Please see my Masters blogsite: http://hoststranger.blogspot.com
Also, the videos 'Inscribed Surfaces - In the Company of Strangers' and 'Shelter - In the Company of Strangers' in my videos on this site.
Wed 4 July 2007
One of the strands of my research for, In the Company of Strangers, is currently investigating the nature of 'virtual' or 'not-real' moments, how we perceive or witness them and move in and out of the real or virtual in both Real Life and in the virutal world of Second Life, ('Second Life. com'). At the moment I am experimenting with uploading real-life film of my dance work into Second Life and projecting this against selected surfaces in virtual urban environments and conversely, exporting footage of my dance work in Second Life to project onto selected surfaces in urban environments in real life.
Mark Hansen, in Bodies in Code, (2006) sees the embodiment of function manifesting through the human body, acting as a kind of seismographic wand - ‘ a vehicle of being in the world’ (Hansen, 2006:5-6 after Heidegger). He maintains that: ‘All virtual reality is mixed reality … all reality is mixed reality’, (Hansen, 2006:5-6) Hansen talks about the existence of the analogue as a transformative entity:
"Always on arrival a transformative feeling of the outside, a feeling of thought” sensation is the being of the analog. (sic) This is the analog in a sense close to the technical meaning, as a continuously variable impulse or momentum that can cross from one qualitatively different medium into another. Like electricity into sound waves. Or heat into pain, Or light waves into vision. Or vision into imagination. Or noise in the ear into music in the heart. Or outside coming in. Variable continuity across the qualitatively different: continuity of transformation.' (Massumi, 2000:135 in Hansen, Bodies in Code) Like Real into 'Second Life' and back and ...
Through our internal analogue therefore, we possess the innate capacity, to transform, continuously, the many real and virtual realities with which our existence is constructed and constantly deconstructed, reconstructed and re-affirmed.
The mixed-reality paradigm can shift the fields of 'orthodox' perceptions (has perception, in fact, ever been orthodox?) which have, in the past, established existing modes of seeing and understanding reality: Cinema has hitherto been granted the capacity to represent the world from a non-human (this is debatable in the sense that if the footage was the product of human creation, that is the unassailable baseline from which all the forms of expression within the presented film stem), perspective and so is properly mechanistically autonomous from direct human influence; in contrast to this, the process within us as humans which brings virtual reality technologies together with our natural perceptions, supports a function which expands the scope of our natural perception and integrates real-world and virtual realities to arrive at a more homogeneous, mixed reality. Rather than presenting the virtual as a completely technical simulacrum – a portal to a fully immersive, separate or fantasy world, the mixed-reality paradigm regards it as just one more realm among others which can be accessed through our already embodied perception or our ability to enact - or, in the case of both First and Second Life, role-play.
So there is less emphasis here on the content and more emphasis on the ways in which we access that content.
In the light of the above, I am interested in pursuing this definition of mixed-reality - a 'new' realization of the fluidity of experiencing simulacra: In the first instance, physically/perceptually moving in and out of real and virtual moments in Real Life (RL in Second Life speak) and in the second instance, physically/perceptually, in front of our computer, moving in and out of Real Life (one is tempted to use the term First Life ...) and Second Life. I am inclined to the feeling that there is little difference between these two scenarios. They are not so much distinct from one another as examples of layered mixed-reality encountered within the moment. I think that the two realities are actually 'one': they can be seen and experienced first- hand as mutually-dependent, opposing binaries and therefore as a linked whole or a single, layered experience. So for me, the virtual and real in our lives can be described, like so many aspects in our lives, as states of perceptual layering-in-flux.
It can be said perhaps, in part, that in urban environments these days we are, all of us, strangers or at least, that the stranger among us is alive and well. The mixed-reality platform of Second Life/Real Life as a 'place', lends itself constantly to the process of host and stranger interaction and the assuming of both roles. I am curious to see how I may be able to apply this to my dance movement in and out of Real and Second Life, using the process of activation to manipulate and modify partially-peopled 'non/places'.Rollo Kohime and Arya Braveheart - Inscribed Surfaces 003 .png
Rollo Kohime and Arya Braveheart - Inscribed Surfaces 006.png
Replies
i am just finding your postings here, and will read them carefully (also the fascinating questions you raise about avatar-otherness/acceptance) before beginning dialogue.
i would be much interested in an exchange, and will also tell my lab members about your posts.
our discussion group on current production and research E-UKIYO needs to pick up speed too. most of the ideas we have been reviewing, since we performed the first version of our mixed reality choreographic installation (in June 2009) were ciruclated internally, as we are only in the process of moving forward to stage 2 and 3 of this production. i have completed a 20 minute documentation film of the live installation/SL-performance, but it is a diptych film, and i cannot upload it as it is , at the minute. can only show it side by side, projected.
is your posting an older or a newer posting? I need to see your videos, 'Inscribed Surfaces - In the Company of Strangers' and 'Shelter - In the Company of Strangers' , and then get back to a , hopefully, fruitful discussion.
have you seen the work of Alan Sondheim in Second Life?
i will try to collect some references and links to their work.
i felt inspired by some of the writings on avatar performance by Sondheim, and when i saw his stuff at Subtle Technologies, in June 2009, it was quite mindblowing.
i have also collected the very very complex "EMPYRE" soft_skinned debate of the month of May, 2009, which was about "critical motion practices" and included practitioners and philosophers, and there were also some very interesting points made. i could re-trace this debate, but on my word-file it is almost 200 pages long. the ideas from this debate were very powerful.
more soon, with regards,. Johannes
I am reaching the end of three years of Masters study in dance and video and predictably, find myself with a world of questions and further enquiry. I never intended to work towards so-called resolutions in the first place so what can I expect? I would very much like to follow up the links to your mixed-reality choreographic installation and eagerly await your 20 minute film when this is available.
Yes, I have heard of Alan Sondheim and will follow this up. Second Life remains a major area of lived-debate for me and I still have much work to do in my Second Life Wellington Railway Station build through investigations into transformative embodiment in immersive mixed-reality world-surfaces. So are you in Second Life and working in there?
I appreciate your interest in my explorations Johannes! If you have time/energy my Masters site is:
http://hoststranger.blogspot.com
Here you will find two and a half years of research/practice with images and video footage. I posted again just a few days ago, continuing with my concepts questioning the dynamics of Heidegger`s/Zimmerman`s human as the clearing where entities may appear. My new urban myth of the Roaming Body is joined by Candice Carpenter`s 'Swift Selves' in the pursuit of those kinds of entities within us which lend themselves particularly to transformative embodiment.
I went into your site, 'danssansjoux.org' and I have added this to my site references. I really love the imagery on the your site. I only had a brief look but I still have it up and will return to it tomorrow. It is late here in New Zealand Aotearoa and I have to lecture tomorrow, so I bid you a very good night. I would be very interested for your lab members to see my posts and my Masters site.
Kind Regards, Ka Kite Ano,
Mike