument could me made to link analogically between >aspects of the nature of electronic space representation and affect and the >space generated by the Baroque. Troy Innocent identifies some aspects of >electronic space (excerpts), which I link (very anecdotally), in the spirit >of play, to Baroque spatial obsessions in the following imaginary dialogue. >(Apologies to Troy for misapplying his very finely tuned definitions and >wholesale lifting out of context, my fault entirely): > >For the Troy Innocent complete text please see ><http://www.fineartforum.org/Backissues/Vol_17/faf_v17_n09/reviews/reviews_i >ndex.html> > >(TROY)"….Feedback loop. A combination of direct control and immediate >feedback create a strong sense of engagement between the user and the >electronic space… " > >(CHRISTINA) In the Baroque, the inside space of the work attempts to >stimulate a constant shifting so that as you engage with the space it opens >up volumes that invite imaginative projection beyond themselves… The >feedback loop is in the function of the 'user's kinaesthetic memory inside >the baroque space > >(TROY) - "the starting point is a void, these spaces do not need to follow >the rules of the real world - fantastic new experiences may be created based >on their own rules of existence. " > >(CHRISTINA) Baroque aesthetics of space often involve emergence from >darkness, doubt, the unknowable, the unseeable, and towards transformation, >transfiguration, excess, illumination, and back, to shadow. An interest in >complexities of form arising dynamically and in unstable combinations, cliff >hanger specials, out of the darkness. > >(TROY)… "intense focus is placed on the user's immediate experience of >the >virtual world. This connection is often strong enough that, psychologically, >the user is inside that world…." > >(CHRISTINA) The affective space of the Baroque wants to draw you into >itself, absorption is the watchword rather than independent status. >Cartesian space is not privileged. What you see may not turn out to be what >you can know; complex transformations are just offstage and about to come >on. > >(TROY)…."This sense of immediacy is partly to do with the way these spaces >are perceived. Engaging with the real world is an experience that immerses >the body in their surroundings. Direct and peripheral vision, sound >resonating within the environment, being able to move over, around, through, >in and out of spaces, and the ability to observe and manipulate solid >objects all contribute to this feeling of being in the world…." > >(CHRISTINA) Obviously this could not happen in a pre electronic space in >such a literal, hands on way. But, did it not, does it not, happen in >human imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance and >recursion inside the spaces of the Baroque? > >(TROY) "…Transmutational space. Electronic spaces are artificial >constructions - simulations where the entire virtual world is a code, every >part of the space is a re-representation. They allow multiple forms of >representation to easily coexist and be blended with one another, creating >hybrid systems of signs." > >(CHRISTINA) Especially so in the Baroque, I imagine…created in a time of >breakdown and clash of ideologies, loss of normative or rule based cultural >standards, nearly continuous warfare, and rapid commercial and technological >advances, leading to a taste for fragmentation, the edge of chaos, >dissolution at the edge of organization–generally, a hybridity, a fluidity >of forms, to quote Eisenstein. > > > >> looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my own >> work or much of the work discussed at >> http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is interactive >> audio work > >Probably true enough.. > >> >> are you 'reclaiming' the term 'baroque'? >> >That would be far too grandiose an aspiration! > >Significantly, Eisenstein recounts that he came up with the idea of montage >from studying the Carcieri series of Piranesi, a series of imaginary prisons >with irrational spatial configurations. My vrml piece, to which you refer, >was inspired by Eisenstein's remark: > >
> Hello Christina, > Enjoyed the work and your thoughts on a net baroque. > > It would be interesting to explore the idea of these spaces having what > can be described as ?agency? ie. electronic space can be populated with > ?intelligent entities? that interact with the user. Clearly the moving > image/sound > fields in piranesia have agency in that they pursue the viewer in order > to immerse them in loops of image and sound. ie. what ?happen(s) in human > imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance and recursion > inside the spaces of the Baroque? is also happening within the ?mind? of > the machine in its model of the player/user. It is not only the perception > of the space that changes in the mind of the player/user, but an electronic > space can literally change / mutate / reform / loop around etc. > > Perhaps this agency is embodied in the religious associations of Baroque > experience in that they are mediating / simulating experience of other > mysterious > / spiritual forces. The notion of the ghost in the machine / cyborg could > be perceived as a new manifestation of this ?other? force. > > The immediacy of the space and its actualisation of abstract logics / codes > through simulation makes the difference ? the space interacts with the user > in a literal / real way. > > Troy. > > >> >>> Hi Christina, >>> >>> What is the plugin to install for >>> <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a > new >>> hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the plugins >>> installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml. >> >> Blaxxun for pcs >> http://www.blaxxun.com/services/support/download/install.shtml >> Cortona for mac >> http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortonamac/ >>> >> There should be music fragments in interactive crashes, that are stimulated >> by the users exploration but at least on my server the sound isnt coming >> across. Does it work on yours? I sincerely apologize if the sound isnt >> working as it is crucial to the sense of space in the work. >> >>> concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some > to >>> primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that > uses >>> plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art > that >>> does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of disparagement, >>> doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're using >>> it. >>> >> Well, just for a quick thought here, the Baroque is a very rich period > in >> music, visual art and architecture, rich because its sense of space and >> meaning is hybrid and has an interest in interactivity, interpolation, >> recursion, reversal, reflexivity, juxtaposition and emergence. Think Bach, >> Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Piranesi, Bernini, Borromini. The term 'baroque' >> has an idiomatic connotation of a quality of excess or immersion, >> totalizing, over the top. >> >> I suspect that an argument could me made to link analogically between >> aspects of the nature of electronic space representation and affect and > the >> space generated by the Baroque. Troy Innocent identifies some aspects > of >> electronic space (excerpts), which I link (very anecdotally), in the spirit >> of play, to Baroque spatial obsessions in the following imaginary dialogue. >> (Apologies to Troy for misapplying his very finely tuned definitions and >> wholesale lifting out of context, my fault entirely): >> >> For the Troy Innocent complete text please see >> <http://www.fineartforum.org/Backissues/Vol_17/faf_v17_n09/reviews/reviews_i >> ndex.html> >> >> (TROY)"….Feedback loop. A combination of direct control and immediate >> feedback create a strong sense of engagement between the user and the >> electronic space… " >> >> (CHRISTINA) In the Baroque, the inside space of the work attempts to >> stimulate a constant shifting so that as you engage with the space it opens >> up volumes that invite imaginative projection beyond themselves… The >> feedback loop is in the function of the 'user's kinaesthetic memory inside >> the baroque space >> >> (TROY) - "the starting point is a void, these spaces do not need to follow >> the rules of the real world - fantastic new experiences may be created > based >> on their own rules of existence. " >> >> (CHRISTINA) Baroque aesthetics of space often involve emergence from >> darkness, doubt, the unknowable, the unseeable, and towards transformation, >> transfiguration, excess, illumination, and back, to shadow. An interest > in >> complexities of form arising dynamically and in unstable combinations, > cliff >> hanger specials, out of the darkness. >> >> (TROY)… "intense focus is placed on the user's immediate experience of >> the >> virtual world. This connection is often strong enough that, psychologically, >> the user is inside that world…." >> >> (CHRISTINA) The affective space of the Baroque wants to draw you into >> itself, absorption is the watchword rather than independent status. >> Cartesian space is not privileged. What you see may not turn out to be > what >> you can know; complex transformations are just offstage and about to come >> on. >> >> (TROY)…."This sense of immediacy is partly to do with the way these spaces >> are perceived. Engaging with the real world is an experience that immerses >> the body in their surroundings. Direct and peripheral vision, sound >> resonating within the environment, being able to move over, around, through, >> in and out of spaces, and the ability to observe and manipulate solid >> objects all contribute to this feeling of being in the world…." >> >> (CHRISTINA) Obviously this could not happen in a pre electronic space in >> such a literal, hands on way. But, did it not, does it not, happen in >> human imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance > and >> recursion inside the spaces of the Baroque? >> >> (TROY) "…Transmutational space. Electronic spaces are artificial >> constructions - simulations where the entire virtual world is a code, every >> part of the space is a re-representation. They allow multiple forms of >> representation to easily coexist and be blended with one another, creating >> hybrid systems of signs." >> >> (CHRISTINA) Especially so in the Baroque, I imagine…created in a time > of >> breakdown and clash of ideologies, loss of normative or rule based cultural >> standards, nearly continuous warfare, and rapid commercial and technological >> advances, leading to a taste for fragmentation, the edge of chaos, >> dissolution at the edge of organization–generally, a hybridity, a fluidity >> of forms, to quote Eisenstein. >> >> >> >>> looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my > own >>> work or much of the work discussed at >>> http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is interactive >>> audio work >> >> Probably true enough.. >> >>> >>> are you 'reclaiming' the term 'baroque'? >>> >> That would be far too grandiose an aspiration! >> >> Significantly, Eisenstein recounts that he came up with the idea of montage >> from studying the Carcieri series of Piranesi, a series of imaginary prisons >> with irrational spatial configurations. My vrml piece, to which you refer, >> was inspired by Eisenstein's remark: >> >>
Comments
Hi Christina,
What is the plugin to install for
<http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a new
hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the plugins
installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml.
concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some to
primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that uses
plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art that
does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of disparagement,
doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're using
it.
looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my own
work or much of the work discussed at
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is interactive
audio work.
are you 'reclaiming' the term 'baroque'?
ja
ba
On 9/25/03 10:51 PM, "Jim Andrews" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Christina,
>
> What is the plugin to install for
> <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a new
> hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the plugins
> installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml.
Blaxxun for pcs
http://www.blaxxun.com/services/support/download/install.shtml
Cortona for mac
http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortonamac/
>
There should be music fragments in interactive crashes, that are stimulated
by the users exploration but at least on my server the sound isnt coming
across. Does it work on yours? I sincerely apologize if the sound isnt
working as it is crucial to the sense of space in the work.
> concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some to
> primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that uses
> plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art that
> does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of disparagement,
> doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're using
> it.
>
Well, just for a quick thought here, the Baroque is a very rich period in
music, visual art and architecture, rich because its sense of space and
meaning is hybrid and has an interest in interactivity, interpolation,
recursion, reversal, reflexivity, juxtaposition and emergence. Think Bach,
Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Piranesi, Bernini, Borromini. The term 'baroque'
has an idiomatic connotation of a quality of excess or immersion,
totalizing, over the top.
I suspect that an argument could me made to link analogically between
aspects of the nature of electronic space representation and affect and the
space generated by the Baroque. Troy Innocent identifies some aspects of
electronic space (excerpts), which I link (very anecdotally), in the spirit
of play, to Baroque spatial obsessions in the following imaginary dialogue.
(Apologies to Troy for misapplying his very finely tuned definitions and
wholesale lifting out of context, my fault entirely):
For the Troy Innocent complete text please see
<http://www.fineartforum.org/Backissues/Vol_17/faf_v17_n09/reviews/reviews_i
ndex.html>
(TROY)"….Feedback loop. A combination of direct control and immediate
feedback create a strong sense of engagement between the user and the
electronic space… "
(CHRISTINA) In the Baroque, the inside space of the work attempts to
stimulate a constant shifting so that as you engage with the space it opens
up volumes that invite imaginative projection beyond themselves… The
feedback loop is in the function of the 'user's kinaesthetic memory inside
the baroque space
(TROY) - "the starting point is a void, these spaces do not need to follow
the rules of the real world - fantastic new experiences may be created based
on their own rules of existence. "
(CHRISTINA) Baroque aesthetics of space often involve emergence from
darkness, doubt, the unknowable, the unseeable, and towards transformation,
transfiguration, excess, illumination, and back, to shadow. An interest in
complexities of form arising dynamically and in unstable combinations, cliff
hanger specials, out of the darkness.
(TROY)… "intense focus is placed on the user's immediate experience of the
virtual world. This connection is often strong enough that, psychologically,
the user is inside that world…."
(CHRISTINA) The affective space of the Baroque wants to draw you into
itself, absorption is the watchword rather than independent status.
Cartesian space is not privileged. What you see may not turn out to be what
you can know; complex transformations are just offstage and about to come
on.
(TROY)…."This sense of immediacy is partly to do with the way these spaces
are perceived. Engaging with the real world is an experience that immerses
the body in their surroundings. Direct and peripheral vision, sound
resonating within the environment, being able to move over, around, through,
in and out of spaces, and the ability to observe and manipulate solid
objects all contribute to this feeling of being in the world…."
(CHRISTINA) Obviously this could not happen in a pre electronic space in
such a literal, hands on way. But, did it not, does it not, happen in
human imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance and
recursion inside the spaces of the Baroque?
(TROY) "…Transmutational space. Electronic spaces are artificial
constructions - simulations where the entire virtual world is a code, every
part of the space is a re-representation. They allow multiple forms of
representation to easily coexist and be blended with one another, creating
hybrid systems of signs."
(CHRISTINA) Especially so in the Baroque, I imagine…created in a time of
breakdown and clash of ideologies, loss of normative or rule based cultural
standards, nearly continuous warfare, and rapid commercial and technological
advances, leading to a taste for fragmentation, the edge of chaos,
dissolution at the edge of organization–generally, a hybridity, a fluidity
of forms, to quote Eisenstein.
> looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my own
> work or much of the work discussed at
> http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is interactive
> audio work
Probably true enough..
>
> are you 'reclaiming' the term 'baroque'?
>
That would be far too grandiose an aspiration!
Significantly, Eisenstein recounts that he came up with the idea of montage
from studying the Carcieri series of Piranesi, a series of imaginary prisons
with irrational spatial configurations. My vrml piece, to which you refer,
was inspired by Eisenstein's remark:
why those plug-ins? never heard of them.
On Friday, Sep 26, 2003, at 11:42 America/New_York, Christina McPhee
wrote:
> On 9/25/03 10:51 PM, "Jim Andrews" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hi Christina,
>>
>> What is the plugin to install for
>> <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a
>> new
>> hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the
>> plugins
>> installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml.
>
> Blaxxun for pcs
> http://www.blaxxun.com/services/support/download/install.shtml
> Cortona for mac
> http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortonamac/
Why would it be disparaging if the internet itself is, structurally
speaking, baroque?
On Friday, Sep 26, 2003, at 01:51 America/New\_York, Jim Andrews wrote:
> Hi Christina,
>
> What is the plugin to install for
> <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a
> new
> hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the
> plugins
> installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml.
>
> concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some
> to
> primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that
> uses
> plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art
> that
> does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of
> disparagement,
> doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're
> using
> it.
>
> looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my
> own
> work or much of the work discussed at
> http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is
> interactive
> audio work.
>
> are you 'reclaiming' the term 'baroque'?
>
> ja
>
> ba
> There should be music fragments in interactive crashes, that are
> stimulated
> by the users exploration but at least on my server the sound isnt coming
> across. Does it work on yours? I sincerely apologize if the sound isnt
> working as it is crucial to the sense of space in the work.
No problem with the sound, once I got the plugin.
Interesting music. What is the music, Christina? Is it baroque? Is it run
backwards? What did you do to make the sound?
It's a very attractive concept, what you've done with the writing linking
out to pieces related to the writing. A compelling mix of the 'essay' and
art, which I am always on the lookout for.
You make an interesting case for the influence of the baroque era in the
digital soup, also.
The internet is complex and recursive, isn't it, like Liza points out. yeah
it's pretty friggin baroque. a couple of friends of mine who have a passing
connection to it are beginning to complain angrily about its dangers and
complexities. it's getting hard for the non-hardcore to approach it casually
without virus protection, firewalls, and a critical eye on scam spam viri
and whatnot. Like it's no place for the innocent with its multi-levelled
gotchas, come ons, and the software's 'fatal errors' exacerbated by
commercial and prank hooks. Part of me likes that, though, the difficulty of
it, the dark mysterious willfulness of it, like a piece of net.art; part of
me is annoyed like my friends, or annoyed for them and those like them,
annoyed for what it might mean for it as a mass medium, ie, retreat from the
net–or is that just not possible, in the long run?
You make me want to read more about the baroque era and its art, Christina,
thank you. Also, I will spend more time with your post and its links. Are
you going to put the writing up as a url with the links in it?
ja
>
> Interesting music. What is the music, Christina? Is it baroque? Is it run
> backwards? What did you do to make the sound?
Referring to the music in piranesia, all of it is my own music, certainly
baroque in mood <http://www.soundtoys.net/a/indexa.html>———-
The sound is from my suite of electronic piano compositions, Naxsmash Suite
(2001-2003). All of the music on naxsmash is made from various mixes of it.
The suite consists of six 7.8 minute long pieces named after each section in
the piece 47REDS http://www.naxsmash.net/47reds/about47reds.html. – eyes,
relay, shift, smash, snow, ropes. Each soundwork has matching large scale
digital prints by the same name. At present I am producing new video at the
full length of each piece: the work reddance uses smash as a soundtrack and
will open at the performance cinema symposium in san francisco tomorrow.
The total time adds up to (almost) the prime number 47, but of course it
doesn't exactly, suggesting a play on the idea of things constantly falling
into or out of prime, an entropic edge, or a little like, an a sharp minor
that just keeps wanting to slide back down into an a in a blues progression.
The name naxsmash derives from NAX, a performance video that was the
starting place out of which all the work on the voice of the cyborg, trauma,
memory and virtual architecture has been built. Naxsmash listens to the
voice of a cyborg behind the screen. Fmi there is another linked essay on
NAX and performance/atopia on
<http://www.naxsmash.net/public_html/texts/McPheeNaxsmash_files.htm>
I composed improvisationally at a Yamaha keyboard and sent the signal into
OS9 mac where I recomposed everything in recursive loops, inversions, etc ,
backwards/forwards etc, using the old macromedia program soundedit. It took
about a year to get the basic material together in the longer lengths of
seven+ minutes each. There is also voice recording (my performance voice).
For piranesia, I made very tiny fragments that would interface harmonically,
ie they are all within some weird dorian mode, or 12 tone kind of feel; I
worked this out by ear. Shane Carroll plugged my wrl microsounds into the
vrml code so that the sound reacts by being approached, or "touched"
–strange attractors.
> The internet is complex and recursive, isn't it, like Liza points out. yeah
> it's pretty friggin baroque.
Another thing that interests me a great deal is how recursion and
reflexivity in the baroque soundspace of the net is also an aspect of
aphasic speech. Thus the cyborg speaks, but as an impaired, or
breaking-down, or ruined voice or place of voices. Baroque goes neural
(see <www.neural.it/english>.
Part of me likes that, though, the difficulty of
> it, the dark mysterious willfulness of it, like a piece of net.art; part of
> me is annoyed like my friends, or annoyed for them and those like them,
> annoyed for what it might mean for it as a mass medium, ie, retreat from the
> net–or is that just not possible, in the long run?
It's a mass medium no matter how arcane it gets as long as the url is hooked
up to a few search engines. Even the idea of dead sites hurtling around in
'space' outside the net has its asteroidal charm (I think Bruce Sterling has
written about this somewhere).
> You make me want to read more about the baroque era and its art, Christina,
> thank you. Also, I will spend more time with your post and its links. Are
> you going to put the writing up as a url with the links in it?
Stay tuned :)
c
–
<www.naxsmash.net>
<www.christinamcphee.net>
<www.inscapes.com>
>
> ja
>
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> post: [email protected]
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Hello Christina,
Enjoyed the work and your thoughts on a net baroque.
It would be interesting to explore the idea of these spaces having what
can be described as ?agency? ie. electronic space can be populated with
?intelligent entities? that interact with the user. Clearly the moving image/sound
fields in piranesia have agency in that they pursue the viewer in order
to immerse them in loops of image and sound. ie. what ?happen(s) in human
imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance and recursion
inside the spaces of the Baroque? is also happening within the ?mind? of
the machine in its model of the player/user. It is not only the perception
of the space that changes in the mind of the player/user, but an electronic
space can literally change / mutate / reform / loop around etc.
Perhaps this agency is embodied in the religious associations of Baroque
experience in that they are mediating / simulating experience of other mysterious
/ spiritual forces. The notion of the ghost in the machine / cyborg could
be perceived as a new manifestation of this ?other? force.
The immediacy of the space and its actualisation of abstract logics / codes
through simulation makes the difference ? the space interacts with the user
in a literal / real way.
Troy.
>
>> Hi Christina,
>>
>> What is the plugin to install for
>> <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a
new
>> hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the plugins
>> installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml.
>
>Blaxxun for pcs
>http://www.blaxxun.com/services/support/download/install.shtml
>Cortona for mac
>http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortonamac/
>>
>There should be music fragments in interactive crashes, that are stimulated
>by the users exploration but at least on my server the sound isnt coming
>across. Does it work on yours? I sincerely apologize if the sound isnt
>working as it is crucial to the sense of space in the work.
>
>> concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some
to
>> primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that
uses
>> plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art
that
>> does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of disparagement,
>> doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're using
>> it.
>>
>Well, just for a quick thought here, the Baroque is a very rich period
in
>music, visual art and architecture, rich because its sense of space and
>meaning is hybrid and has an interest in interactivity, interpolation,
>recursion, reversal, reflexivity, juxtaposition and emergence. Think Bach,
>Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Piranesi, Bernini, Borromini. The term 'baroque'
>has an idiomatic connotation of a quality of excess or immersion,
>totalizing, over the top.
>
>I suspect that an argument could me made to link analogically between
>aspects of the nature of electronic space representation and affect and
the
>space generated by the Baroque. Troy Innocent identifies some aspects
of
>electronic space (excerpts), which I link (very anecdotally), in the spirit
>of play, to Baroque spatial obsessions in the following imaginary dialogue.
>(Apologies to Troy for misapplying his very finely tuned definitions and
>wholesale lifting out of context, my fault entirely):
>
>For the Troy Innocent complete text please see
><http://www.fineartforum.org/Backissues/Vol_17/faf_v17_n09/reviews/reviews_i
>ndex.html>
>
>(TROY)"….Feedback loop. A combination of direct control and immediate
>feedback create a strong sense of engagement between the user and the
>electronic space… "
>
>(CHRISTINA) In the Baroque, the inside space of the work attempts to
>stimulate a constant shifting so that as you engage with the space it opens
>up volumes that invite imaginative projection beyond themselves… The
>feedback loop is in the function of the 'user's kinaesthetic memory inside
>the baroque space
>
>(TROY) - "the starting point is a void, these spaces do not need to follow
>the rules of the real world - fantastic new experiences may be created
based
>on their own rules of existence. "
>
>(CHRISTINA) Baroque aesthetics of space often involve emergence from
>darkness, doubt, the unknowable, the unseeable, and towards transformation,
>transfiguration, excess, illumination, and back, to shadow. An interest
in
>complexities of form arising dynamically and in unstable combinations,
cliff
>hanger specials, out of the darkness.
>
>(TROY)… "intense focus is placed on the user's immediate experience of
>the
>virtual world. This connection is often strong enough that, psychologically,
>the user is inside that world…."
>
>(CHRISTINA) The affective space of the Baroque wants to draw you into
>itself, absorption is the watchword rather than independent status.
>Cartesian space is not privileged. What you see may not turn out to be
what
>you can know; complex transformations are just offstage and about to come
>on.
>
>(TROY)…."This sense of immediacy is partly to do with the way these spaces
>are perceived. Engaging with the real world is an experience that immerses
>the body in their surroundings. Direct and peripheral vision, sound
>resonating within the environment, being able to move over, around, through,
>in and out of spaces, and the ability to observe and manipulate solid
>objects all contribute to this feeling of being in the world…."
>
>(CHRISTINA) Obviously this could not happen in a pre electronic space in
>such a literal, hands on way. But, did it not, does it not, happen in
>human imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance
and
>recursion inside the spaces of the Baroque?
>
>(TROY) "…Transmutational space. Electronic spaces are artificial
>constructions - simulations where the entire virtual world is a code, every
>part of the space is a re-representation. They allow multiple forms of
>representation to easily coexist and be blended with one another, creating
>hybrid systems of signs."
>
>(CHRISTINA) Especially so in the Baroque, I imagine…created in a time
of
>breakdown and clash of ideologies, loss of normative or rule based cultural
>standards, nearly continuous warfare, and rapid commercial and technological
>advances, leading to a taste for fragmentation, the edge of chaos,
>dissolution at the edge of organization–generally, a hybridity, a fluidity
>of forms, to quote Eisenstein.
>
>
>
>> looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my
own
>> work or much of the work discussed at
>> http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is interactive
>> audio work
>
>Probably true enough..
>
>>
>> are you 'reclaiming' the term 'baroque'?
>>
>That would be far too grandiose an aspiration!
>
>Significantly, Eisenstein recounts that he came up with the idea of montage
>from studying the Carcieri series of Piranesi, a series of imaginary prisons
>with irrational spatial configurations. My vrml piece, to which you refer,
>was inspired by Eisenstein's remark:
>
>
That's it exactly!
C
On 10/5/03 4:31 PM, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello Christina,
> Enjoyed the work and your thoughts on a net baroque.
>
> It would be interesting to explore the idea of these spaces having what
> can be described as ?agency? ie. electronic space can be populated with
> ?intelligent entities? that interact with the user. Clearly the moving
> image/sound
> fields in piranesia have agency in that they pursue the viewer in order
> to immerse them in loops of image and sound. ie. what ?happen(s) in human
> imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance and recursion
> inside the spaces of the Baroque? is also happening within the ?mind? of
> the machine in its model of the player/user. It is not only the perception
> of the space that changes in the mind of the player/user, but an electronic
> space can literally change / mutate / reform / loop around etc.
>
> Perhaps this agency is embodied in the religious associations of Baroque
> experience in that they are mediating / simulating experience of other
> mysterious
> / spiritual forces. The notion of the ghost in the machine / cyborg could
> be perceived as a new manifestation of this ?other? force.
>
> The immediacy of the space and its actualisation of abstract logics / codes
> through simulation makes the difference ? the space interacts with the user
> in a literal / real way.
>
> Troy.
>
>
>>
>>> Hi Christina,
>>>
>>> What is the plugin to install for
>>> <http://www.internet3d.net/paratopias/piranesia/index.html> ? I got a
> new
>>> hard drive and did a clean install of xp, so i don't have all the plugins
>>> installed i used to, but would like to view your vrml.
>>
>> Blaxxun for pcs
>> http://www.blaxxun.com/services/support/download/install.shtml
>> Cortona for mac
>> http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortonamac/
>>>
>> There should be music fragments in interactive crashes, that are stimulated
>> by the users exploration but at least on my server the sound isnt coming
>> across. Does it work on yours? I sincerely apologize if the sound isnt
>> working as it is crucial to the sense of space in the work.
>>
>>> concerning 'baroque', it seems like a term that has been used by some
> to
>>> primarily disparage plugin net.art. and it is misapplied to work that
> uses
>>> plugins but doesn't really seem baroque, though there is some net.art
> that
>>> does seem (vaguely) baroque. but it seems mainly a term of disparagement,
>>> doesn't it? Though I should add I don't think that's the way you're using
>>> it.
>>>
>> Well, just for a quick thought here, the Baroque is a very rich period
> in
>> music, visual art and architecture, rich because its sense of space and
>> meaning is hybrid and has an interest in interactivity, interpolation,
>> recursion, reversal, reflexivity, juxtaposition and emergence. Think Bach,
>> Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Piranesi, Bernini, Borromini. The term 'baroque'
>> has an idiomatic connotation of a quality of excess or immersion,
>> totalizing, over the top.
>>
>> I suspect that an argument could me made to link analogically between
>> aspects of the nature of electronic space representation and affect and
> the
>> space generated by the Baroque. Troy Innocent identifies some aspects
> of
>> electronic space (excerpts), which I link (very anecdotally), in the spirit
>> of play, to Baroque spatial obsessions in the following imaginary dialogue.
>> (Apologies to Troy for misapplying his very finely tuned definitions and
>> wholesale lifting out of context, my fault entirely):
>>
>> For the Troy Innocent complete text please see
>> <http://www.fineartforum.org/Backissues/Vol_17/faf_v17_n09/reviews/reviews_i
>> ndex.html>
>>
>> (TROY)"….Feedback loop. A combination of direct control and immediate
>> feedback create a strong sense of engagement between the user and the
>> electronic space… "
>>
>> (CHRISTINA) In the Baroque, the inside space of the work attempts to
>> stimulate a constant shifting so that as you engage with the space it opens
>> up volumes that invite imaginative projection beyond themselves… The
>> feedback loop is in the function of the 'user's kinaesthetic memory inside
>> the baroque space
>>
>> (TROY) - "the starting point is a void, these spaces do not need to follow
>> the rules of the real world - fantastic new experiences may be created
> based
>> on their own rules of existence. "
>>
>> (CHRISTINA) Baroque aesthetics of space often involve emergence from
>> darkness, doubt, the unknowable, the unseeable, and towards transformation,
>> transfiguration, excess, illumination, and back, to shadow. An interest
> in
>> complexities of form arising dynamically and in unstable combinations,
> cliff
>> hanger specials, out of the darkness.
>>
>> (TROY)… "intense focus is placed on the user's immediate experience of
>> the
>> virtual world. This connection is often strong enough that, psychologically,
>> the user is inside that world…."
>>
>> (CHRISTINA) The affective space of the Baroque wants to draw you into
>> itself, absorption is the watchword rather than independent status.
>> Cartesian space is not privileged. What you see may not turn out to be
> what
>> you can know; complex transformations are just offstage and about to come
>> on.
>>
>> (TROY)…."This sense of immediacy is partly to do with the way these spaces
>> are perceived. Engaging with the real world is an experience that immerses
>> the body in their surroundings. Direct and peripheral vision, sound
>> resonating within the environment, being able to move over, around, through,
>> in and out of spaces, and the ability to observe and manipulate solid
>> objects all contribute to this feeling of being in the world…."
>>
>> (CHRISTINA) Obviously this could not happen in a pre electronic space in
>> such a literal, hands on way. But, did it not, does it not, happen in
>> human imagination and memory, in the affective experience of resonance
> and
>> recursion inside the spaces of the Baroque?
>>
>> (TROY) "…Transmutational space. Electronic spaces are artificial
>> constructions - simulations where the entire virtual world is a code, every
>> part of the space is a re-representation. They allow multiple forms of
>> representation to easily coexist and be blended with one another, creating
>> hybrid systems of signs."
>>
>> (CHRISTINA) Especially so in the Baroque, I imagine…created in a time
> of
>> breakdown and clash of ideologies, loss of normative or rule based cultural
>> standards, nearly continuous warfare, and rapid commercial and technological
>> advances, leading to a taste for fragmentation, the edge of chaos,
>> dissolution at the edge of organization–generally, a hybridity, a fluidity
>> of forms, to quote Eisenstein.
>>
>>
>>
>>> looking at the def below, for instance, i don't see it applying to my
> own
>>> work or much of the work discussed at
>>> http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Review/index.cfm?articleE , which is interactive
>>> audio work
>>
>> Probably true enough..
>>
>>>
>>> are you 'reclaiming' the term 'baroque'?
>>>
>> That would be far too grandiose an aspiration!
>>
>> Significantly, Eisenstein recounts that he came up with the idea of montage
>> from studying the Carcieri series of Piranesi, a series of imaginary prisons
>> with irrational spatial configurations. My vrml piece, to which you refer,
>> was inspired by Eisenstein's remark:
>>
>>