Slide Rule

I found an old slide rule - what a fascinating piece of equipment. They can be very precise, but not nearly as accurate as a computer, but when you're dealing with tolerances within a certain factor, it doesn't matter. So I looked up some sites on how to use it, and discovered a few. I am thinking of incorporating this into my artwork, using maybe my symbols - the symbols as "logarithmic representations of energies" or "logarithmic representations of metaphysical states."

One idea I will take on very quickly is creating a flash version of a slide rule, then I can mess with replacing the number fonts with some of my characters. I think the initial mathematical phobia that people feel would quickly dissipate if they start to make correlations between different characters in unconventional ways. This could also present a unique way of displaying information from external interfaces.

ether beat

This is an interactive project of sorts. It is an attempt to project empathic feelings towards someone else - via a transmitted, captured and synthesized heartbeat. Wouldn't this be so much better than one of those leashes you see for kids? Imagine, they get farther away, and you can sense it, physically, intuitively, rather than tying them to a leash. Or how about a baby monitor, or better yet, something so that the baby can feel like the mother is still nearby.

Chain Reaction

This is a major project I will be working on in the Spring. The idea here is to create a series of cellular automata, in which "each element induces or influences" other elements. The cool thing is that each element or automata can be anything that can talk to everything else., via local interaction or via the internet to two or three other institutions.

Barney Haynes writes about several aspects of the project, suggesting, light and sound interaction, physical interaction between machines and humans, remote control, and terms the 'ethernet' or connecting substrate as "Connective Tissue." This is a alluring term to use, at once warm and inviting while also coldly clinical. It conjures imagery of biological interactions, the truly most amazing cellular automata - the body. How much of interactive art is an experiment in mimicking life. Renaissance artists tried to do it visually, we are simply trying to it conceptually.

Phenomenology
In his explanations Haynes also brings up phenomenology, a concept I couldn't have named prior to reading this, but now realize that it describes concepts that I am excited about. This is a philisophical feild that is concerned very much perception, not how things are perceived. If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it does it still make noise? Do things even exist if we don't perceive them? Quantum mechanics made some interesting discoveries about this concept. The heisenburg prinicple basically states that the act of observing changes whatever it is that you are observing. In the words of Wayne Dyer, "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

Reaction to System Esthetics - Jack Burnham.

Burnham's article makes several observations about the evolution of art in the 20th century. I found some of the parallels between the advances of modern science and art to be particularly interesting. One of the first things he mentions is the idea that art is no longer merely restrained to boundaries. Sculpture, painting and other forms of classical fine art are typically defined by boundaries, while newer, un-objects, take into account the fact that works are often part of their surrounding environment, whether that environment is physical, social or conceptual. This concept parallels the scientific realization in quantum physics that the act of measuring often changes the system being observed. The observer becomes part of the system, the tools that are used become part of the equation, and the results are a combination of both observer and observed. The audience of a work of art will have social preconceptions, learned filters, and other influences that are part of the system, or work of art, rather than isolated from it.
Another concept Burnham discusses is that of the idea rather than that of the physicality. In classical terms, the most important part of an artwork is the physical object itself. The new paradigm he suggests is that of the idea, the process, or in other words, the information is just as important. Robert Morris' “68th American Show” entry was built using information – blueprints – rather than shipping the originals from New York. With the development and pervasiveness of computers in the next few decades, this seems to be a very profound observation for 1968: that information plays such an important part of daily life. Conscious or not, he is alluding to the developing scientific theories that are blurring the lines between reality and imagination – that information is the basis for reality. Artwork strives to organize this information in an aesthetically pleasing way. For the impressionists, this was the organization of the information of light. For modern artists the challenge comes to realize that information isn't only what we perceive with our five senses.