Re: George's comments on the way Bill Seaman writes about his work ....
I understand George's point, and it's true Bill's writing style at times
makes, shall we say, only brief forays to the shores of clarity.
But personally, I think Bill is working on stuff that is so far out in front
of most digital/computer/VR work that it is difficult to find any language
that adequately characterizes it. He is attempting to use computers and
other technology as a vehicle of research to -- as he says elsewhere --
"define an art practice where the subject of that practice is the creation
of meaning", and I wish I could see more of it than I have been able to.
And the key notion left out of George's summary is the unique forms of
interaction demanded from the viewer / user of his work, which makes
tangible the viewer's participation in the emergence of meaning in the VR
environment, and where this participation is quite explicitly a reflective
process.
T. Woods
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Bailey" <gwsb@whatart.com>
To: <artwithbraininmind-l@pks.bu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 10:08 PM
Subject: RE: (art and science)
> Ok, Glen, for an example of one of the things that I am botherd by that
> involves how artists talk abut their work, see Bill Seaman's text at:
>
> http://www.cda.ucla.edu/faculty/seaman/webreadytexts/ephanyphysics.html
>
> Here is a sample:
>
> "An intuitive understanding of the physics of our lived environment
> becomes second nature to our knowing the world. We catch a ball, spill a
> drink, float in water, slip and fall down, ride a bike, bang our funny
> bone, drive a car, all through a felt awareness of the dynamic
> ramifications of motion. We can translate our understandings and
> observations about the physicality of environments into computer-based
> codes that are presented through various forms of interface, which in
> turn can potentially facilitate palpable experience. Computer-mediated
> environments enable such encounters through interactivity and/or
> observation. As differing modes of interface become more sophisticated,
> the potential is to author environments informed by abstracting different
> observations related to attributes of the physical environment as well as
> to generate new forms of relation to the world at large. Qualities and
> attributes of physical behavior gleaned from lived experience can be
> mapped onto the encoded reactive behavior of media-objects within virtual
> environments. Three dimensional space, 3D objects, 3D terrains, images,
> text, music and sound can all be connected with reactive and/or
> interactive behavioral attributes. The relation between an actual physics
> and an authored artificial physics is constructed and becomes
> experiential to the participant within such environments through multiple
> sensual means."
>
> I take it Bill is saying the following: Computers can be used to give us
> experiences that reflect some of the physical characteristics of our
> environment or that generate new relations to our environment. This
> experience can be made interactive.
>
> Consider especially "Qualities and attributes of physical behavior
> gleaned from lived experience can be mapped onto the encoded reactive
> behavior of media-objects within virtual environments."
>
> I take it this is just saying that an image can reflect characteristics
> of physical behavior. This is true of old-fashioned movies, by the way.
> And documentaries are "gleaned from lived experience." While the maping
> from the enviornment to the film is not digital, the resulting image on
> the film is none-the-less "the encoded reactive behavior of media
> objects." (The phrase "vitural environments" might just as well apply to
> film, but lets let the VR people keep the term.)
>
> As to: "The relation between an actual physics and an authored artificial
> physics is constructed and becomes experiential to the participant within
> such environments through multiple sensual means."
>
> I take it that this just says that the images that our computers generate
> using virtual reality devices are experienced through our different
> senses.
>
> Bill continues:
>
> "I am an artist interested in the potential of authoring media-behaviors,
> virtual environmental artifacts and physical stimuli that can be
> encountered through dynamic interaction with authored/responsive
> computer-based environments."
>
> That is, Bill wants to create interactive experiences using images
> generated by
> virtual reality devices.
>
> Later Bill says:
>
> "One authors the laws of how the artificial physics of the situation will
> be articualted, eliciting appropriate computer-generated responses."
>
> That is, one writes a program that determines how the VR images look and
> feel.
>
> This is followed by:
>
> " If we take the set of attributes modeled by Sims above and abstract or
> displace them, a very different kind of resulting image-space will emerge
> i.e. consider the ramifications on the virtual space if the authored code
> changed the gravity, altered the friction, enhanced the inertia,
> accelerated the momentum, etc. Imagine if the rules of the artificial
> physics were localized within the environment — in one location one
> artificial physics would be in operation, after moving a different set of
> artificial "laws" would be invoked [imagine the gravity on the Earth
> compared to the gravity of the moon…]"
>
> That is, imgine that we could use VR to give someone an experience like
> they might have moving about on the moon or moving about in a changing
> set of non-actual spatial environments.
>
> Later, when Bill says: "The code-based originators of these differing
> models usually seek to adhere to the physical laws of actual space in the
> authoring of relevant code" is he saying that the computers used to
> produce models of physical space are trying to keep the VR generated
> experience accurate to real space? Given his use of "the code-based
> originators" this is not clear. Does he mean by "the code-based
> originators" computers or the people who write programs? He refers to
> these "originators" as "authoring the relevant code." Thart suggest he
> means people. But since the people who author the code are not themselves
> code-based, mabye he is saying that a computer is authoring the code
> that, when run on another computer, produces visual images that model the
> physical enviorment. (Perfectly thinkable in this context.) But it does
> not seem that a computer has a choice about seeking to adher to the
> phisical laws or not . . .. If programed to generate images that appear
> to do so the computer will, if progrmaed otherwise, not. So its sounds
> like the "originator" is a person after all. So I guess "code-based
> originator" is just someone who writes code.
>
> Bill continues:
>
> "In relation to this approach I am interested in exploring the
> abstraction or poetics of the authorship of such code-based laws in the
> generation of virtual space and/or media installations."
>
> Bill wants to explore either the abstraction of the authorship of
> code-based laws or Bill wants to explore the poetics of the authorship of
> code based-laws.
>
> I do not understand what Bill has in mind by "the abstraction of the
> authorship of code-based laws."
>
> "Authorship" is a term for a universal type. Bill wants to explore the
> poetics of the universal sub-type denoted by the phrase "authorship of
> code based-laws." If that's too Platonic, lets just say Bill wants to
> explore the poetics of the function defined by the phrase "authorship of
> code based-laws."
>
> I amagine the results of what Bill describes with "The code-based
> authoring of an artificial physics which is consistent within the virtual
> space, yet does not adhere to the laws of actual physics, becomes a
> central focus" might be really neat to experience. I will have to
> experience it to find out. But why not just say, "a computer generated
> image of a space that violates the laws of physical space becomes a
> central focus?"
>
> I would like to experience the results of Bill's work. But I am put off
> by the way he describes what he is doing.
>
> After reading a great deal more of his text than I reproduce here (but
> stopping where I end above), I have found out only that (1) Some people
> create computer generated VR images of actual space, whereas (2) Bill
> wants to create interactive computer generated VR images of non-actual
> spaces, and (2) that perhaps Bill wants to explore the poetics of the
> function defined by the phrase "authorship of code based-laws." That I
> have no idea what the later involves is probably due to my ignorance of
> Bill's notion of poetics.
>
> Again, I think it would be fun to experience computer generated VR images
> of non-actual spaces. And I think they can be art. But's what with all
> the rhetoric? Why not just say, "I want to generate ineractive VR images
> of non-actual spaces and to explore their poetic potential?"
>
> - George
>
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