Writings

Bring the Noise

In this text  I will present how we developed different  processes for collectively producing a series explorative soundscapes and mechanical artefacts using specific constraints influenced by theories from art and architecture. I will show how we worked with a design methodology that brought together an editor and the final expression of the artwork into one surface of interaction and execution using a virtual cityscape as an iterative ground for sound and music explorations, and give some examples of our different prototypes and iterations. I will also discuss how we tweaked/iterated with the parameters of the framework, the sounds and the final visual expression to match our artistic intention, and finally to bring some noise into Abadyl. Also infuencing the overall framework

Keywords: Art, design, interface, interaction, loop, music,3d, cityplanning

INTRODUCTION

Over the years working with different projects I have learned about and experimented with how to transfer methods from creative writing and worldmaking into my own work practice in the fields of art and design. In Postscript to the Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco writes on the generative logic he has adopted, a logic which both limits and expands creativity. The fundamental parameters of this logic guide what can and cannot be included in a fictional but plausible universe. In my own  work and together with others I have chosen to focus on the generative itself of this logic; that is, it is not about parameters resulting in a consistent, watertight universe, but rather what can be generated from a large number of predetermined real and fictitious parameters. These parameters resonate through a mix of creative writing, physical artefacts, virtual objects, and modified game engines in a constant loop that results in novels, film, interaction designs, and art installations. By letting them evolve in these different settings they will separately host detailed and comprehensive perspectives, which incorporate surprising visual and technical proposals. “At the heart of creativity lie constraints: the very opposite of unpredictability. Constraints and unpredictability, familiarity and surprise, are somehow combined in original thinking.” Boden (1997)

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Bring the noise

In March 2009 I started a series of collaborations called hit strip music, Timescapes and Abadyl of tunes with musicians and sound artists were we  tried to explore the soundscape of Abadyl and bring some noise to the city, and also to provide some ideas of how the locations in Abadyl sounds like.

Hit strip Music

In Hit strip music we follow a musical composer on the day when he decides to stop play and write music. How he turns to his paper shredder to get rid of all he scores and notes, but suddenly rediscover them in a way he never imagine. In this scenario the co-creators explore how short musical fragments connected to physical paper strips (that are tagged with rf-id tags) can be used to explore music making by play and combine musical fragments in real-time in different ways, and use them for composing new music.

  1. F1 DJ rfid based music generator prototype  2009

Timescape

In this project we use a physical object based on three independently rotating discs with different graphical elements that picks up external information on the internet and local network connected to different activities, statistics, news etc that will influence and change the expression of the object and at the same time be able to trig different media in an unpredictable way – mystical machine that both collect, express an actuate.

  1. Time scapes Adobe flash based digital prototypes

Abadyl of tunes

The quest in this project and that is going to be presented more thoroughly in this article as follows,  is to look upon how to create an awareness for the invited co-creators of the underlying programming structure that makes the interaction and execution of the music possible and at the same time make it visible interesting to play, interact, watch and listening to, and at the same time, where interface and

These different works illustrates in a good way how projects are set up and how we conduct them to extract content and assimilate it back to Abadyl.  To be able to conduct these different projects we use Fieldasy and three different perspectives on production we gained developed in the project a Journey to Abadyl.

  1. Artefact extraction and assimilation using Fieldasy (Johansson, 2003)

Fieldasy was a method we developed in 2003-2004, first presented as an exhibition in Malmo, Sweden at the Gallery Skanes Konst, and later as a research paper for the Pixel Raiders conference (Johansson and Linde 2004). In Fieldasy we tried to unify different methods into one creative process that attempts to understand and redefine our world in a situation where information is lacking (Figure 4). This lack of information is used as a resource, for example by providing ambiguous fragments as a starting point, removing constraints on the imagination. It was designed with respect to staging a conflict that has a mind triggering influence on the co-creator with a set of problems that only can be captured in a given material. Fieldasy is a process for engaging multiple perspectives in the creation of a world, and the mapping of its virtual space, by extracting artefacts and stories through the developed scenarios, partitur and game-boards.

To finalize a work of art in the field of digital media is not easily achieved, when often the different professions work separately and in different knowledge slots and black boxes, maintaining the linear and assembly line thinking from the past. We instead wanted to have a process were the actual development have to  be conducted simultaneously, with constant iterations in-between them.  In 2008 I started to developed a framework for working with digital and dynamic media and interaction in such a way with my colleagues in PRAMnet, in a project called “a Journey to Abadyl”. Here we  created three new perspectives that put traditional roles of production and research  in the area of digital media  aside to better bridge and mix the different professions in  new ways. The three perspectives are as follows:

  • Expression – is everything that has a n actuation and presence in the play/performance/installation. Here all the traditional media producers, put forward examples that can be tested and tried out in different ways. It is about calibrating and creating expressions in relation to the other exploration clusters, involving; actors, groups, audience, film, sound,  stage design, images etc.
  • Play mechanics – is about matching the story and the audience/players development through all forms of interaction, actuation and sensory input, designing the underlying structure that support the possible outcomes of all scenes in the play. Here scriptwriting, dramaturgy, scenography and interaction design propose and test different set-ups. This will be an layout of time and space to establish a dialogue with the other two exploration clusters involving; spacial and dramatic models, dramatic tension, sensors, actuators, spacial functions, interaction methods, interaction sequences, deliverance, believability
  • Dynamic behavior – is about matching every aspect of programming with time, space interaction and narrative progression. This will be an computer model and the program core which opens up and establish relevant in and outputs to the other two exploration clusters involving; processes, computer models, game play- architecture, state machines, sensor calibration, computer-vision, narrative progression, discrete mathematics

The overall goal with this set-up or approach was to look at how we can build a narrative and interactive framework, and create a testing and production environment for the different projects we are working on. We also saw a need to develop a format for creating and sharing knowledge in-between different professions and stakeholders in this process – from tests through rehearsals and prototypes into the finished productions, so the participants could work closer together exchanging knowledge and experiences between a broad range of discipline, to support the   quest for a surprise somewhere in between generative logic and artistic intentions.

Co-Creation

So the question is not only how  you go about exploring a complex digital space but also how that work is set up and how the actual production is conducted. We have for over ten years used the framework of Abadyl, and the fieldasy method to stage different events and spaces in the form of written scenarios. The scenarios are handed over to the invited temporary citizens and co-creators. They can then act in relation to the scenario,  in and by themselves chosen environment. That in the end helped them produce the artefacts. Our scenarios try to slowly create a discreet dynamic tension and/or displacement between person, objects, time, places, workprocess and events that are not usually – if ever – associated into new and surprising conjunctions. By using scenarios we are able to provide detailed and specific data, which the co-creator can use as background material for their action. Scenarios relation to the overall project is loosely defined as to allow the creation of artworks, that though enriching the database, still are autonomous from the mother project in the sense that they can be exhibited by themselves. They also act as generators while they generate new and unforeseen processes which extend into new and likewise unforeseen contexts.

Abadyl of tunes

In March 2011 I started a collaboration with the media designer Jim Hall.I was introduced to his work Isle of tune by one of my former students who saw his work and said that it had some similarities with The city of Abadyl and how we over the years used racing tracks to compose voice and sounds for different investigations and exhibitions. The idea was that we would make a Abadyl modification of the original Isle of tunes and produce sixteen soundscapes, one for each city part and a soundtrack for the city of Abadyl and release it as a multiple art piece over two years, and at the same time explore Abadyl sound and music wise. The proposed modification included different crossroad configurations such as random, clockwise and anti clockwise, to make variations of how a specific tune could be played and how the music developed over time.

Loops

When we are trying to follow the artistic intention or concept, we want and try to build our different prototypes to produce qualities not known beforehand. But to achieve this the prototype has to reach a certain state of a complexity, a complexity max Hoberg (2006) so we can begin to explore it thoroughly. Therefore a production environment such as the Abadyl framework, with its, constraints, obstacles, limitations, stories, is rewarding for conducting practice based research in the area of art and new media. To many art projects are just illustrations of technology, and to many design projects unreflected uses convention and qualities from art. We do art well, and computing more dubiously; we do computing well but the art is questionable. Bardzell (2009)

The underlying shapes of racing tracks or loops in the city has been used by us and other in many different projects in time based media. In our loop-based scenarios we try to employ parallel and repetitive elements, we can establish and create an open narrative field were creative input from the user can add new elements to the experience. The loops are static and dynamic and can be varied in length and tempo and be interlinked and/or crossed by other loops. The loop also, in its basic version can be seen as a tool for reflection, a moment to revere the constant streams of attractions and desires created and recreated in every digitally performed action and story. Since new media itself has matured, the process is no longer depended on the predecessors more traditional and linear methods of authoring, instead every part of the process is constantly changing the way we author, script and express a multithreaded open work.

When working with 3d graphics and sound we choose from a partly new, partly re-appropriated, palette of narrative tools as the loop. Were the timebased linearity can be substituted with other means of dramatic tension, in a mix of controlled, generative and random execution functions, accessed through the interface and at the same time creating the visual expression of the artwork itself. By closely integrate the interface, the visual expression and the programmable structure we wanted to facilitate an open tool for our collaboration.

Compositions

For Abadyl of tunes we used two basic concepts for the design of our editor on a more philosophical level. Firstly we used something that already been explored in the Abadyl project in earlier works. Coming from Scandinavia with a firm tradition of participative design, we wanted to contrast our design work in the relation to that by using some of Sol Lewitts (1969) Sentences on conceptual art.

Sentence no: 29

The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with. It should run its course.

Based on Sol Lewitts sentence we designed a fixed and nearly mechanical setup where only two options were available for the co-creators – adding sounds to the database and ordering of the interactive graphical elements, houses, tress, objects, roads and cars. Working with explicit and visual recognizable constraints triggers creativity. The “mapping” of a conceptual space involves the representation, whether at conscious or unconscious levels, of its structural features. Much as a real map helps a traveler to find – and to modify – his route, so mental maps enable us to explore and transform our conceptual spaces in imaginative ways. Boden (1997) At first it looked simple and trivial to the co-creators but they soon learned how complex a constraints system can be were its simple programming principles were revealed for the user. The paradox is that constraint enables creativity. By constraining the generative system into an appropriate conceptual space, a writer gains a conceptual structure that can be systematically explored and transformed. A conceptual space can be explored by testing the sounds by the existing constraints. Sharples (1996) In this way of constructing a city space for musical execution, the co-creators soon learned how in different ways make use of the space for exploring and designing their sound scape.

  1. Formula one story engines in collaboration with Jon Ovander 2003

Secondly we went back to one of the basic ideas we worked with when Abadyls architectural space was designed. Through Boden (1994) Creativity cannot only and simply be reduced to novel combinations of old ideas. For example, In Architecture and Disjunction, Bernhard Tschumi [ outlines a framework for multiple combinations and substitutions that exist simultaneously, including the following three operations:

Cross-programming;  the use of a space not as intended

Transprogramming;  the combination of disparate programs

Dis-programming; disparate programs that contaminate each other.

These operations possibilities of combinations and permutation of existing programs as well new programs. In the same book he also stated that there are four ways of working with architecture.

  1. Design a masterly construction, an inspired architectural gesture(a composition)
  2. Take what exists, fill in the gaps, complete the text, scribble in the margins (a complement)
  3. Deconstruct what exists by critically analyzing the historical layers that preceded it, even adding other layers derived from elsewhere, from other cities, other parks (a palimpsest)
  4. Search for an intermediary – an abstract system to mediate between the site (as well as all given constraints) and some other concept, beyond city or program (a mediation)

For this project we choose to work with the first one since the sounds and graphical elements in its final form have all the characteristics of a composition, a score, a sound player and a visual expression capture in one single unit.

  1. Abadyl of tunes map 18 musician Johan Salo Scenario

To be able to host complex and specific projects like this one in Abadyl. We provide scenarios of the city planning and architectural theories we use and misuse during the design of both the different city parts and the architecture of the city. In these scenarios we try to show how the city was constructed and to introduce both the city itself and the specific city part chosen for the invited co-creators. Our scenarios tries to bring field studies and fantasy together, to slowly create a discreet dynamic tension and/or displacement between persons, things, times, places, and events that are not usually – if ever – associated into new and surprising conjunctions. By using scenarios we are able to provide detailed and specific data, which the co-creator can use as background material for their action, choosing their sounds and music clips. Hopefully then, the co-creator themselves imports qualities into the world, which do not and cannot stem from the City of Abadyl itself.

  1. Interface, interaction and iteration.

  1. Interface  detail  for Abadyl of tunes

The elements we use in the isle of tune modification consists of ;

  • Forty four one second long audio tracks.  Fve provided from recordings from the actual locations were the fragments of the city part was originail captured  Thirty nine one second long audio tracks provided by the invited co-creators
  • Twelve graphical 3d rendered elements to represent the city parts architecture
  • Three vehicles

three_houses_for_Abadyl_of_tunes.jpgFigure 7.  3d houses modeled in Softimagel  for Abadyl of tunes

The structure for this setup we use the original isle of tune 2d grid that matches the different city-parts that constitute how the co-creator can layout the graphical elements, with connected sounds. The graphical elements are divided into six groups were four of them contains the sound database and the other two is used for layout the roads and the cars.

The importance in this project is to let the co-creators have full access to both the media database as well as the layout of the sounds and player objects on the grid. This establish a practice for the invited co-creator that make use of the geometrical or geographical space where interface and visual expression are inseparable units. The idea here is to reveal the certain levels of the programming structure of both the visual and sound-scape construction for the co-creators so they can easily understand its constraints.

The art and act of then letting the cars drive around in this constructed space, the cars become the pickup on a record player. Where the three cars follow the thick and thin of the urban tune, they shape, play and share the soundscape of Abadyl.

Worldmaking

Quite late in this project we recognized Nelson Goodman´s Ways of worldmaking (and recognized how we over the years in a similar way worked with his proposed activities of worldmaking that is:

Composition and Decomposition Weighting Ordering Deletion and Supplementation Deformation

Layout, ordering and editing the roads includes periodicity and proximity; and the standard editing and ordering of the tunes in the database as well as adjusting the rhythm and tempo of the different  tunes that are played by the cars.

Taking apart and putting together, analyzing the components at the same time composing wholes, by connecting features into complexes, by adding, breaking up, and restructuring. The importance  here is to let the co-creators have full access to both the media database as well as the layout of the sounds and player objects on the grid. Establish a  practice for the invited co-creator that make use of  the geometrical or geographical space where interface and visual expression are inseparable units in their making of their world. The idea here is to reveal the certain levels of the scripting structure of both the visual and sound-scape construction itself.

The art and act of letting the cars drive around in the constructed space is to the urban system what the pickup is to the record player. Where the three cars  follow the thick and thin of an urban tune. And by letting the cars drive through  the streets of  the  city one shapes, plays and share the sound scape of  Abadyl.

Conclusion

The three parts in the projects we have conducted so far has all proven that this limited approach challenges the co-creators presumptions about how to create sound scapes, play music and construct city-spaces, even though all of the different parts are already known beforehand.

This way of letting the co-ccreators redefine a world in a situation where information is lacking, has again proven both for us who are working with the actual framework and writing the scenarios but also for the co-creators themselves, were they both de and reconstruct their music making capabilities through limitations and constraints. So by providing ambiguous fragments (content/constraints) as a starting point we managed to challenges the co-creators assumptions in order to produce soundscapes and dwell the city of Abadyl at the same time. Where the question for us is how to create an awareness the underlying programming structure that makes the interaction and execution of the music possible and at the same time make it visible intresting to look and listening upon. By the interface revealing some of the scripting structures for co-creators with non or  limited scripting knowledge it adds a positive friction in relations to the co-creators own professional knowledge, and support them in bringing the  noise to Abadyl.

REFERENCES

Alexander, C., S. Ishikawa, et al. (1977)  A pattern language : towns, buildings, construction. New York. Oxford University Press.

Boden, M. 1997 The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanism, Weidenfeld &Nicholson, London.

Bardzell, J. 2009. Interaction Criticism and Aesthetics. Proceedings of CHI’09: World Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM: New York.
Goodman, N., 1978. Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing
Greenaway, P. and Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Wien.(1992) Hundert Objekte zeigen die welt = Hundred objects to represent the world : 100. Verlag erd Hatje, Stuttgart.
Hoberg, C 2006 Komplexitets Max, Dialoger Förlag, Stockholm, Sweden
Johansson, M. and Linde, P. Fieldasy, 2004 Fieldasy. Pixel Raiders. Sheffield, UK.
Poggenpohl, S. and Sato, K, 2009. Design Integration. Intellect: Bristol
Sharples M  1996An Account of Writing as Creative Design, A Writer’s Reference 6th Edition Books
Sol Lewitt 1969 Sentences on Conceptual art, Art-Language, Vol. 1, No. 1 .
Tschumi, B 1994 Architecture and disjunction. Cambridge, Mass, London, MIT Press

Thanks to Jim Hall letting us use Isle of tune and all of the modifications he implemented for making our explorations possible.

Conversation China

Conversation China

Serendipity on a plate

Michael Johansson

Collaborative Media Lab
Kristianstad University
Sweden

ABSTRACT

In this article I will present and discuss the  design thinking, methods, processes and some examples of work,  that demonstrates how I together with different co-creators set up a work practice, using digital 3d objects and images. That in different ways and formats helps us to explore how a database, a set of rules can be used in a dialogue with artistic work practice and how such a process can be used to create images and animation in a variety of design and art projects. The main example is a project called Conversation China that still is in its making, here we work with rather complex processes, involving several digital analogue techniques as the basis for creating  the images for a 150 pieces porcelain dinner set. My interest in this work is how the intention of the artist or designer is transferred and later embedded in the procedural or algorithmic process and how this intent is organized and set up to secure an desired outcome, mixing the possibilities of the digital media object with manual editing and artistic craftsmanship. What this article tries to put forward is how we designed and set up environments for working with non linear and procedural media, their different expressions and forms by using explorable prototypes and design thinking?

Keywords: Co-creation, 3d worlds, Design fiction, Human condition, Uncertainty, Storytelling, Worldmaking, Animation, Decorative Patterns, Porcelain

FOUR PROJECTS  

Already in early 90´s when I worked with a Swedish company Advisors to improve visual representations in a virtual reality setting for cognitive therapy using advanced computer graphics system provided by Silicon Graphics and Softimage. I  became familiar with the visual qualities and rendering techniques of virtual objects and  3d worlds. During these experiments I became interested in how to put together different 3d objects from a database into complex spacial configuration to improve the overall immersion and of the virtual world itself. In this process, errors in compiling the different objects created stunning visual results and led me into creating a system for randomly explore a limited database of 3d objects. The project was called VET, Vacuum Extropia Theory. The project was supported by the Swedish art council and presented at an exhibition. In VET the idea was by animation, cluster different 3d objects and use a virtual camera to automatically explore 3d environments and worlds,  in theory, algorithms are  repeatable and should produce identical results every time, but by stressing implementation and limitations of software and the computer itself  I intentionally caused and looked out for errors and flaws that produce interested visual expressions.

  1. Image vsfär 197  from VET

Boom

At that time the tools still where very simple and the different outputs from the computer where limited. I could clearly see that the software I used, and still do could produce good visual results, but to achive the kind of complexity I was looking for I knew I had to be patient and to spend time to build all the models I needed. So in parallel I started to write scenarios and simulate various computer programs never written, as a ground for visual exploration in a series of paintings

Here you can manufacture a world for its future inhabitants in a couple of hours, since it will not take you any longer to enter BOOM into your computer. In the years to come the program will undoubtedly have a great influence, especially upon the thinking and lifestyle of man. The principal reason for this is the fact that the concepts and methods of the program are so tantalizing and accessible. What you do is that you provide a data memory with a set of facts, and then you load this memory with mathematical data. There are an infinite number of parameters to set for the user. Everything from the way in which the cholesterol level of a certain president will develop during a certain period of time to the background radiation of the universe.

Abadyl

The city of Abadyl has been described and written about in several articles and papers before, and is today my main art project where I conduct most of my work. The city of Abadyl is created and constantly re-generated   by using the lack of information as a resource for worldmaking. By providing ambiguous fragments as a starting point, it serves as a vital part in the creation of a space where we can be in a constant dialogue with, a large database of material that is interlinked through the architecture of a city, regardless of its incompatibilities. That space is a continuously evolving platform for staging both immediate and long-term projects. The method establish a multidisciplinary common ground for a art practice, interaction design and technology development, through an investigation of philosophy and criticism in a dynamic material. The approach is to create an environment which facilitates artistic work practice in complex production environments such as those of digital media, supporting invited artists, researchers, companies, and students. We establish a ready-made, fictitious gravity well that others can easily transfer their knowledge into. Abadyl is all about using a generative logic that both limits and expands creativity Boden, M. (1997). The fundamental parameters of this logic guide what can and cannot be included in a fictional but plausible universe. Our concern is not so much with a consistent, watertight universe, but rather what can be generated inside a framework  of a large number of predetermined real and fictitious parameters.

  1. Endgame

Endgame

Endgame is a storytelling game using the 100 different objects that is included in the framework of the city of Abadyl. Establishing a game setting similar to fragmented storytelling, often used in games such as Bioshock. Here the players must find fragments during the progression of the game and piece them together by writing short stories.  In End Game the objects become constraints and the foundation for the players to fill in the gaps. Endgame attempts to as pointed out before to understand and redefine our world in a situation where information is lacking. This lack of information is used as a resource. To help our co-creators in End game and later in Conversation China we borrowed the dramatical model from Joseph Cambell and Christoffer Vogler to secure a narrative progression. Campbell, J (2004) , Vogler, C (2007)

The human dilemmas in that Campbell’s captures in his hero’s  journey structure are conditions that always will have relevance. So if one instead look on the heroes journey as a series of  dilemmas that we through our human condition constantly face, we have a series of situated action that can be represented over and over again and still be relevant to us, in understanding  our human endeavours.  Each part has one of the objects name written on one side and a coloured patterns on the other. With one word of an object written on top of it, and a coloured pattern  on the back side. It also contains 100 notes card where the story fragments are written during play, and 100 action card which have the players exchange/steal/loose story fragments. In the end each player tell their gathered story and the best story is chosen by voting amongst the players, that story is put into the log book of the game itself. Afterwards all of the story fragments created will used to create a new collective story based on the story fragments of choice.

DESIGN THINKING

One of the central question in all of the past project described is;

What if you know all of the facts and parameters used in a project,  how can they still help producing unforeseen and surprising outcomes?

To be able to answer this and at the same time take full advantage of the digital media object there are some important ingredients that must work and play together. First we have to ask ourselves how do we use digital media object as a “design material”? Digital materials are usually more complex and flexible, less transparent and tangible. But above all, it is more cumbersome to learn and produce than most realize. So I believe that increased complexity in creative development calls for both disciplinary depth and integrative skills. Secondly  I adopt the mindset that the primary result of a design process is not only a design concept, but the knowledge acquired during the process, knowledge which can in turn be applied to produce a concept.

The design process can thus be viewed as a process of  learning. Knowledge acquisition in the space of the unknown entails a design process based on knowledge acquired through phenomena such as luck, uncertainty and chaos, ambiguity and surprise.  Our strategy that we already developed in 2008 was to create new perspectives that put traditional roles of production and research  in the area of digital media objects aside to better bridge and mix the different professions in  new ways. Lundh, J (2008)  The overall goal with this set-up or approach was to look at how we can build a narrative and interactive framework, and create a testing and production environment for the different projects we are working on. We also saw a need to develop a format for creating and sharing knowledge in-between different professions and stakeholders in this process – from tests through rehearsals and prototypes into the finished productions, so the co-creators and participants could work closer together exchanging knowledge and experiences between a broad range of discipline, to support the  quest  for a surprise somewhere in between  databases, artistic intentions, algorithms and narratives.

Design Fiction

The past two years I have in different constellations tried to map out a model that helped us reached the fold of the known and into unknown territory, not only as a theory but as an design practice, and also make a contribution to the area of Design Fiction. As artists and designers in particular we have the nature and nurturing to explore, create, and tell stories about possible worlds. Design has its roots in the application of artistic discipline to the engineering of technology, in the form of pattern making for mass production, and as styling for product marketing. Later, design has come into its own as a creative discipline and an origin of innovations rather than only something slapped onto existing ones. Design is one activity of creating the future, not solving old problems as much as inventing new opportunities, still with strong ties to empirical science and engineering but also with the story telling of branding and marketing. In parallel, industries and design have evolved from producing products, to services, and recently to experiences, expressing basic human tenets to create and tell stories. This of course is at the core of fiction, helping us make sense of what it means to be human, how to plan and live our lives, and to find some purpose behind our journey. Science fiction expands on this in a speculative and perhaps ultimate manner, leaving our known world to verge into the fringes of the unknown and beyond.

Design fiction as the notion of the “conflation of design, science fiction, and science fact” Bleeker, J (2009) is interesting then as a space of tension and entanglement between what is and what could be. In design fiction we have the space to apply design to science fiction, or science fiction to design. For example, methods like scenario planning used by futurologists have been borrowed by science fiction writers to extrapolate from the present into the future. Industrial designers working in the Detroit automotive industry have not seldom ended up designing spaceships for Hollywood, while researchers in aerospace technologies or ubiquitous computing have also consulted for science fiction movie productions. And there is a long history of science fiction influencing innovations, attitudes and values in our own, real worlds. The emergence of design fiction is one sign of this interplay being acknowledged and appreciated as having a potential for experience design in general. One question is then how to actually work in practice in this space of tension and entanglement between science fact and science fiction, and especially how to encourage the use of science fiction in design, away from derivative, predictable output and towards speculation and tinkering based on the opportunities afforded by the unknown.

  1. Epistemological model of the universe. Copyright Michael Johansson and Kristoffer Åberg, progression over time borrowed from Stross, C. (2013)

The database as material

With all of the above described project it is clear that by trying to combine different digital media objects, mostly 3d objects in the computer and then translated them into physical objects in a constant feedback loop of production, the use of technology is not only that of the tool. Because electronic and digital media have also raised consciousness of an incidental flux in our culture where cultural production combines fragments, dislocates them and re-combines again. The concept of sampling takes it’s older relative the montage some giant steps further. Montage is a kind of juxtaposition where you disrupt elements to put them in new combinations, the sampling technique works on a more genetic level Johansson, M. &  Linde, P (2004). Since all media objects share the same foundation Manovich, L (2001)  it is therefore possible to mix them on  many different levels.

Here the digital media object can challenge ideas from the physical way of working  with qualities that is very hard to achieve in the physical world with physical tools, and in that conflict new expressions can be developed. Hybrid creations have become a method for working with cultural production not only with different elements of form and how these are generated, but also blending the identities of the creators as well. So there is a demand that challenge their differences and incompatibilities rather than merging them together into one. And by letting them evolve in different media and materials the final hybrid will host an interesting comprehension of different perspectives. Lev Manovich idea of the database as something that “represents the world as a list of items and it refuses to order this list”, is an intriguing challenge. Digital media objects just dwelling around waiting to be accessed  and ordered, when someone wants to use the databases for making a statement, demonstrate an perspective or telling a story. 

Is there a conflict between database and narrative? Or is it the  different representations used when a user by interface and interaction extract the bits and pieces from a database by constantly link them together into sequences that are fundamental different, that are more spatial than narrative in its execution?

“The “user” of a narrative is traversing a database, following links between its records as established by the database’s creator. An interactive narrative can then be understood as the sum of multiple trajectories through a database. A traditional linear narrative is one, among many other possible trajectories; i.e. a particular choice made within a hyper-narrative. “ Manovich, L. (2001)

For an artist or designer to work with databases the question to ask is how to design the trajectories through a database and what kind of representation to use to make them present and by doing so create user engagement playing with the parameters. What kind of Interaction Gestalt  Lim, Y., Stolterman, E., Jung, H. & Donaldson, J. (200?) is needed. “In this regard, the challenge here is to create a language that helps a designer understand which attributes are to be considered in order to create a certain gestalt that  in turn will result in desired user experiences.” Artist working with digital media should take this into account when they plan and execute the order of the elements when inviting someone to co-create  an image, a sequence of movie-clips in a film or how 3d models are explored and/or compiled into a navigable and interactive space for further explorations. Similar to  Certeau, M. (1984)  idea about Spacial Stories, Our approach is to by representation facilitate possible trajectories through our database, and  let the co-creators and participants move and interact with our framework and maps of Abadyl and have them create different outputs as performative acts in which they can become the storymaker.

For a single artist or even for a small group of people this is a demanding and time consuming activity that needs both experience and planing. Our strategy has always been to develop our content in open and generic file formats so it wont be captured in a certain generation of technology, and to secure that the developed material is not restricted in use of a single software. The content also has to be manually or machine wise analysed and then meta tagged in order to call for their attributes and fit them into a specific sequences and/or formations that match the intended use and at the same time host something surprising both in relation to form and content. So every time a search in the database is done and an artwork recreated it will be different because the underlying model, it´s objects and the characters have changed and will be recreated, expressed and re-represented again.

By trying to establish a friction between the personal and dynamic way in which people experience moving and interact through space in a daily life, and how our framework, maps and scenarios support a similar act, and at the same time have the co-creators develop and alter the parameters of the maps and scenarios themselves. The framework of Abadyl can be looked upon as a place of static objects where each co-creators have each their subjective input that create a flux and friction in which the lifeless and abstract place can come alive and become an animated, changeable and concrete space. Which literary scholar Mieke Bal defines as follows: it should contain both an actor and a narrator; it also should contain three distinct levels consisting of the text, the story, and the fabula; and its “contents” should be “a series of connected events caused or experienced by actors or the procedural compiling it.” Bal. M. (1997)  Since Abadyl in itself is not an text based project, that like hypertext try to establish  different possible trajectories through a database of text by hyper-links. We have instead borrowed a generative logic, a logic that both limiting and expanding creativity amongst the co-creators. We have chosen to focus more on the generative itself in this logic; using 3d objects stored in a database , rules and procedural  models to put together the different 3d objects into new assemblages/hybrids and interaction procedures to let co-creators and audiences interact with the construction of the Abadyl framework and at the same time explore and experience its parameters that we made present for the co-creators. It is not about these parameters resulting in a watertight consistent universe, but the main interest is in what can be generated from a  number of predetermined accessible parameters.  To be able to fully make us of a database it must first host relevant content that also needs to be created and adjust to fit a certain project ideas and intentions.

Walk  your talk

“An examination of the functions of intention in the making of art begins with the contrast between inspirationist and rationalist perspectives on artistic creativity. Intentions are necessary to art-making and are linked to the assumption that a work of art is always evaluable in terms of one kind of potential artistic value—artistry or virtuosity. Intentions are linked to artists’ projects, to the distinction between complete and incomplete works of art, as well as to the several senses of ‘fragment’ in critical discourse. Linvingstone, P. (2005)

Creativity is often looked upon as a value separate from process or method. But creativity detached from the rendering of an intentional outcome is meaningless. For the artist as well as the designer, creativity is a ‘tool’ with a purpose. It is therefore subordinated the artist’s intentions and ideas. One tends to forget that the actual realization of the artwork in a specific material often is a very monotone and demanding process, and also context specific. Therefore, the artist soon learns how to handle the time frame between idea and completion – as well as the importance to spend time there. The finished artwork will then signal creativity precisely because it has managed to bridge the uncertain space between idea and completion, and because of that, has not given up the artworks intentions, and established the necessary friction that makes creativity spark.

CONVERSATION CHINA

In 2008 I start collaborating with my friend and colleague Gertrud Alfredsson around sixteen stories based on  everyday heroes in the City of Abadyl. The purpose was to use them as the basis for creating the images for the porcelain dinner set, that all in all will be 150 pieces, and later explore them in a series of dinner events to evaluate their ability to spark conversation around a dinner table with invited guests. Using the Abadyl Partitur we sent in sixteen fictitious heroes into it. The rules was that each character had to “hit” 23 objects and that the objects should be hit and crossed by at least one hero and that each object never would be used more than five times. We also made a rule that during the process informed us which objects the heroes   could use, based on the characters movement, into something we called story routes. All of these story routes was developed into a specific dilemma for each hero and scenarios written based on the journey that each hero managed their way through. The story routes established  a kind of mental map that enable us (me and the co-creators) to explore and transform Abadyls and our own conceptual spaces in imaginative and new ways, and in the end a series of stories about sixteen characters life’s and dilemmas in the city of Abadyl. So for the first time we had someone walking the streets of Abadyl.

  1. The  final sixteen  storyroutes created in Collaboration with Gertrud Alfredsson

Game the rules of play

Conversation China was the first project in Abadyl that fully challenged and used that framework, influenced by the artists and Architects that will be mentioned later in this part. By doing so, also affected how this framework could be further developed and redesigned. If one look at Abadyl as a sort of conceptual space Boden, M. (1997) , a latent unprecedented space, that by exploring it through different methods and processes in cooperation with others in a constant feedback loop it changes its way of working as well as its presence. It is important that our framework is so open that we can influence it and use it in different ways again and again by the use of the generic file formats of the content in our database. By constantly be able to change and manipulate our underlying model, game the rules of play, we can better define our final and intended outcome of the project itself. In conversation china most of the initial work were carried out on printed paper, following a set of instructions. Each session let the co-creator connect the city of Abadyls objects into story routes. By playing with  Abadyls framework in the conversation china project it will sometimes expose itself inconsistent, the conceptual constraints captured in the three numbers 7, 16 and 100 become elastic and therefore can not serve as absolute constraints any more.  So by consequence they have to be pinpointed back in new position were they can continue and maintain their autonomy and still be backward compatible.

 

  1. Lines and distortion layout on characters

Something  that also have a significant influence on each plate in the dinner set is that each plate is a part in an overall structure, figur 5 So by combining the plates one could actually create several different characters, this was achieved by introducing a combination of thin lines and a array of  distortions of the patterns and main images, but also to breakup the traditional structure of patterns and main images, as they where under influence of something else,

This process also made help us specify the sixteen heroes on a very specific parameter, the length of them

To be able to both set up and play with the rules at the same time adds a additional level of design thinking. Similar to the parametric and procedural playfulness described in Pamphlet Architecture 27 Tooling. Aranda, B. and  Lasch, C. (2005 )

“ A complex global pattern arises as a result of many individual entities acting independently of one another, and according to a very simple set of local rules

Changes the underlying model of the world, and add new objects and methods without having to completely rewrite the code

Be able to run multiple scenarios, based on different assumptions and focusing different aspects of the underlying simulation

Change parameters within a scenario, and to replay a scenario with a clear indication of what factors are held constant across runs”

This flux should  be seen as a possibility because if some of the parameters are changed so it will not be backward compatible there is an opportunity to run some scenarios of the former projects again and find out new things in relation to both that scenario, project and Abadyl itself.  Abadyl should be seen as something that is constantly regenerated and that constantly incorporate it owns memories, findings and experiences and therefore never will be exactly the same. It is a constant dialogue between Abadyls framework, its constraints and the findings in this environment that also shapes itself through this work over time.

“Furthermore if worlds are as much made as found so also knowing is as much remaking as reporting. All the processes of worldmaking I have discussed enter into knowing. Perceiving motion, we have seen, often consists in producing it. Discovering laws involving drafting them. Recognizing patterns is very much a matter of inventing and imposing them. Comprehension and creation go on together”

  1. 3d rigg built in Softimage and link to databse using ICE and Python script

We made up and found our world in the conversation China project as an work practice by using ideas and concepts from art and architecture. So on the conceptual and programmatic level Sol Lewitts statement “The idea becomes a machine that makes art.” was central for us and many others as a way to generate art and capture its execution in a concept, a scenario or a script. In the conversation China the “machine” was the 3d rig we built that layout the sevens scales of the objects accordingly of décor on the different porcelain plates and objects. 1.Environment 2.Building 3.Room 4.Furniture 5.Tool 6.Interface 7.Idea

  1. By turning the different part of the rig based on the numbers 7, 16 and 100 the rig can produce many  different expression for each characters  dilemma.

To strengthen qualities in the digital media object we borrowed a programming idea from Berhard Tschumi that formalized an aspect of generative logic to enhance new combinations or other relationships. Tschumi, B. (1991) A description how the different layers of 3d objects should be treated as 3d and also as rendered images, in a combination of boolean operands and virtual camera filtering and post-production techniques. His work outlines a method which operands we have used before for multiple combinations and substitutions that exist simultaneously, including the following three concepts: 

  • Cross-programming – the use of a space not as intended.
  • Trans-programming – the combination of disparate programs.
  • Dis-programming – disparate programs that contaminate each other. These operations offer possibilities of combinations and permutation of existing programs as well new programs.

As the artist Mark Tansey we are not interested in “doing pictures of things that actually exist in the world. The narratives never actually occurred.” Danto, A.C. (1992) We are instead interested in visually combining disparate 3d models from our database into monochrome decors and images that will be rather complex, mystic or surprising in its presence. Similar to Tanseys term “technophor” a metaphorical technique for connecting subject matter and ideas. But going from static 3d models into action also needs to be addressed in a project like this. Therefore we built a underlying structure based on motifs, oppositions and problem that by combination of the different 3d model could create and pose the main characters on the plates and objects, that involves establishing trajectories and points of collision in the database between a variety of its content. 

For the décor we used a much more simple and mechanical approach with some underlying matchingmaking. The method we mostly employ here refers to what Claude Levi-Strauss was calling bricolage: a thinking-experimenting which rather than devising something brand new, is solving problems by re-organising what is available, at hand. An approach by which objects are not expressly defined and reduced to a sole function, but continually can be made to generate something else, develop hidden potential. A method which applicability in no way is confined to resolute, practical problems, but which can well be used visually.

  1. Example of the  the seven  layers put together from the 3d rig

To summarize this, Sol Lewitt idea of  “That irrational thought should be followed absolutely and logically. The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with.” Was used to build the 3d rig. Bernhard Tschumis operands to describe methods how overlapping objects generated by the rig could be transformed and distorted. Mark Tanseys term “technofore” is used for by meta tagging the objects create associations on the pictorial level, and also pose the different characters into action and finally a montage technique inspired by “bricolage” that in manually editing and compose the décor and central images of each porcelain object.

CONCLUSION

Through the years I  have worked  together with several different co-creators with 3d worlds and artefacts as our surface of communicating and testing our ideas and concepts that are generative rather that produced. Generative in the sense that they have nor original nor final form from the beginning. They are sprung out of a chain of association through our work process and methods that generates new forms, which in its turn recombines into new stories.  My idea is not intended to fully automate the process of novel image making, instead I propose an dialogue that takes into account all new possibilities using digital material, that in the end help us to put  forward (if we succeed) interesting images which parameters we can tweak and change in order to get the intended result on a level where the artist themselves in the end can complete the work an address its intent in the final form. One cannot underestimate the impotence of facilitating forms and ways to interact that creates relevant dialogues with all aspects of the digital material and its creators.

The friction created by letting artefacts evolve in specific materials and media specified by us in a project like Conversation China, help the co-creator capture interesting and comprehensive perspectives, that through artefact creation incorporates surprising visual and technical proposals and expand and influence the framework of Abadyl. Working with the imagery or artefact generated as a source of communication let co-creators explore this area by complex connections through iterating between artistic intentions/screen writing, digital generated expressions, physical objects and script/code writing. The key here for the co-creator is the ability to work in ambiguity – to explore different possibilities without too early jumping to conclusions. This negative capability as Keats defines it, “is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries and doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” The artefacts also act as generators while they generate new and unforeseen processes, which extend into new and likewise unforeseen contexts. Where the co-creators disseminate their knowledge into the artefact and framework, also extracting something which can inform their own future practice.

REFERENCES

Aranda, B. and  Lasch, C.2005 Pamphlet Architecture 27: Tooling Princeton Architectural Press

Bal, M. 1997 Narratology University of Toronto Press

Bleecker, J., 2009. Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction. Available from: http://drbfw5wfjlxon.cloudfront.net/writing/DesignFiction_WebEdition.pdf  [Accessed Dec  4 2013]

Boden, M., 1995. Creativity and Unpredictability. SEHR Vol. 4 Issue 2.

Campbell, J. 2004The Hero with a thousand faces, Princeton University press

Danto, A.C. 1992  Mark Tansey: Visions and Revisions, Abrams, New York

de Certeau, M. 1984 The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press

Eco, U. 1984. Postscript to the Name of the Rose. UK: Harcourt

Goodman, N., 1978. Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing

Greenaway, P. and Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Wien.(1992)Hundert Objekte zeigen die welt = Hundred objects to represent the world : 100. Verlag erd Hatje, Stuttgart

Johansson, M & Linde, P 2004. Fieldasy, paper Pixelraiders Sheffiled hallam university

Lasch, C, Aranda, B, 2005 Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition

Livingstone, P 2005 Oxford University  press

Lund, J. 2008. Journey to Abadyl. BoD – Books on Demand, GmbH, DE

Lim, Y., Stolterman, E., Jung, H. & Donaldson, J Interaction Gestalt and the Design of Aesthetic Interactions  School of Informatics, Indiana University

Manovich, L.  2001 The language of new media, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass

Tschumi, B. 1991. Architecture and disjunction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Vogler, C., 2007. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Production

Key terms The city of Abadyl

Abadyl: Is the title of a painting by Michael Johansson made in 1987 for the exhibition populärminne (Popular memory) it is the combination of the word abstrakt (abstract) stad (city) and akryl (acrylic paint), it now lends it´s name to the project presented here. Years later when internet searching became available I found out that it also is a small mission in the USA.

Co-Creation: The aim to use co-creation is to break the common position of the single artist and instead put forward a positive friction between Abadyl and the invited co-creators perspectives and professions. To create a temporarily and mutual relationship where we can interact, evolve, reflect and innovate in a multidisciplinary setting that blurs the boundaries between art, research and innovation.

Fieldasy: Tries to bring field studies and fantasy together, to slowly create a discreet dynamic tension and/or displacement between persons, things, times, places, and events that are not usually – if ever – associated into new and surprising conjunctions.

New Media: All media objects that could be variably, dynamic, meta-tagged, manipulated, modular, algorithmic, cloned, copied, coded, trans-, cross- and dis coded or procedural.

Prototypes: Is our approach to explore the profound relationship between digital materials, tools and artefacts.

Scenarios: Helps us to provide detailed and specific data, which the co-creator can use as background material for their action and artefactual production.

Iterations: We strive to facilitate a openness towards what happens in-between the design cycles. To try develop and put forward qualities that are hidden from the concepts point of view and by doing so – have the concept redeveloped itself through the results and experiences we achieve by the iteration,

Different perspective/point of view: Common method to see the world through some one else´s eyes, through a philosophical statement or system. To help us rediscover the ordinary and the world that surround us.

Fieldasy

 Fieldasy is a process for engaging multiple perspectives in the creation of a world, and the mapping of its virtual space. While the final outcome lies ahead, the process has already produced a series of artistic expressions that drives the overall project forward. Fieldasy refers to the methods of field working and invoking imagination by using physical objects. The objects constitute a shared ground for collaborative creativity, serves as nodes in a complex narrative and as a basis for the creation of the world. In the paper, we describe the process, methods and the artifacts developed in this project. We also show how this approach can host and facilitate artistic development in a complex production environment such as the one of digital media, supported by invited artists, researchers (computer science) and students (interaction design), enabling diverse parties to transfer their knowledge into the project in an ongoing manner.

Three aspects of the project are discussed: The Framework; the city of Abadyl, The Method; fieldasy and The Output; a series of artifacts eventually displayed in a series of exhibitions.

The Framework: Have you ever wanted to build a world of you own? In 1999 we ended an art project called “from an indefinite point in the Cartesian space” that had generated 2000 low-res and 550 high-resolution models of buildings, interiors, objects and exteriors split up in over 50 scenes. Here was a unique possibility to do just that. Therefore, we extracted all of the models from the separated scenes and placed them on top of a superimposed infrastructure of sixteen different formula one tracks. We show how we used personas, role-playing (GURPS) and conceptual mathematical formulas to be able to explore and furniture the world. We named the virtual world “the city of Abadyl”, and made it to the initial venue for the project.

 

 The Method: How do you go about exploring a complex digital space in a setting that suggests participation? We show how a detailed, yet open and complex world can utilize and refine the creation of scenarios, which are handed over to temporary invited co-creators of Abadyl. They then act out the scenarios in an, by themselves chosen, environment that in the end will help them to produce new artifacts. We called this method fieldasy. While the major part of research on interactive narratives has been aimed at the exploration of interactivity in experience of finished art works, fieldasy aims at exploring the perspective of collaboration in production of new media.

The Output: How do you stage involvement and ongoing development? We try to point out the specific qualities that occur when transferring artefacts and scenarios between the physical and virtual space in a series of iterations. We also show how a multi-threaded open work that consists of mixed materials is communicated amongst its participants as a series of exhibitions, and how we recreate and use a furniture like structure as a playground for the participants, as well as the main exhibition gathering the artefacts created.

map_of_abadyl

Fig 1. map of the city of abadyl (work in progress)

 
 Against the self-evident – a thorough indefiniteness, a defined obscurity

A ”wild thinking” aiming to undermine the present and prevalent must nevertheless have a starting point, and a location in which to perform its laboratory work. Such a location was placed unintentionally on the map of the possible in the mid-seventies when Swedish Public Broadcasting, educating their listeners how to manage the new stereo technique, were establishing that:

– my voice will now be coming from the right
– my voice will now be coming from the left
– my voice will now be coming in between the loudspeakers
– my voice will now be coming from an indefinite location in the room.

This indefinite location in the room is something completely different than the outside location of the natural sciences, the point from which reality is measured and translated into objectivity. [This point too has proven itself absurd (even if strikingly efficient). Gödel, Heisenberg, Bohr etc] Then instead an indefiniteness within the room, and a voice imperatively calling forth its own elusive presence. Within the room but not clearly where, in many ways resembles the location of the potential in the prevalent, given. A floating possibility hidden in the persistently present.

Our voice is now supposed to come from an indefinite location within the room.

This location is The City of Abadyl.

The project was initiated around 1997 as an investigation of a series of locations all having in common their state of being established by recognizable senders – dictatorships, religious and political ideologies, different kinds of utopias realised, or at least regarding themselves as realised. This work under way, the idea materialised to somehow be able to destabilise these implemented utopias without destroying their utopian qualities altogether, their boldly thrown out suggestions of something else.

  To save these utopias from themselves by reprogramming them, introducing a constant distortion in their implementation. We chose to digitally reconstruct these locations, “erect” them as 3D-models. Partly because this in fact is and is not implementing, but most of all because it rendered us the possibility of hands-on experimentation with these architectonic manifestations, joining them and exposing them to practical philosophy (or for that matter, some kind of living ). And through the utopias (always pointing too toward the prevalent) and the virtual tools a way of engaging in dialogue with the world, examining its possibilities as well as those of the tools, without replacing presence with another as determining presence.

This experimenting-thinking within the potential can be summarized in the term “fieldasy” – a coinciding of field study and fantasy, an expedition out of the actually actual and into the actually possible.

Building a world

Even if the intention was not the establishment of a so called great narrative, inspiration has been retrieved from the art of novel writing and its practice in constructing worlds. In “Postscript to the Name of the Rose”, Umberto Eco writes on the generative logic he has adopted, a logic both limiting and expanding creativity. The fundamental parameters guide what can and what cannot be included in a fictional but historically plausible universe. A detective story in mediaeval settings requires shrewd index-construing and an advanced enough semiotics, this being developed by Roger Bacon and the Ockhamists – thus it must be no earlier than the 12th century. To work out the reference to the blood at the second trumpet blow of the Apocalypse, a pig must be slain – pigs were only slaughtered during winter, but since Michele of Cesena already in December is in Avignon, the story must occur in November etc. In The City of Abadyl we have chosen to focus more on the generative itself in this logic; that is to say, it is not about parameters resulting in a watertight consistent universe, but the main interest is in what can be generated from a large number of predetermined parameters.(Söderberg, 2003)
   
Background

 Abadyl is a kind of utopia. It attempts as Michael Sorkins Local Code “to imagine a city via a code, a regulatory prescription for an urban fantasy. Such theories lodge in a space between nature, culture, technology, politics and economics on the one hand, and a set of physical visions, on the other. All cities are formed by this relationship, whether simple or complex, acknowledged or unconscious.” (Sorkin, 1993) But where he ends in theory we actually started in the creations of a mixed reality space –the city of Abadyl.

“As a space of “unthinkable complexity,” the matrix is simply too vast, too dense, too complex to be comprehended in its entirety, There is, moreover, no external perspective from which it could be grasped as a whole; the matrix can only be viewed from within. Thus, there can be no map that would chart its overall space, no schematic diagram that would trace its complete circuitry. Any attempt to take in the matrix globally, as a whole world, can only yield a vague sense of it as a mutated, techno­logical space (a cyberspace) beyond representation, a sense that is very much like the experience that Kant described as “the sublime?’ Yet, given the technological status of the matrix, a status that would have excluded it from Kant’s notion of the sublime, it is perhaps more appropriate to speak of the matrix as the space of, to use Fredric Jameson’s provocative phrase, a “technological sublime.” (Rutsky, 1999)

In 1997 we got a grant from the art council in Sweden for making a project called “from an indefinite point in the Cartesian space”. Here we went around the world and visited different places and locations that have had very specific ideologies, that been abandoned but have left some traces in forms of monuments and buildings behind. The focus was to see how people on the different locations delft with the very present past in forms for example abandoned buildings and monuments. How their everyday life was influenced. Based on that we tried to developed new stories and expressions in relation to the actual place itself, this was later overlaid back onto the site itself in forms of video drive-b-bbby video projections. The bad thing with this approach was that is was very hard to document the final outcome of the project. The project was shown both as a gallery exhibition and on Internet in 1999-2000.

 

A_sketch_of_the_drive

Fig 2. A sketch of the drive by video projections

My computer is 36 m2.

 At a certain point after visiting over 20 locations, we concluded that now was the time to finish collecting new material. The material had been mostly directly digitized into a single computer, which at that time had become quite extensive according to its database. One day my colleague at that time said to me:

– I do not know what is inside of that computer anymore, let’s print everything out.

So we did. It covered a 4 to 9 meters big wall and it occupied us for four days going through every image, sound, 3dmodel, video sequences and animation: But in the end we didn’t create the overview of the project that looked so promising in the beginning. The overall structure there on the wall was very inviting for the people that came and went in the studio. They Stopped for a while, started to look at the material, reading the text and by moving in parallel they created their own stories and navigation through our unordered references.

The_36m2_wall

Fig 3. The 36m2 wall (computer printed out)
   
Since we knew that the project would run for three years and we also knew that the technologies that were going to be part of the project wasn’t developed yet, we focused on the hard work of building the content of a series of databases instead. This strategy was put up because we didn’t want to be restricted by any hardware or software, instead working in general file formats that could easily be transferred to any software/hardware later on.

The framework: Creating a world of their own are many peoples wet dream but it seldom leads to any action. The task is much too complex, to demanding and the risk of being disappointed on what you could achieve is evident. But since we already had generated 2000 low-res and 550 high-resolution models of buildings, interiors, objects and exteriors, we saw a unique possibility to get a good start at least. The basic idea was to establish a space where we practice a critique of art, culture and society, through an in­vestigation of philosophy and criticism in a dynamic material in a mixed reality space.

16_7_and_100

Fig 4 A schematic for the framework based on the numbers 16, 7 and 100

So to be able to create such an infrastructure,that could host the already developed models we came up with the idea to set up a closed but yet complex space, an area with blurred boarders to the surrounded unknown. So to support this we looked for metaphors that could host this delimited space. The analogy to racing tracks was obvious; with roads that just looped themselves through their environment; We had to find, write and draw a set of characteristics for every part of the city to be able to see which of our former material that could be transferred to the different parts of the city. A sort of simplified pattern language (Alexander, Ishikawa, Silverstein, 1977) had to be developed.

The_sixteen_formula

Fig 5. The sixteen formula one tracks put on top of each other

The numbers 16, 7 and 100

16 formula one tracks became our point of departure, they where put on top of each other shaping an interesting ornamentation of roads just waiting for be driven on. The city then divides in sixteen parts with their own separate ideology, architecture, fashion, lifestyles etc.

Schematic_number_16

Fig 6. Schematic number 16

7 scale system that we introduced to handle the event space of the city it described the different levels on which objects and events can occur.

  1. Environment

  2. Building

  3. Room:

  4. Furniture

  5. Tools

  6. Interfaces

  7. Ideas

Schematic_number_7Fig 7. Schematic number 7
 
100 objects to represent the city or the world, was matched Greenaways idea of an encyclopaedic approach. “This one mocks human endeavour by seeking to be totally representative encyclopaedically — but in brief. It takes care of scale and time, masculine and feminine, cat and dog. It acknowledges everything—everything alive and everything dead. It should leave nothing out — every material, every technique, every type of every type, every science, every art and every discipline, every construct, illusion, trick and device we utilise to reflect our vanity and insecurity, and our disbelief that we are so cosmically irrelevant. Since every natural and cultural object is such a complex thing and all are so endlessly interconnected, this ambition should not be as difficult as you might imagine. And in its vainglorious self mocking ambition to be so embracingly encyclopaedic lies perhaps the greatest representation of the human endeavour that has got us so far”. (Greenaway, 1992)

These objects will help us shape the differences on a broader range of levels in every part of the city and serves as a series of obstacles. The purpose is to interfere with both the already built objects and the activities that are going to occur here later on.

Fig 8. Schematic number 100

The detail makes the difference, so to start the process of deciding on what level of representation that would constitute the city we decided to go with the scale 1 to 2 in the first round. We also made an architectural profile to each of the sixteen parts of the city. The first one was on a conceptual level shaped like a mathematical formula. We used the different programming proposal by Bernhard Tschumi (Tschumi, -94) that was implemented on a conceptual level for the 3d modellers. It described a series of Boolean operations with a different design formula for each part of the city. We also included a chart with profiles or silhouette of each part, which supported both the modelling and the distribution of the architectural models in the city. The main architectural expression was then combined with the textures from other location than its

origin, to create a both familiar and strange atmosphere in the different parts of the city.

Fig 9. Street view the city of abadyl 1999

We also started a parallel much more long-term project together with the computer science department at LTH. We called it Procedural cities. Here we are looking at a more mathematical way of modelling and creating a city like structure from scratch. We was able to get them interested by showing our more conceptual and time-consuming approach. This helped them to get a very clear vision on what we had done so far and on what level we could cooperate.

This framework will help us establish a tension between story and objects. As in animation we tried to work with every object based on these notions stated by Victor Navone, Pixar Studios that flaws, desire, contrast and motion, are important qualities when designing characters.

This framework is like Sol Lewitts sentences on conceptual art. It provides us with a backbone with enough gravity attached to it, so it easily can support the involvement of co-creators in the city. A space where we can be in a constant dialogue with the material that is interlinked here regardless of its incompatibilities through the architecture of the city. Here we can stage both immediate and long-term projects.
   
We also decided that this was going to be an iterative process where the co-creators activities produced new objects continuously. They where gathered into a library of physical artefacts and digitized equal where put into the city itself. We also decided that to extract more detailed plots from the city it has to contain the other 5 scales as well. We had to provide a method or process for this.

Method

To start to explore different methods of handling the future events in the project we looked at The GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System). Together with four interaction design students at Malmo University the department of art and communication we developed a system for handling the design of objects in both the physical and virtual world. By constructing a board game where had the possibility to explore and set up rules on different levels in the city of Abadyl. The case that we then choose to test our approach on was an interface and a database for the creation of characters in abadyl, a system that provided an integrated set of tools for the “minds” and “bodies” of the future citizens. They suggested that the under laying character generation should be based on one super character for each part of the city.

Fig 10. The xml based character generator that the interaction design students built

 

Together with the interaction design students we also tried to make use of personas (Cooper, 1999) but did not find it useful for actual creating our first sixteen characters. It is design to drive and control the process by creating hypothetical archetypes that plays vital parts in the design process by articulate the persona with singular detail and precision. So instead of connecting personas to future objects and processes, we went the other way around and try to connect artefacts to the future characters of Abadyl by getting to know them by their artefacts – in some kind of reverse archaeology.

The idea is to let the co-creator deal with problems of another scale than it’s normally works in. In Art and Design, Art meets Science and Spirituality where a series of interviews conducted with different authorities in the field; The Dalai Lama, Fritjof Capra, Robert Rauschenberg, H J Witteveen, David Boom, (Art and Design, Art meets Science and Spirituality, 1990) The beginning question is always on a very interesting but pretentious level:

– What is your vision of the world in which we live?

But by placing these type of “hard-to-answer questions” in a scenario where the co-creator isn’t fully in control or responsible for his or her actions, they can actually take responsibility for those kind of questions and find ways and means to act out the given problem in a given material.

While collaboration and interaction has been the topic of a huge amount of research on artistic use of digital media in the last years, the focus have been mainly on the meeting between viewer and art pieces that are either fixed or evolving. Methods for asynchronous collaborative creativity have yet to be thoroughly explored. Another aspect of conducted research has been on how digital technologies can support collaboration and interaction in physical space. Fieldasy reverses the question and asks how real life collaboration and physical art objects can support the creation of real-time virtual characters and worlds. Using representations of real objects and movements for creating 3D worlds is not new, but has not been used as much for representing psychological features of characters.
   

Fig 11. Fieldasy01 exhibition view

The role of scenarios in design has been that of writing up narrative descriptions of use. Other cultural domains have generated more speculative methods for collaboration. Originating from the idea of autonomous writing the surrealists borrowed methods from academic disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and psychology to elaborate methods in the form of games for exploring the mechanism of imagination and intensifying collaborative experience. They subverted academic modes of inquiry to undermine rationality and invented playful procedures to release collaborative creativity (Gooding, 1991). The role of procedures and systematic strategies, while still being playful makes a creative constraint. Research on creativity points to processes, which not stems from a vacuum in the individual mind, but that they are a result of serious and known strategies. This applies to many aspects of artistic work. Changing a constraint might be at the core of creative thinking (Boden, 1997). Other researchers stress the process of association, how one item by acts of creative association creates a new item (Brown, 1989). The scenarios acted very much as constraints, but also as a first generator in a chain of associative artistic work that produced the artefacts.

An interview with one of the participators revealed that; “Imagination was tickled by the knowledge of being part of a networked mapping I didn’t know in detail. The scenario got me going, but I felt no repressing obligation towards it and also felt more liberated that in the situations of my own work where I’m the responsible and potential object for critique”

Fig 12. Annika Urbansdotter, co-creator paper shredding all of her teenage literature in one of the scenarios

The Fieldasy method of using scenarios as probing for imaginative efforts of the co-creators aimed at creating a platform for collaboration which didn’t depend on control of the communication channels. Rather the idea was to have an open-ended way of working where the original scenarios originated, at beforehand unknown artefacts, that would be assimilated into Abadyl. The open-ended nature and unknown results are important. Representing the complexity of a city is perhaps not suited for work by individuals or homogenous teams.

“for there is a powerful analogy between the mind and the city. Is it not true that the city is also a collection of specialized homun­culi, each conjoined in fluctuating strategies and hierarchies, each with a past that can be
   

traced, both geographically and biologically? Society is about a type of human connectedness: The complexity of the city or a global system is massive: consider the charting of our human module’s simple geo­graphical location and interaction with the fabric of the city, let alone that of its infinitely more complex neural (perceptual) counterpart.” (Spiller, 1998)

In the novel The Invisible cities by Italo Calvino Marco Polo answers Kublai Khan “Even I have elaborated a model of a city that could be legible for every city. It is a city made up only of exceptions, obstacles, constraints, incongruence and non-existency” (Calvino, 1972). This model relies on negatives that can hardly be foreseen by a single creator.

The co-creator imports qualities into the world, which do not and cannot stem from the world itself.

Fig 13. Jonas Larsen, co-creator in his glass workshop working with a first price in one of the scenarios.

The assimilation of objects into Abadyl is not done by simply rendering the artefacts into virtual shapes, but to let them form basis of rendering of characters that inhabits Abadyl. This creates a multi-levelled structure of meaning of the objects. While they are at one hand part of constituting virtual characters, they are also art objects in their own right. Thus the method for collaboration also creates a platform for co-operative expressions.

For example was one scenario about inner voices. Here the co-creator was put in the situation of being a man waking up on a hospital and finds out that his been part of an accident (Damasio, -99) where his skull had been injured and a metallic implant has replaced part of his scull bone. (Hooper,1986). After a couple of weeks he starts to hear a voice inside of his head. He tries to consult different kind of physicians to get rid of the problem but no one finds anything wrong with

him. He goes through a series of test one after the other. He finally finds himself in conflict with everyone in his surroundings. The outside worlds lack of trust in his experience makes him isolated. The voice however gets more and more present and he decides to eventually construct a recording machine that will be able to record the voice and finally communicate it back to his real world again.

The transference from physical to virtual is different from that of the Situationist movement’s use of psycho-geographical maps, while still having a resemblance. While they were using the maps to render tangibility to the psychological experience of a city, fieldasy goes the other way around. Designers Gaver & Dunne was influenced by the Situationist’s maps when designing a kit of cultural probes to be used within the Presence project. Instead of the traditional scientific survey, they sent out disposable cameras, postcards with provocative questions, maps to be filled in etc. for exploring a specific context of relevance to the project. One of their experience was that the probes should be carefully designed (Gaver et. al, 1999).

Fig 14. Recording device for inner voices, Pia Skoglund (industrial designer)

The fieldasy scenarios was designed with respect to stage a conflict that has a mind triggering influence on the co-creator with a set of problems that only can be captured in an artefact. In fieldasy01 (the first exhibition of the project) we worked with the theme of language as a process of contamination and strategies on a personal level to handle that. All of the first twelve scenarios delft with issues of that kind.
   

Fig 15. Scenario sheet example

The role of technology in art not only has that of the tool. Electronic media has also raised consciousness of an incidental flux in our culture where cultural production combines fragments, dislocates them and re-combines again. The cut-up of Burroughs or the game of Exquisite corps by the surrealists are no longer weird for ordinary people. The concept of sampling takes it’s older relative the montage some giant steps further. While collage or montage is a kind of juxtaposition where you disrupt elements to put them in new combinations, the sampling technique works on a more genetic level. Since all media objects share the same foundation (Manovich, 2001) the can establish a other kind of interpolation. Here the virtual object can challenge the physical with qualities that is very hard to achieve in the physical world, and in that conflict new expressions can fruitfully be developed. Hybrid creations have become a method for working with cultural production not only with different elements of form, but as blending identities of the creators as well. Musician and sampling artist Dj.Spooky writes about the flux in his notes on a digital agora; “It’s kind of like moving in a strange organic, neurochemical soup composed of thousands of distinct kinds of macromolecules with open bonding sites” (Miller, 2000). So the role of the artist/designer is not only about creating art/design objects, but also one of setting up processes that creates platforms for collaborative forms of creativity. Fieldasy as method benefits from the notion of the flux and works a bit like the game of Exquisite corps, providing a fragment that generates new artefacts that eventually combine. In this sense the scenarios works as prototypes. This is also a special view on art, that it builds on common

data that suggests new experiments (Francastel, 2000).

Output

As mentioned before there is a demand for a deeper challenge between the virtual and the physical objects, a will to explore their incompatibilities rather than merging them together into one. And by letting them evolve in different media and materials the final hybrid will host an interesting comprehension of the two perspectives. This kind of work actually incorporates surprising visual and technical proposals that are unusual, enriching and engaging.

Fig 16. Iteration sequence of a character c.e.s.k (cryo emergency spy kit) 1999-2003

   

The continuous flux has also been the model for the archetypical narrative form of digital media. Networked non-linear narratives have many predecessors from the Chinese oracle text I-Ching to Joyce’s Finnegans wake. The most recognized metaphor is perhaps the rhizome conceptualised by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari; “The rhizome itself can take all sorts of different forms, from branching out in all directions on the surface to the compression into knots […] Any point of the rhizome can and must be connected to any other point” (Deleuze and Guattari,1977). Likewise much referred to, by the same authors, is the concept of desiring machines. “Desiring machines are binary machines obeying a binary rule or set of laws, governing associations, one machine is always coupled with another” (Deleuze and Guattari,1983). The associative chain is at the heart of the concept.

There is a blurring between product and producing, they are inevitably coupled. The product generates producing and the different identities melt into an enormous undifferentiated object.

Fig 17. Pre-visualisation of the furniture like object for the exhibition fieldasy01

The term ‘machine’ does not refer to industrial apparatus or computers, but are still not just a metaphor. The machine can be defined as a series of interruptions. The interruptions does not oppose the continuous flow, they condition it. Incorporating meaning to put together within a body is the act of organizing the objects in the different shelves of the furniture like object The objects all run at the same time, but going from shelf to shelf they can never be conceived as a whole.

Fig 18. Fieldasy01 exhibition view

Like in the case of the 36 m2 computer, the viewer side-steps from shelf to shelf arranging their own stories of the objects, the shelves and body movements create disruptions like rhythms. Jaleh Mansoor refers how Kurt Schwitters in the first meeting with Hans Richter walked up to him and introduced himself as “I’m a painter and I nail my pictures together” (Mansoor, 2002). Painting and nailing seems to belong to different domains, but was integrated in his Merzbau, a gigantic project giving physical form to an assemblage of objects and spatial configurations. While side-stepping the furniture in the fieldasy01 exhibition, the body framed the viewing in an a laborious way – nailing, and at the same time performed an act of imaging, in combining the objects into visual stories – painting.

Fig 19. Fieldasy01 exhibition view

Digital art has come to focus, and rightly so, on the interactive meeting point between viewer and the art object, the way the viewer becomes an agent of change and participator by using interactive technologies. This is of course necessary to explore one of the intrinsic characteristics of new media. But in doing so there’s also a focus on singular moments extracted from time. Other definitions might give way to how the metaphors and models
 

could integrate how art can evolve over very large temporal spans. There’s slowness on the border of inertia in the way the city of Abadyl develops. Involving many actors in the process develops nodes of expressions that may have meaning for the actors themselves in their work. That meaning gears into other levels and speed, when put together with other nodes from other actors. The exhibition situation is one such moment, when the speed of the artefacts implodes. They enter into a realm where they can be contemplated and juxtaposed into new stories for the viewers. The term ‘floating work of art’, with references to Eco maybe better depicts this openness, not only in directions of the narrative but also the character of work-in-progress (Dinkla, 2002). Fieldasy01, the exhibition, does not increase speed going from object to signs and representations. It stops time to put forth material objects that are generative rather that produced. Generative in the sense that they have nor original nor final form. They are sprung out of a chain of association that generates new forms, which in it’s turn re-combines into new stories by the side-stepping act of the viewer.

Fig 20. One of the sixteen parts of the city, presented as a map

Conclusion

Fieldasy attempts to understand and redefine our world in a situation where information is lacking. This lack of information is used as a resource. By providing ambiguous fragments as a starting point, the scenarios put no constraints on imagination.

Fieldasy serves as a vital part in the creation of a space where we can be in a constant dialogue with, a large database of material that is interlinked through the architecture of a city, regardless of its incompatibilities. That space is a continuously evolving platform for staging both immediate and long-term projects. The method establish a multidisciplinary common ground for a art practice, interaction design and technology development, through an in­vestigation of philosophy and criticism in a dynamic material.

 

 Fieldasy as a method is an open-ended way of working where the original scenarios originates, at beforehand unknown artefacts. Scenarios relation to the over all project is loosely defined as to allow the creation of art works, that though enriching the database, still are autonomous from the mother project in the sense that they can be exhibited by themselves. They also act as generators while they generate new and unforeseen processes which extend into new and likewise unforeseen contexts. So the participators disseminate their knowledge into the platform, but they also extract something which can inform their own future practice. Choosing the exhibition as format the both internal and external communication of the overall project seems very fit.Michael JohanssonArtist/Senoir lecturer/researcherDigital experience LABHKR291 88 KristianstadSwedenmichael@lowend.se

Per Linde PHD

K3 Malmo university

Beijerskajen 8

205 06 malmo,

Sweden

Per.linde@k3.mah.se