mengyu's status on Sunday, 25-Nov-2018 07:28:55 JST
mengyuFor this final project, I would like to explore the idea of spatial interaction in network performance. My goal is to expand the three “problematics” indicated by GOLO FÖLLMER in his 2005 paper from Network Music into the field of Network Reality (network interactive performance + virtual & mixed reality), and argue that, with a new mode of spatial interaction, some problematics are no longer critical and it is possible to reconcile the "opposing paradigms of composition and communication” proposed by Golo Follmer.
The three problematics discussed in Follmer’s paper are: 1) the absence of space in the net music. 2) the absence of physical encounters between users. 3) The lack of control or regulation of machines. My proposal of virtual reality based spatial interaction is exactly aiming for solutions to them. Briefly, for the first problematic, a virtual space can be created to map different location-based sounds and objects together in it (exactly or hypothetically) so that a new spatial relationship can be constructed for the performers. For the second problematic, although it is impossible to encounter other users physically in a virtual space, we can use multiple “agents” to represent all the participants over the network and accompany the user with a specially designed interface to physically control their agents to see and interact with each other, which is not event or action based interaction but more alike real time performative interaction. For the third problematic, as we have granted machines a high level of autonomy in this age of artificial intelligence, I propose a transformation of machine control interface into agent. In such scenario, machine itself is to be treated as a performer participating in the network that we use a certain “protocol” to communicate with it via its agent (control interface). We design and build the agent so that our protocol with machine can get through. Composition over the network is no longer a self-centered production for the experiential or perceptual sake of user itself. it is a design of the protocols to trigger productions from different members across the network that produce a shared and collective experience. Beyond that, not only machine can have such an agent for us to communicate with in the network reality, other species, organic or inorganic, such as vegetables, minerals, and planets, can all be participants of the network performance, as long as certain protocols can be made.
So on the practical side, I am building this virtual space to map the sounds I receive from Rodney to formulate a spatial relationship with what I hear from the network. These objects representing and visualizing sounds are agents of Rodney’s “algorithmic machines” that I can interact with. At the same time, they are also agents for Ben’s music instruments as we discussed. Conceptually, Ben and Rodney are sharing the visual bodies of these agents in this virtual space while they are using different protocol components on these agents to communicate with me. Eventually, a simple version of "network reality" that I am proposing here is made.
mengyu's status on Tuesday, 16-Oct-2018 02:12:09 JST
mengyuI enjoy the reading a lot, and it has something quite similar to what I have been thinking on the infrastructure of networked reality, especially on the ideas of network as the prosthetic extentions of human body. Following the biological idea in the article, we can expect human to be sharing a giant interweaving organ that links and reaches each other on top of the planetary physical layer. Tentacle may be a way to describe this organ for human but if we think of it as a higher level biological species as described in the article, how can we describe it from a higher dimensional perspective? Humans are collectively functioning in this organism to make it move and alive like an emergent networked animal, but we still see this collaborative reality through our own individual lens as an individual unit or a single cell. Is there a way that we can have a multi-point vision / perception over this species? Can we see and experience what others are seeing and experiencing at the same time? Can we elevate ourselves to the level that we can experience what this networked animal is experiencing? I am envisioning a networked experience and a framework that we see what we all see, and we behave as we are behaving all together, as if we are sharing a brain, a much more powerful multi-threaded brain than our single-threaded brain, reaching a state that we can all create, control, perceive this emergent networked reality, a shared consensual consciousness that is based on dissensual actions. Is it possible?
mengyu's status on Tuesday, 09-Oct-2018 19:41:13 JST
mengyu"Where Are We? Extended music practice on the internet”. I was particularly interested in the multiple points of view brought by the distributed model of network performance, as it opens up the possibility to have a decentralized way of collaborative construction of a piece of work / many individual pieces based on the different perspectives of each node. Each node can have its own authority over both of the physical and digital aspect of the collaborative contribution, such as a manipulation / re-route on the network data, or a deliberate set up of the space. This autonomy of individual node at different space can give a lot of possibilities on the performance, and create very unique experiences of its own kind. Another aspect I was thinking is the potential reference or layer on the content of the work to be related to the geopolitical environment we are having. New meanings can be constructed via a geographical relationship over the network into the performance, which will be very interesting to look upon.
mengyu
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