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Lev Manovich starts up the discussions of the symposium

by Ana de Fátima Sousa, august 11th 2002

photos by Carol Lambert

The russian artist and theorist of New media, Lev Manovich, celebrated the opening of the symposium Emoção Art.ficial. Manovich brought up the theories explored in his most recent paper [finished while he was flying to Brazil, last thursday], The Anti-Sublime Ideal in Data Art.According to him, the data art is a connection of two main concepts: one is data visualization and the other is data mapping.

The computers work as the intermediary level of transmission os this new expression of art, as they tuirn it easier to map data and elaborate different drawings, lectures and even graphic visualizations of these data – wich can be represented by a very simple cartesian graphic or something deeper and much more abstract as a picture like Mondrian’s artwork.

“It’s possible to think about art as a great data mapping, whatever they are: images, sounds or even colours”. The mapping – for Manovich – is the more adequate form to describe what new media can do with the old ones. As you map an artwork, you are able to add new interface, new sort of objects, preserving the original media structure.

Manovich showed a series of artworks that deal with the caractreristics of data art. The work of Joachim Sauter – which is also part of emoção Art.ficial exhibition – and the german media center ART+COM was largely explored during the conference.

The opening event also gave to the participants the opportunity to watch the national release of the documentary Sónar 2002, by Denis Rodriguez e Eliana Iwasa (digital video, 18 min), about the last edition of one of the most important eletronic art festival that takes place in Barcelona, Spain.

Media art is (re)defined in an enthusiastic debate

By Ana de Fátima Sousa, August 12th 2002
photos by Carol Lambert

The term media art was the major focus of the first round table at the [ emoção art.ficial ] symposium. Guest speakers Alex Adriaansen (V2_ Organisation/Holland), Cláudia Giannetti (MECAD/Spain), Arlindo Machado (PUC/Brazil) and Monika Fleishmann (MARS/Germany) showed consensus around the infinite possibilities to define such term. All of them stated that this new art expression is an unstable, malleable field, full of variants, and those are its greatest quality. Creativity emerges only in the midst of unstableness.

One of the highlights of the round table was the sharp talk delivered by Dutch guest speaker Alex Andriaansen, one of the founding artists of V2_ Organisation. He is the one who defined media art production as an unstable media. “Unstableness gives art objects and processes the quality of dynamism, the possibility of transformation,” he states. According to him, the “unstable” state can be seen as the force that unbalances the homogeneous structure of things. “Conflict is definitely necessary to create media art and also to transform the world,” he believes.

Andriaansen also addressed the new vision of the man-machine relation. While man used to operate the machines in the old times, today he works with them. “There is an intense network of collaboration, the “machemistry” (machine + chemistry) relation, as the theorist calls it.”

The talk by the Brazilian Professor Arlindo Machado was also another highlight in the debate. “I particularly think that the term media art has been interpreted in a stricter way, wherein the only association is that of the technical aspect of using electronic equipment with the making of beautiful works. What does this new artist produce actually? He deprograms the machine, gives technological devices a new function,” he says. The machine, according to Machado, now operates in a transgressive manner, performs a new role and is socially inserted. “Critics tied to tradition describe media art as something ephemeral, epidermal, superficial. However, smart are those critics who see the new art as a natural path of transformation of human expressions”, he declares.

An involving and didactic talk given by Arlindo was closed by making reference to German thinker Walter Benjamim, who – in his time – had already forecast the eternal shock to define art. “The issue is not to know what we can consider as being art or not. What really matters is to realize that the mere existence of new products leads old definitions to crisis and requires thinking to be reformulated”.

The clear passion of all speakers for the theme [media art] was evident in the talk addressed by MARS director, Monika Fleishmann. “IBM influences our lives much more than the 40 years of communism, which we have practically forgotten. Nevertheless, our relationship with technology is intense, it involves us thoroughly, makes us feel eager to transform the world,” she said firmly.

Good news for technicians, artists and curious people in general came with the representative for MECAD – Spanish media center – Cláudia Giannetti. The institution’s Escola Superior de Disseny awards scholarships for master’s degree and regular courses. Registrations are open and can be made through the institution’s web site [www.mecad.org].

Art media centers reveal how they work

by Carlos Costa, august 12th 2002

photos by Rubens Chiri

Officers from five major art media production and research centers around the world explained how their institutions operate during the second round table at Emoção Art.ficia, held Monday evening. By showing outstanding works, explaining lines for research and furtherance that they adopt and giving out information on their budgets, interests and opinions, the speakers helped the attendants picture how major art media centers develop their work.

The session was opened by Fabienne Nicholas and Elizabeth Hughes, the two representatives from Australian institution Experimenta, which deals with research and development of digital video and installations connected with technological development and congruence between different sciences. With no gallery or specific premises for exhibitions, the institution displays artworks and screens video films in a variety of venues ranging from sheds to houses.

For next year, they are preparing the exhibition called “House of Tomorrow”, which is meant to show a completely interactive house that portraits a likely future for residential properties in a creative way. According to Elizabeth Hughes, the exhibition will be held in a property, in the metropolitan area of Melbourne. The institution is open to suggestions and projects related to the “House of Tomorrow”. Further information can be obtained in the web site.

Featuring as one of the best performances of that evening, Iamas’ president Itsuo Sakane, from Japan, told the audience the history behind the institute foundation, showed images of part of their extensive and comprehensive collection, pointed out the concern with education and the aid obtained through partnerships with private companies, a characteristic that can also be seen in the Experimenta case. An outstanding moment was when the artworks were projected, thus proving that media art circulates among the most different fields of human knowledge and has a strong playful appeal.

To proceed with the presentations, Audrey Navarre, from Fondation Daniel Langlois, in Canada, addressed the foundation’s lines of work. These include the program geared to the development of projects of organizations prioritizing initiatives from South America and Northeast Africa.

The foundation was created by Daniel Langlois, responsible for the first digital animation short in the world, and its objective is to assist research and implementation of projects from developing countries. The foundation’s web site furnishes more information on the programs.

Coming from Poland, Piotr Krajewski talked about the experience of WRO – Center for Media Art, born at the time when the country was still living under the Communist regime. The institution running method is similar to that of the other ones and is exclusively devoted to media art.

Bringing new enthusiasm to the audience, Susan Kennard, curator for the Banf Center, in Canada, spoke a little bit about the institution and drew attention to the research conducted on works and artworks that approach the emotional restrictions of technology, like the example of “Talk Nice”, which is being displayed at the Emoção Art.ficial exhibition and was produced and developed according to the institution’s lines for research and furtherance.

Virtual communities and the construction of reality

by Carlos Costa, august 13th 2002

photos by Carol Lambert

Two works developed by Gilbertto Prado and by Itaulab’s team – Imaterialidades and Desertesejo – were the theme of the artist’s talk, multimedia, which marked the beginning of the third session of he symposium [Emoção Art.ficial], this afternoon. The works, which create virtual environments, were the subject of the reflections about the critical analysis of the construction of reality, an issue exhaustively portrayed by art.

Prado also explored the theme of the session, Networks and Virtual Communities, making references to two other works by Brazilian artists – Jornada Xamânica and Vozes. To close the talk, Gilbertto Prado chose to read a text that, among other issues, analyzed the role of users in virtual environments, “the masters and part of the environments they visit “.

Ravi Sundaram, member of CSDS, from India, took the opportunity to outline the history of networks that have always connected men, particularly in India. From the beginning of the Press, through the telegraph and the train, virtual networks have always connected people. The scholar thinks that shopping malls, airports and other similar places work exactly like virtual communities.

Then, Mônica Narula, one of the founding partners of the Sarai media center, in India, showed the audience the website Opus, which works with an open platform for users to build virtual communication networks.

The trustee of Transmidiale, Germany’s Internacional Artmedia Festival, Susanne Jaschko, talked about the strength of the young culture that creates artemedia, which is fun and playful. “Children developed their own wireless means of expression”, she said. According to the trustee, the two main forms of expression of that culture are clear in the games and perceptible in the music. Among other works, she showed the audience a video about writing music based on the sounds of a game boy.

Finally, Anne Nigten, manager of V2_Lab, from Holland, showed works of the laboratory, such as an interactive game based on the work of the painter Bosch Hieronymous, created as a solution to replace the site of the museum that houses the collection of the works of the artist.

The latin-american production

by Carlos Costa, august 13th 2002

photos by Carol Lambert

The symposium’s fourth floor [art.ficial emotion] gave us hints of what is going on in the Latin American art and technology scenario. But that was it. The discussion that promised excited remarks brought brief summaries of Argentinean, Brazilian, Mexican, and Peruvian productions.

The representative of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Jorge La Ferla, opened Tuesday night’s programming (13) with a political play-on-words. “In Argentina we are not going through artificial emotions. The feeling is very real in everything and has loud colors “, he said. The audience cheered emotionally and he went on. “Our bankers are hackers, who destroy our financial system and never return our money”, he fired off.

The protest speech of the well-humored Argentinean came to rest then. La Ferla’s concern was to introduce the work of fellow artists who have developed projects in art-technology. According to La Ferla, the creators more directed to this field of expression are in other countries, where they receive incentives and equipment to put their ideas in practice. The works presented shared a common feature – a language that allies aesthetics, interactivity, and non-linearity. The speaker particularly praised the work of artist Marcello Maçado. “These pieces denote audiovisual evolution”, he said.

Jose-Carlos Mariategui (Andean High Technology/Peru) introduced an extensive scenario of Peruvian production in the past 10 years. According to him, Latin American production will not be left behind in the world scenario. “Our conceptual creation is already framed within global standards”. Mariategui believes this type of art can survive and feed from “localizing what is global and globalizing what is local” – that is, only those who can translate regional qualities into a universal language and vice-versa can stand out.

In his presentation, Mariategui portrayed the evolution of Peruvian artists through the work of Francisco Mariotti (who already worked with digital media in the 60’s), Roger AtasiIván Esquivel and Angie Bonino. To check on the institution production, we recommend visiting the site.

The Mexican Príamo Lozada presented the work of the institution Arte Alameda, while the Argentinean professor and musician Ricardo Dal Farra (Universidad Tres de Febrero) presented a complex educational proposal directed to media art. The Brazilian Silvia Laurentiz (ECA-USP) made a demonstration of the Art and technology scenario she developed together with Arlindo Machado.

Virtual environment has to be touching

by Ana de Fátima Sousa, augusta 14th 2002

photos by Carol Lambert

On Wednesday’s (14) first floor, the symposium [art.ficial emotion] discussed the process of creating interfaces and immersing environments. All works and proposals presented mainly focus on inserting extremely human elements to generate interactivity, interest, and emotion. Without a human narrative, the virtual environment is only an empty space.

One of the hearty defenders of this line of thought is the artist Elizabeth Vander Zaag (Banff Center/Canada). “Why are soap operas so successful on TV? Because they show new stories daily, and always translate feelings like hatred, love, and surprise. Spectators mirror themselves on the stories and can entirely dive into the plot “, she explained. According to Zaag, it’s the same in cyberspace. “All and any work produced for men has to conquer them, give them the feeling of being able to interact with that world “.

Elizabeth Zaag is the creator of Talk Nice [which is in the exhibit on until October at Itaú Cultural] in which two girls chat with visitors. The piece works on the user’s voice modulation. Depending on vocal intonations, the girls “accept” spectators and establish a more friendly communication.

Another work presented by the Canadian was developed in 1990 and provides hints on how to speak softly to a man. A simple inexpensive piece that – says the creator – uses much healthier interactivity. That is, interactivity that brings interface and “friendly” narratives. You can check on here.

The German Joachim Sauter (ART+COM) presented a series of projects created at the institution he runs. One of the presentation’s most beautiful pieces was Time Traveller, in which the user can browse by landscape images or films shot in different times. One of the options is to take a panoramic look at a vast field in Berlin that, when overlaying the image of the past, goes back to the time in which the Berlin wall solidly stood out in the scenario and divided Germany in two.

If there are possible recipes for the use of this immersing multi-user environment, the also German Wolfgang Strauss (MARS) has one. According to him, there are five steps: 1 – user identifies the structure and rules; 2 – user plays with them (rules and structure) 3 – user reflects on how action takes place; 4 – users notices the presence of other participants; 5 – users try to communicate.

The Brazilian cyberspace was exposed in the lecture of Suzete Ventturelli (UnB). The professor presented her projects, which range from interfaces to multi-users to her recent research on the language of games, and also brought projects from other country artists such as André Parente, Gilbertto Prado, Diana Domingues, Rejane Cantoni, Daniela Kutschat and Tânia Fraga.

New tecnologies are transforming art

by Carlos Costa, august 14th 2002

photos by Carol Lambert

The [Art.ficial Emotion] symposium’s last floor gathered artists and academic professionals, from different nationalities, focused on showing the new trends in the artistic scenario, amidst constant technological evolutions. The remaining impression is that man still wants to be God. Create new worlds. Repeat the Genesis. Either with paint and paper or software and digital platforms. But the new technologies definitely changed the world we live in.

The Brazilian artist Eduardo Kac, who lives and works in Chicago (USA) in the new and complex universe of transgenic art, opened the floor. Kac drew the attention of his work for the dialog between technology and biology and briefly explained his transgenic art installations, which created a bacterium (inspired in an adaptation of an extract from the book of Genesis), and changed the development and life of animal species on behalf of philosophical questioning.

“It’s a protest against reductionism that tries to explain everything through genetics”, he said. Among the ideas he produced during his speech, Kac defended that currently Wall Street has more power on the development of our species than the natural selection proposed by Charles Darwin.

Next, the Australian Jeffrey Shaw, professor of art media in Germany, made a parallel between film and art media and pointed out important features for pieces that try to insert in a new art prospect, such as immersing space and interactivity. Shaw is also the founder and director of the ZKM art media center and participates in the [Art.ficial Emotion] exhibit with three pieces.

Cheering participant’s mood with his wit, the French artist and professor Maurice Benayoun caused laughter and reflection. Going by his pieces and using a wide screen to project phrases especially written for the event, he ironically commented on his own work and, in this fashion, built his personal prospects on art media.

To close the speeches, the German artist and academic Roy Ascott proposed a deep philosophical reflection, based on quotes from several theoreticians, about the possible prospects for the future of art, particularly art media.

In his speech, he built three concepts, originated from possible constructions with the consonants VR in English. These concepts included Virtual Reality, which all knew, Validity Reality, based on the Newtonian aspect, of machine, and Vegetal Reality, conceived under the inspiration of Shamanic traditions and tribal uses of herbs with hallucinogenic powers.

With active audience participation, the last floor left us the certainty that art horizons throughout the world are going through change and that the new technologies increasingly enable us to turn our dreams into reality and build illusions.

The Commitment to Technological Art

by Carlos Costa, July 2nd 2004
photos by Rubens Chiri

Honors and compliments set the tone at the opening of Emoção Art.ficial 2.0, an international symposium that reaffirms the commitment of Itaú Cultural to research, develop, promote and discuss the production of state-of-the-art contemporary artistic expressions, united around art-media.

After brief remarks from the executive director of the Institute, Malú Pereira de Almeida, and from the curators of the event, Arlindo Machado and Gilbertto Prado, writer Haroldo de Campos (1929-2003) and visual artist Julio Plaza (1938-2003) were honored with testimonials from artists Boris Schneiderman and Regina Silveira. For the closing remarks, Jeffrey Shaw (photo), the consultant of the event, showed part of his work and intentions with Emoção Art.ficial 2.0.

The curators explained that the choice of the artists honored was due to Campos’ and Plaza’s pioneering work in experimenting with contemporary artistic expressions and technological supports in their productions, which are considered current references. The testimonials revealed greater artists, who are respected not only for having flirted with modernity but also for their sensibility, talent and courage.

Boris Schneiderman, a writer and translator, gave his own moving personal account of the time he spent together and his friendship with brothers Haroldo de Campos and Augusto de Campos, his Russian students. “Dead at 73, Haroldo left a legacy, only considering his translations, which is impressive for its volume and, especially, for its quality,” stated Schneiderman.

Regina Silveira, married to Julio Plaza for 18 years, talked about the time the artist lived in Spain and Puerto Rico. Born in Madrid, Spain, Plaza left the country in 1960, dissatisfied with Francisco Franco’s dictatorship (1892-1975). Regina told curious facts, such as the story of the car Plaza built and used in Puerto Rico and ratified the artist’s importance. “It is the poetic substrate that makes his production long-lasting in fleeting technological supports,” she declared.

Jeffery Shaw congratulated the initiative of Itaú Cultural in pursuing the theme of art-media and the progressive involvement in the topic, confirmed by the Emoção Art.ficial 2.0 exhibition and the assembly of eight proposed works for this biennial. Shaw also explained the process that led to the choice of the theme, Technological Divergences, and made the public curious as to how the symposium would unfold. 

History and Politics in Technological Art

by Ana de Fátima Sousa. July 3rd 2004
photos by Rubens Chiri

Saturday morning was the moment to pay tribute to pioneering projects in the history of art-media and discuss the social and political roles of this type of production.

The first roundtable, As Redes e os Novos Espaços de Intervenção (Networks and the New Intervention Spaces), counted on names that are part of the timeline of technological art production. Clemente Padin (Uruguay), Paulo Bruscky (Brazil), Fred Forest (France) and Gilbertto Prado (Brazil) took the public back to the last century, to the 1960’s, when these and other artists were already making use of the mail to create innovative art.

It was in the rebel years that mail art was born. Impregnated of the 60’s and 70’s spirit, the idea that motivated the young creators of that time was the wish to simply communicate, which was a deviation from the norm at the time, especially under dictatorships. Clemente Padin opened the debate and highlighted how this manifestation brought and brings about human inter-relations. “The tools that started to appear enabled an expansion of reach, diminishing borders.” Padin poetically said that the great value of art through networks is that “this art is not bought, communication is what really matters.”

Attitude of transgression – “Mail art was the feasible way for anti-bourgeois, anti-commercial art,” explained Paulo Bruscky, born in Pernambuco. He played an important role in Brazil both for mail art and video-art and xerographic art. According to him, the attitude of going against what was expected in the market ensured that art regained its function of communicating.

Bruscky described how the “mail-artists” suffered censorship in Latin America. In 1975, he was arrested. “At that time, you didn’t know who was arresting you or where they were taking you. But, since the federal government later filed a suit against me, I believe it was the Federal Police.” Fred Forest was also arrested in Brazil. In 1973, while participating in the São Paulo International Biennial, he performed right on the Viaduto do Chá, a downtown viaduct, where people raised blank posters. Dops (Department of Political and Social Order) agents became suspicious of those activities and arrested the Frenchman just for precaution. Forest remained imprisoned for some hours until Walter Zanini, from the Biennial’s organization was able to release him. Clemente Padin was also arrested in his country and had his mail “blocked” for several years.

Paulo Bruscky further described that global and collective works were already being done in the old form of mail: “chains” distributed a work in progress and each member of the list gave his contribution. He said something that marked the discussion throughout the morning of the symposium. “Mail art was the first expression to replace museums for the artists’ personal files.”

During his explanation, Gilbertto Prado united chronology and reverence for the pioneers of the new forms of artistic expression. He emphasized the argumentative traits that united these artists and mentioned Roy Ascott as the father of telematic art and highlighted the importance of the works of Fred Forest, Antoni Muntadas, Bruscky and Padin, and paid tribute to Walter Zanini. “As an articulator and critic, Zanini played an essential and brave role, he opened the doors to these artists.”

The roundtable was finalized with Fred Forest, who thanked the initiative of Emoção Art.ficial in bringing the “ancients” of art-media. He pointed out the role of his generation in creating distance action, the art of collaboration and interactivity. “We created a model that valued our relationship with the world. While traditional art tried to represent and/or understand the world, this new form tried to act on the world and interfere in it.” The artist of this new model seizes the medium and is able to attain power, since he has some autonomy in the art system. He challenged the public: “We have done our part. It’s up to you to find another model.”

Politicization – The second roundtable’s mission was to discuss ways to politicize the debate on art and technology. Catalan Antoni Muntadas was straightforward and spoke few words, he said that, “if in the past, culture was tied to the State, today, it is connected to institutions that represent large corporations and economic interests.” He then presented a slide-show that mixed hegemonic power, fusion of cultures and a clear criticism against banalization.

German Oliver Ressler showed his own way of politicizing. His artistic art always questions themes such as racism, migration, and genetic engineering.

Argentine Jorge La Ferla, who is famous for heated debates, started by saying there is always a loss in political discourse: “This doesn’t change with time.” He thinks too much time is lost talking about what is new, avant-garde, and that has no relevance. “What is said and why it is said is what matters.” La Ferla carried along the lines of what Mutandas said, but softened his colleague’s speech: “It is true that large institutions are connected to powerful companies and groups, but, it is also true that they are the ones that enable debates such as this one.” During his presentation, he showed historical data of the most important institutions that foster art-media, and ZKM, for example, which was a weapons manufacturer.

La Ferla pointed out the evolution of Brazilian production and called artists such as Rejane Cantoni, Daniela Kutschat, Tânia Fraga passionate, who drive the movement forward in an extremely creative way. The theoretical production of Lúcia Santaella and Arlindo Machado was also mentioned as of great relevance.

Cuban Coco Fusco started by showing concern about the title of the roundtable, Arte e Tecnologia: Como Politizar o Debate? (Art and Technology: How to Politicize the Debate?): “It makes me think: is there already a debate? Is it just a debate? Isn’t this debate politicized?” And she continued, “if the sheer access to technology includes or excludes individuals, all the use of technology is political.” Coco presented excerpts of her most recent video, in which the production was focused on technological feminism.

Italian Davide Grassi, who lives in Slovenia, broke the serious atmosphere of the roundtable by presenting his “company”, Problemarket.com – Problem Stock Exchange, which allows the exchange of any kind of problem for unlimited time. His presentation, which seemed like entertainment was closed with the award of a problem exchange certificate with president Lula, who allegedly had sent an exchange request to get rid of the GMO issue. Since the president was not present, he was represented by the moderator of the roundtable, Lucas Bambozzi.

Divergences on Subversive Themes

by Carlos Costa. July 3rd 2004
photos by Rubens Chiri

Divergences and insubordination were part of the final debates on the second day of the symposium. Subversive discourses were driven by the themes suggested and the different opinions and stances defined the results.

In the afternoon, the roundtable Poéticas e Perspectivas da Artemídia (Art-Media Poetics and Perspectives) gathered Anne-Marie Duguet, Christine Mello, Cláudia Giannetti, François Soulages and Ivana Bentes, moderated by Milton Sogabe. At the opening of the debate, Sogabe highlighted the importance of the theme, “a subject that is present at all the roundtables of the symposium.”

Anne-Marie, an art theorist and professor at the University of Paris I (Sorbonne) chose the perspective of art-media memory to start the debate. “A file is not simple accumulation, and information can’t be grouped amorphously,” and so she talked about the project of a virtual encyclopedia on DVD which she coordinates, and showed parts of the work. “It is not the quantity of information that matters. It is the re-reading, the new essay.”

Frenchman François Soulages, a professor of the University of Paris 8, talked about the research he has been conducting on the relation between the body and the web, which he classified as psychic and eroticized. “The double nature of desire marks the relation of the body with the Internet. The relation and its numerous meanings and consequences are highlighted in art-media artistic production.”

The director of the Media Centre d´Art i Disseny, Mecad, of Barcelona, Cláudia Gianetti, showed by means of educational graphs the non-linear development of art-media, since its beginnings, relating artists, works, scientific historic landmarks and aesthetic questions. Ivana Bentes from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ, talked about the progress of art-media and showed several works. Both remembered the pioneering work of Brazilian visual artist Lygia Clark (1920-1988).

Terrorism – The subversive tone was given by the article of Christine Mello from the University of São Paulo, USP, who compared art-media production to terrorist attacks. “A metaphor to understand the disassembled world.” Christine showed the terrorist characteristics of contemporary artistic manifestations, such as the work of Lucas Bambozzi. Virus software, the hacking of security systems, and breaking into institutional blockages. Art-media, all this occupies zones of risk and tension,” she defined.

The final roundtable, Inclusão Digital, Software Livre, Códigos Abertos, (Digital Inclusion, Free Software, Open Codes) furthered in-depth analyses of political and social issues and reaffirmed the need of giving digital access to those excluded.

At the roundtable were André Lemos, Angie Bonino, Hernani Dimantas, Rejane Spitz and Susana Noguero. Moderator Guilherme Kujawski, from Itaulab, started the debate by demanding the maintenance of freedom of speech, the greatest trait of web communication, threatened by the “more severe legislation on copyrights.”

In her testimonial, Rejane Spitz, from the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, PUC/RJ, stated that the more positive estimates show that only approximately 7% of the world population has access to the web.

The Collective and Individual on the Web

by Marco Aurélio Fiochi. july 4th 2004
photos by Rubens Chiri

In a scenario in which Internet users become avatars, that is, they are given a virtual body; in which discussion communities appear as an alternative for people with common interests and ideologies; and where it is possible to subvert the operations of institutions by means of global actions that confront their power, artistic initiatives and experiments appear in cyberspace making the man of the technological era increasingly more individualized. That is called web subjectivity.

On the third day of the Emoção Art.ficial 2.0 international symposium – Divergências Tecnológicas (Technological Divergences), the experiences of the man-machine interaction were the topic of the roundtable Subjetividades em Rede, (Web Subjectivities), which gathered Mariela Yeregui, Minerva Cuevas, Sara Diamond, Giselle Beiguelman, Suzette Venturelli and Mario Maciel, moderated by Paula Perissinotto.

Mariela Yeregui, resident artist of the Media Centre d’Art i Disseny, Mecad, in Barcelona, focused her presentation on creating in new media, which she classifies as works “on” and “for” the web. According to her, the exchange among people in the virtual space enables the creation of ideological marks. “Subject identity and the position contrary to mainstream discourse arises from this mobilization. It awakens the power of activism and resistance in people,” she said.

The position is shared by Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas, whose work Mejor Vida Corp. (1998), being exhibited in the Emoção Art. ficial 2.0 exhibition, is a statement in favor of democracy and the inclusion of those marginalized from the web.

It is a virtual fictitious company that subverts advertising symbols, showing the “other side” of products and institutions. An example of the work of MVC is the campaign about the Mexican Institute of Information and Statistics, Inegi, in which she denounces that the institution excludes the poor from its census. Another service provided by the “company” on the Internet are credentials that enable students to obtain discounts. Bar codes created by MVC allow consumers to buy cheaper products at the supermarket.

Demystifying the web – Sara Diamond, a video-artist and executive producer of Banff Centre, Canada, defended the online collaborative environments of creation and development. According to her, it is necessary to demystify and create personal behaviors in the virtual space. The process is shown on the video of the project called CodeZebra. The work starts with dramatizations that are filmed and are posted on the Internet, where subjectivity is implicit, outlining the whole experience.

Sara and the Banff Centre were present in the first edition of Emoção Art.ficial, in 2002, with the work Talk Nice, which analyzed the way people expressed themselves on the net.

Giselle Beiguelman, an artist and professor at the Catholic University of São Paulo, PUC/SP, pointed out the action of the “society of control” in the domestic space and in the body. As an example, she mentioned smart cards, which monitor what people consume. “We have become mobile data banks, and the scenario is very similar to what was portrayed by Steven Spielberg in the film “Minority Report,” she observed. “In an experience that took place in Tijuana, Mexico, chips were implanted in children to monitor them, so as to avoid kidnappings,” she said. According to the professor, these actions mean that the bodies have changed their status in the new era and are now technologized, hybrid systems.

Suzette Venturelli, an artist and professor at the University of Brasília, UnB, Brasília, and Mario Maciel, who together are presenting F69 at Emoção Art.ficial 2.0, brought to the stage of the symposium, Robowww, an experiment of robotic art in progress developed by both of them. Distance learning, with software that simulates laboratories, and the creation of cell phone games were some of the topics addressed during the presentation.

Emerging Realities

by Carlos Costa, July 4th 2004

photos by Rubens Chiri

The roundtable Realidades Emergentes (Emerging Realities) fostered a long, heated debate between the artists and the public. Mediated by the manager of the Interactive Media Laboratory of Itaú Cultural, Itaulab, Marcos Cuzziol, Diana Domingues, Iliana Hernandez, Rodrigo Alonso and Sílvia Laurentiz discussed aspects and uses of virtual realities in technological art.

Brazilian Sílvia Laurentiz, from PUC/SP, presented her virtual environment of words, Community of Words, which is being implemented and hasn’t produced results yet, it allows the visualization of a simulation of 3D-text structures, as virtual sculptures. But, the final interface can be seen.

Upon visiting the website, the user can interact with the collection of existing words. Anyone can post poems and texts on the community and immediately observe the consequences. The program is in its first phase and the title is provisional. There will be two other phases until its conclusion.

Diana Domingues, from the University of Caxias do Sul, UCS, was the last to speak and invited Eliseo Berni Reategui, a professor at UCS to participate in the roundtable. Both explained the intentions and conception of the cyber installation I’mito: Zapping Zone, present in the Emoção Art. ficial 2. 0 exhibition. The work was created by ARTECNO Integrated Research Group from UCS, coordinated by Diana and in which Reategui participates.

The work explores the manufacturing of identities from a data bank with 20 historic characters. A bar code reader interprets objects by means of software, developed with genetic algorithms and associates them with the identities of myths. Information is transformed into deformed images with the morphing technique of computer graphics and projected on large screens and watched with 3D-glasses.

Researcher Iliana Hernandez, PhD by Sorbonne, read a text about emerging realities and numerical immersive environments. Rodrigo Alonso, from the University of Buenos Aires and Mecad, made a broader analysis of the issues regarding emerging realities and talked about the works presented.

At the end, the answer to the question raised by the roundtable – if world reality is benefiting from the expansion of virtual realities – seems to be positive.

Art with Social Roles in The City

by Fabrízio Penteado, July 4th 2004

photos by Rubens Chiri

The theme of the roundtable held Sunday evening, A Cidade como Interface (The City as an Interface) was utilizing art and its technological aspects as a form of urban manifestation. The topic raised contemporary art to a level distant from mere poetic and urban intervention, prioritizing social issues.

In modern cities, especially in metropolitan areas like São Paulo, human beings often times become invisible in relation to others, to themselves and to their surroundings. With defined questions, the artists felt free to explore urban space and alter it artistically, but also to use it as a backdrop to a social event.

Mediated by Marcelo Tramontano, the lecture counted on Simone Michelin, Michael Rakowitz, Nelson Brissac Peixoto and Fabio Duarte.

Simone Michelin, a visual artist, gave details about her work, which can be seen on the outer part of the building, as an interface for those who look at it, turning the viewer into a participant. The work called ADA – Anarquitetura do Afeto, represents the difference with which we accept specific surveillances, and questions how much we can take.

Fabio Duarte gave an example using the main objective of the work 10 Dencies São Paulo/ 10 Lavoro Immateriale, by the Knowbotic Research group. On two screens, key-words are shown on a seemingly misty cloud, which when grouped according to the viewer offer a range of pieces of information that are understood differently by each person. Due to the interactivity with the software, the work is no longer static, but always mutable and non-linear. Apparent chaos can be understood as the dynamic world in which we live.

Michael Rakowitz, with clear social concerns, used the homeless as his main billboard. His work is a type of a thermal bag adapted to the exhaust fans of buildings in large cities that could be used as homes for the homeless. Once inflated, in addition to preserving heat and consequently the life of the occupant, the “air igloo” is an urban intervention that curious passersby discover is a home. From the artist’s point of view, more important than providing heat to the occupant, the work makes them once again visible, attracting the pedestrians’ attention.

Digital technology as interaction between the medium and the city was one of the issues raised by Nelson Brissac who mentioned the work of AVL, a Dutch group: small fiberglass homes for the homeless. In addition to the concept of providing homes to the homeless, the Dutch group suggested that the works be used and managed by their residents as a way to foster social inclusion. Candy bar stands, “jogo do bicho” (an illegal lottery) stands and small bars were some of the solutions found by the homeless to preserve and use the space, transforming it into a habitable, consequently dignified environment.

From Plato’s Cave to Present Time Caves

by Marco Aurélio Fiochi, July 5th 2004
photos Rubens Chiri

The discussion on Espaços Virtuais Imersivos (Immersive Virtual Spaces), the roundtable that opened the fourth and last day of Emoção Art.ficial 2.0 international symposium could not have started with a more evocative tone. To talk about caves, considered the most advanced stage of immersion in cyberspace, Arlindo Machado, a professor at PUC/SP, critic and curator, traveled two thousand years back and located the embryo of this experience in The Allegory of the Cave by Plato. A cave, or Automatic Virtual Environment, is the integration between what is natural, the cave and what is artificial, the cybernetic space. Plato’s cave was a natural environment, different from the digital cave, which does not have any real element,” he observed.

Machado mentions two works that unite natural and artificial environments: the works Teleportando um Estado Desconhecido, by Eduardo Kac, and ADA – Anarquitetura do Afeto, by Simone Michelin, both being shown at Emoção Art.ficial 2.0. exhibition. “They are examples of caves that supersede the Platonic cave because there is the inner and outer part.”

Cinema – André Parente, a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, agrees with Machado in reference to the theory that cinema is one of the main environments of immersion. “Cinema requires psychological transport. No technology makes me interact more than cinema, it is multimedia,” says Parente. A PhD in cinema by the University of Paris VIII, he has worked since 1997 with the interactions between the cinematic movement, audiovisual and virtual immersion. “Virtuality does not depend on technology. We live immersed in language, in simulacrum and in cyberspace, according to Saussure, Baudrillard and Virilio.”

Rejane Cantoni, an artist and professor at PUC/SP, makes a counterpoint and defends technology as the determining factor for immersion. Tânia Fraga agrees with this position. Among the artist’s and architect’s projects, or dreams, as she would rather classify them, are immersive environments, such as the “house-turtle”, the “house-butterfly” and the “house-shell”, which can grow or shrink according to the needs of the resident.

On the opposite way of the technological current, Machado concluded the discussion by declaring that in immersion only the technical apparatus is taken into consideration. “It is necessary to consider the psychological involvement of the interactor, his predisposition to interact, project himself, immerge psychologically.”

The New Biological Paradigm

by Fabrízio Penteado, July 5th 2004
photo by Rubens Chiri

How do new forms of technology interfere in the concepts of life? On Monday afternoon’s lecture, panelists explained their opinions about the paradigm created by the divergence of new media in relation to human beings and questioned how far the use of technological resources could be considered ethical.

Moderated by Eduardo de Jesus, French art critic Anick Bureaud, and artists Eduardo Kac, Paula Sibilia and Roy Ascott were also present. Anick pointed out that technological art is one of the new artistic forms and, more importantly, it is art from digital media, the new media that has appeared.

Those who expected to see the genetically modified fluorescent bunny, by Eduardo Kac were disappointed since the animal was not allowed to leave the laboratory due to legal problems. However, Kac presented themes as interesting as the animal. According to the panelist, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution presents flaws when stating that only mutations are responsible for the evolution of species.

“Symbiosis and cooperation, two key factors in life, are not part of Darwin’s Theory,” said Kac, who set forth to create different connections between this statement and the topic of the lecture. He still found time to explain some works, among which, Lance 36 (Move 36) a reference to the move that led to the defeat of Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov in the match against the supercomputer Deep Blue.

The quote, “God created the universe as a large clock and left the machine working on its own, then man proclaimed himself free to alter nature around him,” summarizes Paula Sibila’s talk, comparing the environment that surrounds us to man’s concern with self-valorization. With genetic manipulation, a new nature is being outlined by man, a type of reinvention of life. This would be the DNA alchemy.

Finally, Roy Ascott, the director-founder of The Planetary Collegium, at the University of Plymouth, focused on nanotechnologies. Hoping to identify flaws in the human program (DNA), the artist says, “nano is pure matter and pure consciousness, it is the transition between molecules and cells.” Roy also explained about photons, saying that they were helping to create some types of life.

Social Resistance and Vast Paths to Art

by Carlos Cos, July 5th 2004

photos by Rubens Chiri

Mexican artist Fran Ilich, wearing jeans and a t-shirt closed the Emoção Art.ficial 2.0 symposium by presenting the acts of rebellion and vandalism he committed with a group of other artists at the border of Mexico and the US to protest against the strict immigration ban.

Social resistance, good humor and creativity turned telephone thefts, food distribution, lies and riots into efficient artistic interventions which, for using advanced technologies and new forms of media, such as laptops, the language of games and e-mail, closed the discussion by showing that the paths to art are vast and unpredictable.

For almost three years, Ilich has been leading constant interventions on the border of Mexico/US, especially in Tijuana. Among the actions, he handed out immigrant-kits (food and water) in the American desert, promoted parties at border areas, disturbed the police, robbed public payphones and even forged an e-mail from an American official agency opening the borders for three days and sent it as an official communication to the Mexican press. He was lucky to have escaped any punishment. The experiences, duly recorded in state-of-the-art media, were remembered and told, to the enjoyment of the audience. Ilich, as expected is on the web.

Before the Mexican, the roundtable received contributions from four other artists who also presented and explained their own works. A common point among those who preferred to use theory, as Cristina Costa, from USP, and José-Carlos Mariategui, from Alta Tecnologia Andina, ATA, was the statement that, it is necessary to recreate. However, new technologies will not give meaning to the revolution, but ideas will.

Sharing the cake – Mariategui commented on his work, E-Tester, which offers a new use of the web based on connections through people. He finalized the lecture showing a video by Diego Lima that mixed Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather II) and Carmen Miranda (South American Way) to propose more equality in the world by using the metaphor of sharing the birthday cake.

After that, Cristina Costa showed her research on interactivity with the website Narrativas, which has stories to be completed by Internet users. Among her conclusions is the certainty that interactivity needs to be induced to produce great effects. In her case, by means of open-structured texts that invite participation with suggestions. “Interactivity is not a technological resource.”

Names without translation – With a simple performance, the pair of artists Maurício Dias (Brazilian) and Walter Riedweg (Swiss) transformed the environment by simultaneously reading names of people, many of whom artists and employees of Itaú Cultural involved in the production of the symposium, and names of several places worldwide. At the end, together they said: “not every name is translated.”

The performance is connected to the work of the artists that criticizes issues related to nationality, borders and migration. Always sharing what was said, playing on words, they talked about eroticism, humanity and presented two works: Inside & Outside the Tube (1999) and Voracidade Máxima (2003), developed and presented in Europe.

The first was an intervention in the outskirts of Zurich (Switzerland), which reproduced audios of excerpts of testimonies from illegal immigrants, in approximately 20 different languages, through heating pipes spread around the area.

The second one, created for the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid (Spain), was composed of a room of mirrors where they showed excerpts of testimonies from male prostitutes, also illegal immigrants, who appeared in the images using masks with the faces of the two artists.

Sparkles of intelligence and an outline of emotion

by Luiza Fagá and Thiago Rosenberg

Edmond Couchot, a professor emeritus at the University of Paris 8, gave the opening talk at the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium held on July 19th. “An artist, a scientist, a theorist, a professor, Couchot is all this,” defined André Vallias, moderator of the meeting. “He is the incarnation of a Renaissance man in the 21st century.”

Emotion and intelligence

One of the points highlighted by Couchot was the importance of simulating human emotions in machines. It sounds paradoxical, since emotions, considered as irrational traits in human beings, might seem unimportant to science. But, Couchot presented two arguments that justify the validity of research in this area.

The first has a scientific base. According to him, studies have evidence of a strong connection between intelligence and emotion. Therefore, simulating emotions would be necessary to develop artificial intelligence. “The question is not if machines can have emotions or not,” he said. “The question is if they can be intelligent without emotion.” Despite that, Couchot remembered that the ability to recognize and simulate emotions does not mean that machines can feel or experience them. Artificial emotion does not give them superior intelligence, that is, consciousness of consciousness.

The second reason presented by Couchot is practical. The simulation of emotions would facilitate the communication between man and machine. On the one hand, upon being able to recognize users emotions, the computer would be able to adapt and optimize its performance, changing behavior upon noticing the dissatisfaction of the user or repeating actions which pleased him.

On the other hand, the ability to simulate such emotions would result in considering machines fellow creatures, facilitating the man/machine dialogue. “The autonomy of behavior and the simulation of emotions manifested by virtual artifacts provokes a strong feeling of empathy in the “interactor,” stated Couchot.

Art and authorship

Cybernetic art, however, often times tries to disturb this communication, making the presence of the author evident. In this case, the professor gave as an example, the work Portraits, by Joseph Nechvatal, in which the portrait of the observer suffers constant changes.

But, the notion of authorship is alto relative in this artistic production, since the spectator, in addition to interacting with the works helps to create them. Hence, there is a change in the status of the artist, who doesn’t want his work to be totally finished, of the spectator, who becomes a co-author, and of the work itself, which has a certain degree of autonomy, now. A process that is seen by Couchot with satisfaction, but, which is also pointed out as one of the reasons for the reluctance in recognizing artistic value in these works and the consequent difficulty in entering the market.

The creator and the creature

During the lecture, Couchot stated that “technology would be a means for man to be set free from his internal processes,” just like in the past when tools such as the hammer, for example, enabled hands to be set free. “But, can all internal processes become external?” He asked.

As this exteriorization process takes place, the machine looks more like us. On this, Couchot said that man, often times, takes on the role of the “jealous god” because he doesn’t want to grant freedom to his own creation and pointed out a contradiction in doing so: the objective of these works is to give machines human traits, and one of our main traits is autonomy.

The professor said we shouldn’t fear being surpassed by our creatures. According to him, intelligence doesn’t exist in itself, only as manifestation or by means of a support. Therefore, it would be impossible to reproduce human intelligence in inanimate objects. For now, machines only have a “sparkle of intelligence and an outline of emotion.” Furthermore, if man seeks to perfectly reproduce another human being, there are, and always have been, more practical ways of doing so.

Meet La Plume et le Pissenlit, a work by Edmond Couchot in which virtual dandelions are moved by the public.

Cybernetic art, yesterday and today

 

by Edson Cruz and Kiel Pimenta

The present and past of cybernetic art met at the second roundtable of Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium. Writer and curator Jasia Reichardt and performance artist Golan Levin gave explanations that incidentally combined perfectly.

Jasia focused on the past. She was assistant-director at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), in London, from 1963 to 1971 and became famous for having organized Cybernetic Serendipity, in 1968, one of the first exhibitions to explore the relations between art and technology, even before the appearance of computers as we know them today. She started her presentation by showing images of precursor works, such as collages of the 20’s that already worked with the theme of the machine-man relation, up to the famous exhibit of 1968.

Serendipity means the possibility of making a casual and happy discovery, and that was exactly the objective of the exhibition: to gather people who had never met before, who didn’t even have to be artists, as long as they were able to create art with the new technological tools. In addition to photos of the works and some videos shown in the exhibition, Jasia brought forth some interesting points: the poster was typed and there was no catalogue. But the most complicated detail is that there is neither a filmed recording of the exhibition, nor of the 16 lectures given.

Levin spoke first, but he brought information from the present which complemented Jasia’s talk “serendipitously”. A renowned new media artist, he showed some projects that synthesize his proposal of studying the relation of human beings and machines. Mentioning as a source of inspiration one of the pioneers of electronic art, Myron Krueger, who said that “response is the medium”, and making a counterpoint with the theories of Marshall McLuhan, Levin stated that he is interested in a non-verbal dialogue between man and machine and the visualization of the communication processes. “My work is mistakenly associated with sound and image, but I am interested in gestures,” he said. “The response [the way signals are transmitted] is the main focus of my work,” he added.

To do this, he created the Audiovisual Environment Suite software that enables the production of sounds as of abstract animations drawn in real time, on a computer.

Among the most interesting projects shown was A Telesymphony, from 2001, in which he gathered 200 people in a theater, who on having their mobile phone numbers registered at a data bank received a new ringtone. During the event, the production crew called the mobile cell phones, which reproduced the new sounds, one after the other, forming a real symphony. Another project shown was Re-Mark, from 2002, in which the voice of the spectator reproduced on a microphone and his shadows projected on a screen triggered a response in the form of sounds and words. A more sophisticated version of this idea can be seen at the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 exhibition: the work Messa di Voce, from 2003, made in partnership with Zachary Lieberman.

At the final debate, when questioned about what she would do next, Jasia quoted Apollinaire, who had already talked about virtual reality way before it happened, to justify that she is still interested in new technologies and in their possibilities. And she was ironic: “Today, there is a search for the past. Therefore, I am busy.”

Broaden your horizons

 

by Thiago Rosenberg

Belgian biologist Christa Sommerer and French artist Laurent Mignonneau directors of the Department for Interface Culture at the Linz Institute for Media, joined the two Brazilian artists Daniela Kutschat and Rejane Cantoni to form the third roundtable at the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium, Além das Interfaces (Beyond Interfaces). The meeting gave an idea of how interfaces recently developed by artists and researchers enable new sensorial and artistic experiences.

The two couples showed their interactive works that combine art and science. Art that is not considered lysergic because it creates no hallucinations, but rather transforms what is unreal into reality. An imaginary world that surfaces by means of interfaces built by artists-scientists, who use technology to enable interaction with new realities or hidden aspects of our own reality.

Virtual fauna and floraWith Mignonneau in silence, Christa spoke on behalf of the Belgian-French couple. Initially, she commented on the work A-Volve, which is able to transform drawings made by interactors into virtual water beings that interact with each other. Each figure drawn corresponds to a genetic algorithm, which determines the format, behavior and speed of the creature. It is very similar to recent Life Writer, a work present in this edition of the Emoção Art.ficial exhibition, in which beings come to life after being typed on an old typewriter. But in this case, the letters and not the lines made by hand determine the genetic code of the virtual being. 

Works such as Interactive Plant Growing and Trans Plant, also mentioned by Christa, replace the fauna of previous works that are inexistent in nature, by virtual flora. In the first one, the touch of the interactors on different real plant species, which are laid out close to a monitor, make their virtual counterparts grow. In Trans Plant, the interactor is represented in an initially empty virtual environment, where he makes plants grow as he moves.

Beauty is in the objectiveDaniela and Rejane addressed OP_ERA, a project that has been developed by both of them since 1999. Defined as “a multi-sensorial experimentation tool of space concepts”, in general terms, it consists in the creation of simulated environments capable of generating new forms of sensorial perception. OP_ERA: Hyperviews, present in Emoção Art.ficial 2.0, for example, explores representations of a four dimensional hypercube. OP_ERA: Haptic Wall, in turn, is a wall-interface that produces stimuli of touch through sound data.

The artists ironically highlighted the difficulties faced by those who work with art and technology in countries like Brazil. “Rather than an economic difficulty,” stated Rejane, “the difficulty lies in understanding what is produced.” “The great issue is understanding this new artistic expression that still hasn’t found a place in the market.”

On the validity of the concept of beauty in works of this kind, Rejane said she is not concerned with the appearance of OP_ERA. “Our objective is to put you there and transport you from the first to the eleventh dimension,” she said. “Beauty lies in achieving objectives.”

The Endophysicist Against the Evil God

by Luiza Fagá

The fourth meeting of Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium received as a guest German physicist Otto Rössler. Having renowned works in the areas of medicine, mathematics and technological art, he is a specialist in what he calls endophysics. “We should thank his father for not allowing him to become a monk,” joked mediator André Vallias.

Rössler started the lecture by saying that his science drifts on a fragile limit between the sublime and ridicule. “Endophysics is a joke, but it is a serious joke,” he said, with the same good mood in which he conducted the whole presentation.

The physicist, always didactically, drew a simple equation to describe our relation with the outer world. The universe as a whole would be the sum of the observer and the object. Therefore, to understand the object, the observer should place himself on the other side of the equation. Thus, the object would be equal to the universe, subtracting from it the observer. That is, to objectively analyze any object, the observer would have to be positioned outside the process, which is impossible since he is an indissociable part of it. “You only have access to the differences between you and the rest of the universe. That is perspective,” he concluded.

The god of the world
Archimedes’ Point is a solid point, where one could push the world with a lever. The concept sounds abstract, but the physicist was able to transform it into something palpable with one example. “I think you know it, it’s called a laptop.” On a computer’s screen, we have an artificial universe that can be reprogrammed. He explained that this artificial universe is made up of particles obtained by calculations. “We tend to define ourselves by age, appearance. But, in truth, we are also made up of particles.” With the sum of apparently obvious statements, Rössler came to an unexpected conclusion.

The world would be a machine and we, slaves of the operator. But, actually, we would be the operator, parts of a system that is self-controlling. According to him, the attitude toward that, is essentially, passive. To accept the condition of being at the mercy of a superior sphere, an “evil god”, would be “disturbing determinism”. “But you have the chance to respond. If the world is a prison, we need to know how to get out,’ he said. This confrontation would distinguish those who faced it from their fellow creatures. Otto Rössler concluded, “The great issue is if a program can force the programmer to respond. In my opinion, it can.”

On Men and Robot-Dogs

 

by Thiago Rosenberg

The similarities between a living organism, with its complex immune system, and the equally complex workings of machines were the focus of the fifth meeting of the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium, Seres Humanos, Reflexões e Máquinas (Human Beings, Reflections and Machines). Immunologist, Nelson Monteiro Vaz and French artist, France Cadet participated in the debate.

Vaz’s talk was different from that of the other participants of the event since he limited himself to the issues of his area, biology, leaving it up to the public to connect them to the workings of machines. He addressed processes of the immune system, among which the ability to reject or not foreign bodies, understood by many as intelligent. But, one of the conclusions presented by the scientist, who knew Chilean biologists Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana, points to the idea that “the intelligence of the immune system is in our perceptions.”

Controversial little robotsFrance added doses of art and criticism to the discussion. Or, more specifically, critical art. She commented on her work with robot-dogs Dog[LAB]01, from 2004, present in the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 exhibition. These are seven autonomous robots, dogs with the characteristics of other animal species, previously programmed and coordinated to act in a specific manner. A reference to the first cloned mammal and a work critical of experiments of the kind, Dolly is 50% dog, 30% ewe, 15% cow and 5% sheep. A robot-dog with cow hide, subject to constant behavioral alterations, as if suffering from the mad cow disease, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).

Jelly Doggy, in turn, represents a dog with the genes of a chameleon and a jelly fish, but which is neither adapted to land nor water. Endowed with Green Fluorescent Protein, the GFP Puppy is a reference to Alba, Eduardo Kac’s fluorescent bunny.

Dissatisfied with the way part of the public reacted to the installation, by having fun and not becoming critically moved by the actions performed by the robots, France thought of a more daring project. In Dog[LAB]02, from 2006, there are 20 robots, all identical as clones, which simulate the symptoms of the mad cow disease, in a performance that ends with the simultaneous death of all of them. “I wanted to create something scarier,” said the artist, who, according to the work’s repercussion was able to reach her objective. “They said I was an insensitive artist, that I shouldn’t talk about the mad cow disease, that I was planning a boycott, etc. It’s funny how a simple little robot can cause so much controversy.”

Learn more about cybernetics, and understand basic concepts of artificial intelligence.

The Paskian Approach: Conversation

by Edson Cruz

O legado de Gordon Pask (The legacy of Gordon Pask) was the sixth roundtable at the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium, in which, in a little more than one hour and a half, Paul Pangaro, a professor in computing and Pask’s collaborator, and Usman Haque, a professor at the Bartlett school of architecture, in London, and artist and creator of the interactive installation Evolving Sonic Environments, present at Emoção Art.ficial 3.0, talked and showed some of the works and ideas of Gordon Pask, an engineer and cyberneticist, and how they influenced their own ideas and works.

A video made by the BBC, The Experimenters, showed part of Pask’s career and works. His ideas started from the attempt to understand how we learn, creating learning machines and systems. “Pask wanted to find out how people learn when involved in a conversation,” declared Pangaro in his talk.

The legacy
Pask, according to Pangaro, was an engineer who created his own learning machines and with this developed a cybernetic theory about human conversation. His starting point was the focus on the personal nature of reality, proposing a process to apprehend the world as of the agreement between actors that interact in a specific environment. 

To Pask, according to the panelists, cybernetics has always been connected to conversation. Pangaro gives the example of the thermostat and human interference on it. Human beings apply cybernetic principles when they try to adjust it to a specific temperature, to a different objective from what would be initially expected. This process is called first order cybernetics. When human beings start to observe themselves in action and to modify this action or not, a transition between the first and second orders takes place.

When asked if the concept of beauty would penetrate his cybernetic concept, Pask answers that it would, mentioning the great mathematical demonstrations that more than numeric clarity showed elegance. Beauty, therefore, would be connected to the coherence of organization and form. And that is what he was after, said Pangaro, to create coherence through his experiences. An idea that is very close to what was established by neurobiologist Humberto Maturana in his classic work on cognition.

Lightness and brilliance
Haque said that he only understood Pask’s concepts, which today are so connected to his own creations, three years after the first time he heard them. It was in the Serendipity project (theme of Jasia Reichardt’s talk in the Cybernetics, Art, Ideas roundtable) that he was attracted to Pask’s sculpture, The Colloquy of Mobiles. It was a type of non-linear, non-causal interactive work. Something that Haque was also seeking: a work that was not only a device that reacted automatically to a stimulus. As of then, Haque developed projects which increasingly more helped him to become familiarized with Pask’s ideas.

One of the most interesting projects shown by Haque on the large screen was Sky Ear, whose starting point was his perception that carrying and using a cell phone influence the way we currently use space. We move to answer a call, or we avoid certain places where cell phones are not allowed to ring. He created something that looked like bubbles, which together were thrown up to the sky, generating a kind of magnetic cloud manipulated and modified in its colors through the interaction with people on the ground, by means of mobile phone calls. By what we saw on the large screen, the effect was fascinating.

He showed details and diagrams of his work in partnership with Robert Davis, Evolving Sonic Environments, shown in this edition of the exhibition. A work whose premise is the interest in knowing how space perceives beings, and not the other way round, as would be expected due to his background in architecture.

The Paskian approach was put into practice by the panelists with no affectation and at the service of creative intelligence. A brilliant and motivating talk that showed us that cybernetics is neither cold nor boring. Especially, when the thinkers and artists that work with it are open and use interaction as the basis to improve human beings and society, and not only as a metaphor.

Portraits and Portraits

by Luiz Fagá

Retratos Eletrônicos (Electronic Portraits), the sixth meeting of the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium brought to the debate a theme that has been quite discussed during the digital images era: the reproduction and modification of real images.

Conducted by writer and curator Jasia Reichardt, the talk was initiated by a statement that tends to cause controversy. Digitally modified electronic portraits can, and usually do come closer to the model than the conventional ones.

According to her, there are two main differences between conventional and electronic portraits. The first one is that the artists that develop the latter type of portraits are more tied to technology. In addition, because these artists work with virtual portraits, they can show not what we know, but what we could know. “Virtual portraits allow us to see people as we would never see them in real life.”

Kyoko, Jasia and the middle layer
Jasia divided human beings into three layers. The superficial one would correspond to behavior, which adapts to society, and so enables us to live in it. The deepest one would be formed by instincts. Even though it is blind and deaf to standards and conventions, it makes our existence possible. The real individual would be in the middle layer, squeezed between the other two. “Artists that work with portraits should seek this layer.”

Jasia gave examples of the side of electronic portraits opposed to the one defended by her, which proposes the search for the essence layer. Kyoko Date, the first virtual Japanese singer, or the most recent Lara Croft are mirrors of the standards of a time and have no individuality. “Angelina Jolie gave Lara the curves but not the essence. In the virtual world of celebrities, the middle layer does not survive,” she concluded.

Virtual, but Autonomous

by Kiel Pimenta and Thiago Rosenberg

Michel Bret, a professor of the University Paris 8, gave birth to an artificial being in front of the audience in Itaú Cultural Hall. A naked immobile being on the monitor of its creator’s laptop, projected on the big screen of the room, and initially as active as a vegetable. Then Bret inserted in the recently born creature, an artificial retina capable of capturing images from a webcam. “Can it see?” Asked the professor, who had white beard and was wearing a tank top, like a 21st century prophet.

This took place during the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium, which together with Bret counted on the participation of Marie-Hélène Tramus, from University Paris 8, and Diana Domingues, from University Caxias do Sul.

From the first steps to improvisation

After the retina, the virtual being received an artificial brain, and a muscular system was coupled to it. Thus, each movement captured by the webcam was processed by the brain, which sent orders of movement to the muscles. Bret, by doing certain gestures with his hand in front of the camera, taught some of these movements to the character, which in a few seconds learned how to crouch, jump, stretch, etc. And once the basic actions are learned, the being no longer imitates and attains some autonomy, improvising non-programmed movements.

Marie-Hélène talked about La Funambule Virtuelle, a work carried out in partnership with Bret and present in the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 exhibition, in which a virtual tightrope artist reacts to the movements of the interactor. She highlighted that this kind of work shows the sensorial characteristics of the work, with its own perceptions, which before was reserved to the observer alone. “This changes the nature of the interactivity,” she stated. “The work presents behavior that is closest to that of humans.”

Answering a question raised by the public, that the virtual ballerina did not accurately reproduce the movements of the people that interacted with the work, Bret said that “the project is not to create a clown, but a dialogue.” “The idea is not to copy but to interact.”

Diana started her talk mentioning Walter Benjamin (“the author as producer”) and highlighting the collaborative and transdisciplinary character of the works that she has been developing in the area of art software. To her, art is not in the code, but in the way artists manipulate it and in language. She stated that artists working with software is not something new, and mentioned as examples the works of David Rockeby and Edmond Couchot (such as Les Plissenlits, part of the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 exhibition).

Scribbles of an Endophysicist

by Kiel Pimenta and Luiza Fagá

Otto Rössler is a strange character. Strangely charismatic. A mixture of a mad scientist, a prophet of the apocalypse and a disseminator of goodness. “Benevolence is the opposite of cruelty,” he said. “That’s what the world needs.” Rössler shared his second participation in the Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium with technological artist Bill Seaman. Seaman is an artist and Rössler … an Endophysicist. Endophysics is the science of the inside, as opposed to exophysics. Is that clear?

Seaman started his talk with a question: are we electrochemical computers? To which, he answered that yes, we are a bio-computer. To him, a conscious computer is one which can be creative, has knowledge, synthetic emotions, etc. According to him, to build one, you have to “observe the functionality of a system and set up a system with the same functionality.” Seaman talked about the paradigm of the neo sentience and then focused on his concept of pattern flows that guides his work shown on Emoção Art.ficial 3.0: The Thoughtbody Environment Interface. He showed an image, which at first, would explain his theory. “Bill is the only one who understands this image”, said Rössler jokingly.

Now it’s the endophysicist’s turn to talk. “Do you want me to draw?” Yes, we do. On an overhead projector, the white haired man with tremulous gestures drew the crooked images as imprecise as his words. But as he himself said in the previous meeting, “endophysics is an assault on objectivity and reinforces objectivity.” He will take us somewhere.

The assault
Rössler started the class saying that artificial intelligence is a “dangerous territory.” But, calm down, endophysics is an assault on objectivity. In nature, “everything flows downwards, toward death. But along this path, small things happen.” He drew a diagonal arrow facing downward and, in the middle of the way between the top and the base, a spiral. To better explain it, the scientist changed the difficult vocabulary for sweet words. It would be like water, when sliding down the rocks of a waterfall. In some parts of the way, it forms a small whirlpool. “If you give it a chance, it can produce beautiful things, even life.” And whenever possible, life will reproduce itself. “It’s as strong as a young person for whom the world is opening up.”

Another way energy escapes from death is by going toward point omega. To illustrate it, Rössler drew an arrow pointing upward. Point omega, a concept developed by philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, resides on its top. The infinite target, the maximum level of improvement and evolution. “Where all creative energy is concentrated.” According to the endophysicist, that is where surplus energy converges.

The reinforcement
Scientist-prophet Rössler said that if evolution is successful during infinite time, point omega will be naturally reached. But this bridge, between the current stage and the last stage of evolution can also be built by science.

According to Rössler, the main difference between the physical explanation of evolution and Darwin’s theory is that the former understands evolution as an intelligent process that can be predicted by means of algorithms and, therefore, reconstructed.

If science can predict and reproduce the evolution of a being and take this evolution to its highest point, this might imply having “the entire cosmos developing itself aiming at an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent being.” Endophysics reinforces objectivity. We arrived at benevolence and danger referred to by Rössler.

Cybernetics Isn’t Only Technological

by Ana Catarina Pinheiro

Paul Pangaro, a PhD in cybernetics and a computer science professor, closed Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 Symposium highlighting the importance of perceiving cybernetics in its social dimension. The professor talked about the interactivity cycles that characterize the most diverse routine situations, not only between machines and living beings, but between men.

With this, art and technology, united in the works at Emoção Art.ficial 3.0 exhibition, had their interaction and provocative dimension made explicit with meaning in the everyday reality context. The title of the lecture, mentioning the Citroën automobile brand, provided a clue to the approach, which brought the cybernetic notion to ordinary life and distanced it from the mystic of technological sophistication reigning in common sense.

Pangaro explained cybernetics as a causal circularity system, starting with the example of the automobile that was programmed to adjust its height in relation to the ground, regardless of the weight being transported. Therefore, based on a target, to maintain constant driveability, the car interacted with the environment and could self-regulate. This example explains the first order cybernetic logic: a self-contained organism that responds to external stimuli and self-modifies.

The professor continued saying that if we add to this feedback context, an observing system that interacts and self-regulates as of the first order, we will have second-order cybernetics. At this level, Pangaro included human relations, using the scheme of a simple conversation as an example. In the dialogue, the aim of the person in this situation – to satiate his hunger – is made explicit to the other who proposes possibilities that cooperatively lead to one or multiple actions, such as to prepare a dinner with several dishes on the menu.

In this sense, cybernetics appears as a mechanism in which a system modifies itself and modifies other systems, at the physical level and, especially, in the immateriality of aims and desires, adapting itself to reach shared objectives. It is a collaborative process that is applied from the learning of dance steps to the workings of participative democracy and to the production of knowledge.

Cybernetic artifactsPangaro recognizes that machines produced and programmed by man interact in second order cybernetic cycles, modifying themselves and creating new artifacts. However, the professor doubts that artifacts could coincide with the activity of the human brain, infinitely capable of operating with variables derived from interactions with machines, other living beings and with the environment.

In this case, Pangaro opposes cybernetics to the notion of artificial intelligence, suggesting the incapacity of a machine to reproduce the functioning of neural networks of the human brain. This is due to the assumption that is indispensable to artificial intelligence that reality corresponds to a truth that can be captured. According to the professor, for cybernetics, reality is built as of the negotiation of what truth is, not considered as a definitive and unbreakable scope, but as a result of interaction and cooperation. Thus, Pangaro says that “cybernetics is a way of seeing the world, a way of collaborating and negotiating.”

The latin-american production

by Carlos Costa, August 13h 2002

photos by Carol Lambert

The symposium’s fourth floor [art.ficial emotion] gave us hints of what is going on in the Latin American art and technology scenario. But that was it. The discussion that promised excited remarks brought brief summaries of Argentinean, Brazilian, Mexican, and Peruvian productions.

The representative of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Jorge La Ferla, opened Tuesday night’s programming (13) with a political play-on-words. “In Argentina we are not going through artificial emotions. The feeling is very real in everything and has loud colors “, he said. The audience cheered emotionally and he went on. “Our bankers are hackers, who destroy our financial system and never return our money”, he fired off.

The protest speech of the well-humored Argentinean came to rest then. La Ferla’s concern was to introduce the work of fellow artists who have developed projects in art-technology. According to La Ferla, the creators more directed to this field of expression are in other countries, where they receive incentives and equipment to put their ideas in practice. The works presented shared a common feature – a language that allies aesthetics, interactivity, and non-linearity. The speaker particularly praised the work of artist Marcello Maçado. “These pieces denote audiovisual evolution”, he said.

Jose-Carlos Mariategui (Andean High Technology/Peru) introduced an extensive scenario of Peruvian production in the past 10 years. According to him, Latin American production will not be left behind in the world scenario. “Our conceptual creation is already framed within global standards”. Mariategui believes this type of art can survive and feed from “localizing what is global and globalizing what is local” – that is, only those who can translate regional qualities into a universal language and vice-versa can stand out.

In his presentation, Mariategui portrayed the evolution of Peruvian artists through the work of Francisco Mariotti (who already worked with digital media in the 60’s), Roger AtasiIván Esquivel and Angie Bonino. To check on the institution production, we recommend visiting the site.

The Mexican Príamo Lozada presented the work of the institution Arte Alameda, while the Argentinean professor and musician Ricardo Dal Farra (Universidad Tres de Febrero) presented a complex educational proposal directed to media art. The Brazilian Silvia Laurentiz (ECA-USP) made a demonstration of the Art and technology scenario she developed together with Arlindo Machado.