Self-ish

 

Words taken from a previous post – automatic writing, ‘trying to get to the root/the soul of the project.  I started reading more around identity and the self at this time, in order to better inform my work, and hopefully help produce some mre imagery/visuals.

Parallel Selves – Elster

Elster: On Parallel Selves:

“In addition to our immediate personal experience we often enjoy vicarious experience provided by daydreaming, reading novels or writing them.  In fanciful exaggeration we may say that the vicarious experience belongs to a parallel self, one that runs its course alongside the main self.  When I am daydreaming, I am daydreaming.  Yet the fanciful language can serve the function of pointing to the importance that satisfaction by proxy can take on.  sometimes the consumption or creation of possible worlds comes to dominate the life of the mind at the expense of one’s engagement in the actual world.  Instead of speaking of parallel selves, we might think of the person as communicating between parallel lives.”

Elster, J. (1985) ‘The Multiple Self’, Cambridge University Press. P17

“Do not ask me who I am and do not expect me to remain the same.  Leave it to the bureaucrats to see that our papers are in order.”   Michel Foucault

“Cogito, ergo sum”  -  “I think, therefore I am” Rene Descartes

Living Sasquatch

This is fantastic – I would love to incorporate something like this into my site….

Follow the instructions: Print out the image and allow your webcam to activate; then focus cam onto printed image and watch Sasquatch appear on your desk!  Loving it!

http://www.livingsasquatch.com/watch.php?id=4919

‘Scuse my appearance – early morning!

Split screen ~ Duality ~ Augmented

Silhouette – shadows stretching, skipping, digging, diving, rocking…

Changing constant / random / digital – physical -soul -digital -soul -physical

“My Soul Dwells in the Digital”

Highlighting significance  /effect our digital lives impact on our physical world / mental state.

Split screen or augmented reality?

Film – Split Screen Movie:      “In film and video production, split screen is the visible division of the screen, traditionally in half, but also in several simultaneous images, rupturing the illusion that the screen’s frame is a seamless view of reality, similar to that of the human eye. There may or may not be an explicit borderline…Until the arrival of digital technology in the early 1990s, a split screen was accomplished by using an optical printer to combine two or more actions filmed separately by copying them onto the same negative, called the composite.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_screen_(filmmaking), wikipedia, accessed 27/10/09)  Note: NOT like 24!

Action: Watch following movies:  John Frankenheimer‘s Grand Prix (1966), Richard Fleischer‘s The Boston Strangler (1968), Norman Jewison‘s The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Airport (1970), Woodstock (1970) and More American Graffiti (1979).

Also: “1967 Universal exhibition in Montreal, commonly referred to as Expo 67, where multi-screen highlights included In the Labyrinth, hailed by Time magazine as a “stunning visual display,” their review concluding: “such visual delights as Labyrinth … suggest that cinema—the most typical of 20th century arts—has just begun to explore its boundaries and possibilities.” http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899606-2,00.html, accessed 27/10/09 via wikipedia, ibid.

Augmented:  Blending digital and physical as one; adding webcam apps such as Living Sasquatch (see next post!)

 

 

Mid Point Review

 MPR 09

 

My project centres around digital dis-embodiment, and the experience of embracing a new (digital) form, quite apart from your physical form.

 

I am interested in how we are represented (or present ourselves) as bodies in cyberspace and the impact this has on our own identities.  I also want to explore the location of the ‘self’ when living the cyber-life. 

 

I am intending to create an interactive web experience, where the User-Viewer is invited on a journey into his/her own sense of being or self… the digital soul.

 

• I am hoping to use some hi tech software to create a specific effect – a kind of digital mirror – which tracks the face and moves in real-time.  I wanted to be able to set this up in a physical space, but also would like to make this a feature on the website.  This is proving harder to source than originally anticipated, but I would like to know your feelings on using cutting-edge tech on artwork –

 

I have concerns on:

a)     the technology being fore-grounded rather than the artwork, and 

b)     how quickly it may look dated…

 

• The main part of my project is going to be an interactive website with digital figures – though not necessarily avatars.  I am determined that it will not have a game-like feel to it, so want to make it more filmic.  I am also trying to avoid it becoming another Second Life type experience, and so by making it filmic, I am hoping to avoid it appearing like either of these. 

 

• I am looking into alternative ways of creating the figures – although I have been playing around with Poser recently – it does feel a little formulaic to use these models.  I am trying to get away from the typical digital form.  Not sure where I am going with this, but appreciate anyone’s thoughts on this…

 

• One other thing I would like for people to consider, is:  when experiencing the digital world (and if you haven’t experienced this previously, if you could indulge me and just imagine that you are partaking in this activity – playing a game online, visiting Second Life, Chatting to friends live, etc.) –  where would you locate your ‘self’ and / or soul?   -  
•  
  • At your computer desk inside your physical form;
  • in cyberspace;
  • floating around in the ethers;
  • in the virtual world inside your digital character…? 

 

I think it is quite easy to dismiss almost immediately that you are anywhere other than at your desk, but take it further, and ‘place’ yourself in the world, chatting to other digital forms, in real-time, with real discussions, and ‘real’ actions and expressions, with actual (digital) locations and possessions…  If someone commented on your digital form – would if affect you – would you be flattered, upset? 

 

So, the plan so far: – an interactive website, which creates a journey through which the user-viewer experiences and explores the digital self, where the site is visually more filmic, yet also interactive, rather than a traditional website.  Supported by a physical (and hopefully digital) installation utilizing a digital mirroring type of effect.  

And that’s the plan…

So far…

1:24 Real-time visual driven avatars

*****Note:  My project has since changes regarding how I am going to show the work, and although this post is not relevent to my current work, I wanted to show it as it represents previous research/learning)*****

I have recently emailed Dr Oliver Schreer at the Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, in Germany as I found from researching on the net that they have recently produced/engineered software which can be used with a pc and webcam which would work ideally for the part of my project where I wanted a kind of mirror effect when the user-viewer looks into his pc screen (on the website I hope to create).   The fact that it only requires a webcam is very exciting, as this was somthing I was wanting – ie to make it extremely accessible, I also hope to recreate this in a physical digital installment, but myabe on a grander scale – so it may require two different software applications. 

This web page and video clip is a sample of what Dr Schreer et al have accomplished so far: http://www.hhi.fraunhofer.de/en/departments/image-processing/immersive-media-3d-video/animation-of-avatars/