Edible Audience
What about this Gastronomic Performance Translated as Data Art?
Alistair Riddell
Centre for
New Media Arts
The Australian National
University
alistair.riddell@anu.edu.au
If new media performance continues to evolve through the convergence of diverse technologies, where does this leave the audience with respect to the creative experience? Is it important for the artist to understand to what extent and how the audience understood the use of technology in their work? Should the artist care? This paper discusses the relationship between artist and audience through a complex Data Art project and seeks to initiate discussions from which artists may contemplate the form of future projects and their subsequent performances.
The Edible Audience performance consisted of six
players acting out a dinner party. Through a real-time image recognition
system, the performers controlled the sounds and moved them around the audience
through an interaction with the special markers on the table.
Edible Audience was a performed as part of the Liquid Architecture 6 Sound Art festival at the National Gallery of Australia in July 2005.
http://www.nga.gov.au/LiquidArchitecture/bios.cfm
Introduction
The intention of the Edible Audience project was to articulate a
concept through the use of an Augmented Reality system, which integrated images
into live video projection and controlled sound diffusion, all through
performer interaction. There was a noticeable absence of the technology during
the performance with the emphasis being on the performers, the sound and the
projection.
The concept was actually quite simple and
straightforward with a humorous, if rather dark perspective on the nature of consumption
in contemporary society. The performance action centered on the ‘consumption’
of images of the audience and body parts, and was formally structured around
the courses of a meal: Entrée, Main Course, Desert and a Toast. Although the
technical implementation and the performance mostly ran smoothly[1]
,
the impression from discussions with a few witnesses raised the question of how
unified, clear and effective the event was as Sound or Data Art[2]
.
It was not that the range of comments was so diverse but that few, if any,
seemed to concur with concepts and impressions that we, as performers, seemed
to hold as some how axiomatic or fundamental, and consequently comment worthy.
Almost immediately after the event and a
gestation period of reflection, the question of whether this was a fundamental
point of concern for Data Media artists in general, arose. Many of their works
tend towards the expression of concepts that require, on the part of the
audience, critical and reflective interpretation during and after the event.
Undertaking this contemplative process in now more acute in this age of
vigorous technical experimentation. But before discussing this in detail, let’s
slip back in time and consider a sound work, which contributes to a trajectory
of contemporary art evolution under which the Edible Audience project squarely lies.
From the Past
Over 50 years ago John Cage composed Imaginary
Landscape No. 4 [3]
.
That it was “Composed” sets the work in a particular musical context even
though the work itself is anything but conventional. Scored for 12 radios, two
performers are required to change the frequency, volume and timbre settings on
each radio while distributed around the performance space.
It is my view that Cage’s precise instructions to the performers establish, in the minds of the audience, a clearly delineated work with a predetermined aesthetic objective and form. That the performers are not necessarily highly skilled at manipulating the radio’s controls is not seen as an impediment to the outcome of the work. In part, the performance relies on the audience accepting a fundamental degree of skill and the ability of the performers to follow the ‘score’. The decoding of this performance information is what sets the performance apart from some kind of random activity. It establishes performer competency with a sound source that is readily understandable.
An important distinction between the
“radio” and a traditional musical instrument can be understood from a statement
by Fels et al: “One of the key attributes of instruments required for adoption
into the literature is expressivity; this is a necessary condition for
acceptance.” [4]
It is easy
to appreciate that the “radio” is not an expressive instrument in the
traditional sense but it could be argued that the expressiveness of the radio
in a performance such as Imaginary Landscape No 4. lies in its ability to
effectively articulate the concept. It is clear that in this case a traditional
instrument would not be appropriate.
Now there are a number of Cage’s works
that easily raise the question of what musical skills are really required for
the performance. 4’ 33” is probably the most widely known example. But such reflection is largely
neutralized–at least in retrospect–by the objective of
conveying the concept and the exploratory aspirations of the composer. As a
consequent of Cage’s works and influence, the remainder of the 20th century accumulated a vast repertoire where the question of musical performance
virtuosity could be legitimately questioned if it were not for the fact that
there was little precedent and the exploratory agenda was in full flight.
Although Imaginary Landscape No. 4 was conceived as a musical
work, it is part of the genesis of Data Art performance practice in which a
technological presence is essential to the expression of the concept.
Closer to Now
Exploring and experiencing radically new
concepts can be seen as the principle objective of the contemporary artist and
something of an expectation for the audience from the mid 20th century
onwards. This, of course, is an agenda that varies. Often in historical
examples, the performance practice was transparent, as in Imaginary
Landscape No. 4,
and in itself, did not cause the audience to wonder too much about how the
sound was produced and controlled. However, the gradual increase in the use and
dependency of technology in performance began to change that. Technology added
new layers of abstraction and obfuscation unprecedented in public performance.
The audience either had to accept what the technology did or ask questions
about how the technology was involved. This dilemma persisted and over time, it
became apparent that works using new technologies were less well received by
the audience as the novelty and euphoria of the “technology revolution” wore
off. Something of a “Catch-22” because some or many of these performances were
predicated on an overt use of new technology. However, rendering this issue
moot could be achieved in a variety of ways but essentially depended on taking
the audiences’ mind off the question of what the technology was doing and
focusing it on the artistic concept.
By the end of the 20th century, context and spectacle were playing increasingly important roles in the
presentation of work that involved technology. It was more and more apparent
that if one used technology in a manner that attempted to showcase it or its
function the audience were inclined to consider this less artistically
significant. The better approach was to integrate the technology into a more complex
event. However, not all integrations are successfully implemented and the
configuration of such events remains an elusive undertaking. Manovich gives
some indication of this challenge while attending an event in St. Petersburg in
1995:
Under the black
hemispherical ceiling with mandatory models of planets and stars, a young
artist methodically paints an abstract painting. Probably trained in the same
classical style as I had been, he is no Pollock; cautiously and systematically,
he makes careful brushstrokes on the canvas in front of him. On his hand he
wears a Nintendo Dataglove, which in 1995 is a common media object in the West
but a rare sight in St. Petersburg. The Dataglove transmits the movements of
his hand to a small electronic synthesizer, assembled in the laboratory of some
Moscow institute. The music from the synthesizer serves as an accompaniment to
two dancers, a male and a female. Dressed in Isadora Duncan—like clothing,
they improvise a “modern dance” in front of an older and, apparently,
completely puzzled audience. Classical art, abstraction, and a Nintendo
Dataglove; electronic music and early twentieth-century modernism; discussions
of virtual reality (VR) in the planetarium of a classical city that, like
Venice, is obsessed with its past—what for me, coming from the West, are
incompatible historical and conceptual layers are composited together, with the
Nintendo Dataglove being just one layer in the mix.[5]
Manovich
acknowledges and attempts to frame, in a positive and compelling way, an event
that clearly challenged the audience. Couched in personal nostalgia and
historical references, such a description suggests the kind of cognitive
engagement needed for events that drive the senses from multiple directions
with occasional tenuous connections.
While it
might be the case that some performances, and these could be regarded as
successful in one respect, appear to the audience as cohesive and integrated in
the presentation of the artistic statement, other more experimental works, are
problematic. Assuming that the performance unfolds as planned, an initial
starting point for gauging external success might consider the points of mutual
understanding and relationship between the performers and the audience’s
reading of the event. However, it now clearly extends beyond the presence of
performers. Pedro Rebelo offers a way to think about the nature of the space
inhabited by the performers and audience:
The notion of performance itself implies a somewhat nonlinear environment. While the performer has some level of control over the environment and potentially over the performance instrument, it is the uncontrolled, the chance events, the risk, that defines the performance environment. It is the ‘nonlinearity’ that is responsible for the chemical reaction between a performer and her audience. [6]
Interpretation from a Basic Cognitive State
Given that the performance context can be
“non-linear”, i.e. possessing changing and evolving connections between the
parts of the performance, it is important to establish a basic set of criteria
from which the audience might initially perceive, question and evaluate the
broader structural and configuration elements. Ideally, an audience has a basic
level of pragmatic experience from which to assess and understand a concept
implementation objectively. These experiences would operate subconsciously and
go to moderating preconceptions and highly subjective impressions. However,
this might be a conservative and anachronistic view of contemporary audiences.[7]
So given that such a starting point should be more inclusive and acknowledge
the complexity of the audience’s background, here is a simplified mapping of
basic referential experiences, which loosely fall under 4 categories:
- Recognition
of expert, skilled or authoritative performers
- Acknowledgement
of the function and role of technology
- Understanding
of a shifting performance emphasis to spectacle and context
- Ability
to perceive combinations of the above categories
1. Underlying
most people’s experiences and expectations of Data Art is performance
expertise, skill and aesthetic authority. All forms of instrumental and vocal
music demand that the performer aspires to or has achieved a level of
competency that allows them to convey the essential point of a musical work.
In more contemporary forms of sound
performance, such as those using electronic and computer based technology and
DJs, perception of skill and expertise are more difficult to assess due to a
lack of the codification of the practice and the fact that the dynamics of the
art are based on changes in technology and the momentary aesthetics of sound.
Even though the DJ may have acquired a high degree of technical facility, the
evolution of the music is predicated on learning how to put sounds together to
create new genres. Yet the audience knows precisely when a contemporary artist
has been successful in performance. In the case of the DJ, there is a
collective energy among the audience that identifies success. This ‘Social
Factor’ as discuss by Winkler[8]
is in this instance at its most empowered and expressive, often overriding
personal inhibitions and any sense of intimidation among individual audience
members.
2. So the use of technology does not necessarily diminish competency but changes the relation between the resulting sound and the performer. The use of mixers and sound diffusion hardware comes at the end of a chain of sound production. Technology can increase the complexity and sophistication of the performance without continuous performer interaction. The performer can concentrate on higher-level aspects of the sound production and performance structure.
3. Manovich’s
observations in the earlier quote, suggest that contemporary performances
involving technology are likely to embrace spectacle and context. Whether this
is a result of the dilemma between an increased use of technology and a general
sense that the audience don’t want to be guinea pigs for new technology
experiments is hard to clarify. Certainly, it is likely that there is a general
weariness towards technology brought on by decades of hype and promise,
promulgated through the mainstream media. Yet technology remains a creative
incentive but now modulated by a need to direct its potential towards the lucid
articulation of creative concepts.
4. The
evolution of Data Art practice draws together all of the above points but
perhaps is less dependent on the refinement of technical skill and more on the
rapid uptake of new technologies and a necessary grasp on its creative
potential. There is no universally recognized standard of skill. Most Data Art
performances continue to depend on innovative use of technology and highly
creative outcomes.
The question of whether the audience’s
understanding and experiences should be reduced to such a basic criteria
inevitably arises and is open to criticism. The intention here, however, is
that it initiates an objective starting point for the artist to consider the
audience as a whole prior to the manifestation of the work. In this respect,
the artist might ask the question of whether the work meets all or some of
these points and even whether there are others that might be crucial to
appreciating the performance.
The Audience Perspective
Performances involving mixed media, interactivity and collaboration, especially those of a distinctly experimental or avant-garde nature, are difficult to articulate or critique for most audiences even though what constitutes the ‘audience’ today is more ambiguous than in earlier times. One might be advised to consider the entire audience as a collection of artists in their own right, some simply less familiar with the genre or concept. In certain contexts the audience can be quite diverse in experience, age and gender but it is worth reflecting on the fact that most of an audience at a Data Art event are unlikely to have a profound historical or deeply informed perspective on such contemporary performances as one might find with audiences for say, contemporary music which have a long history of public controversy and resistance.
The Edible Audience performance raised the
central question of how and to what extent the audience experienced the
implementation and interpreted the thematic elements (theatre, image, sound and
interactivity). It was assumed, on the basis of the programmatic thread of the
‘dining’ performers, that the audience would link the event action. It was, in
a sense, a narrative structure but the performance resembled that of the early
‘silent movies’ where the performers were playing/controlling the sound while
providing the source action for the video projection. In reality, the
performance probably looked nothing like our collective idea of a ‘silent
movie’ but the analogy facilitates a way of thinking through the network of
connections between action, sound and image.
As a singular, brief and complex
presentation, was the audience able to follow the structure as theatre, as
sound and as projected image? Was the convergence of these parts cohesive
enough for the audience to take in the central conceptual point; that being the
issue of consumption in contemporary society? Did we as performers strive to
make the concept clear? Given that Liquid Architecture 6 was billed as a Sound Art
event, was the audience predominantly distracted or confused by the amount of
audio/visual information? Did the program promote to the audience and support
in practice the ideal of experimental works?
In seeking answers to these and other questions or an understanding of the performance in retrospect, it is worth considering how the project space impacts on the experience. Rebelo provides a general starting point:
A performance space, in the context of nonlinear digital media structures, implies sophisticated analysis in the areas of gesture, one-to-many communication schemes, individual presence, idiosyncratic action, and instrumentality. The performing body operates in a space of expectation, in a space that tends ‘towards more or less coherent systems of non-verbal symbols and signs’ (Lefebvre 2001). [9]
The challenge in considering Rebelo’s
text, lies in how to identify and assess the levels of communication, and by
whom and when? Some modalities of communication can be considered during
rehearsal but optimizing these then may not make a significant difference under
performance conditions. Impressions of success and failure depend on
individuals who may or may not be adequately informed about the work. The Edible
Audience project itself, was part of a larger program and the diversity of works
presented, contrasted, complimented and possibly clashed, thus making an
intelligent, impromptu and comprehensive critique of any one work difficult
without substantial qualification and reflection.
Those in the audience familiar with the
constituent components of Data Art performance practice were possibly able to
navigate the various levels of activity and thus extract from the experience a
more positive memory. It is accepted that such a performance, operating under
conditions of, at times, randomness and explicit but arbitrary control, would
have moments in which the aesthetic flounders, only to be asserted at a later
time. This instability, this ebb and flow of cohesiveness, lies at the heart of
all improvised performance where generation and control of events becomes a
moment-by-moment concern for the performers.
Data Art practice is by definition, innovative, exploratory and woven into a configuration mapping action data from diverse media systems to a concept. While the data may not be subject to direct human intervention, today it is more common that there is some kind of interactivity or influence over the data that controls, generates or constitutes visual or sonic manifestations. The following comment could equally apply to complex forms of Data Art presentation.
Interactivity
may offer an entirely new approach to music-making, and so in order to avoid
getting stuck in the current musical paradigms, we should question not only the
nature of the system input (such as musical notes, tempi, rhythms, or human
gestures, dance movement, or conductor’s gestures), but we should pay equal
attention to the output of the system, and the qualitative relationship between
the two. [10]
It might be assumed that the question of
audience comprehension lies in how they perceive the mappings in terms of
action or object to aesthetic results. Can we assume that the more abstract or
esoteric the artistic concept, the more the audience will struggle to engage
the work? No. It depends on the mode of concept manifestation and whether the
audience was briefed on what to expect through other means prior to the
performance.
Categorical Overview of Edible Audience
Few artists have the opportunity to
question each audience member in a formalize manner about the performance.
Typically, impromptu and casual responses vary greatly and often focus on
matters that the artist might consider as circumscribing their particular
concerns. The audience only experiences a brief moment in the life of the
project. However, the artist will be aware of a general ‘feeling’ about the
performance, usually at it’s most poignant between the conclusion and the
applause.
Irrespective of the outcome of the
performance, it is valuable for the artist to review the concept,
implementation and performance, not only from their own perspective but what
they think it might have been like for the audience. However, consideration of
a Data Art performance from the audience’s point of view invariably leads the
artist back to an examination of the entire event.
Before undertaking a more detailed
account of the project, it is worthwhile reviewing key aspects of the
experience under a number of critical categories:
Concept
A critique of our consumer
driven society
The theatre of 4 diners at a
table eat images of people
Use of an augmented reality
system for live performance
Engagement with a kind of Data
Art theatre
Technology
The use of two networked
computers to implement vision, image and sound processing
Multi-channel sound
Deployment of the technology
in the performance space
Configuration of the
performance props and the camera
Configuration of Aviary, the Augmented Reality
software application
Development of SuperCollider
3 audio patch
Motivation
Distributed of expertise
Learning experience
Uniqueness of the event
Institutional collaboration
Agendas
Performing with Aviary software
Performance profile with a new
Data Art project
Performance
No practical familiarity with
the performance space
Lengthy set up
Multiple performers
Restricted but vague
performance configuration
Few rehearsals
No substantial performance
training or experience with such interactive systems priory to the project
Limited understanding the
totality of the project presentation from an audience’s perspective
Inability to hear or see what
was intended for the audience
Effectiveness of the
performance interface
Context/Venue
Acoustic properties of the
space
Image presentation
Stage area
Sound diffusion set up
Program structure
Audience
Comprising:
Practitioners of Data Art
Familiar with
Data Art
Unfamiliar Data
Art but interested
Location in venue space
Able to maintain
interest through a diverse program of Sound Art
The ordering of these categories might be
seen in retrospect as important from an analytical point of view but if
considered prior to the performance they may need to be constantly re-ordered
to help predict and control the outcome.
Performance Anatomy
Although as a performer I was not
directly part of the audience, an analysis of the structure of the Edible
Audience should provide a way to examine what was presented to the audience and reflect
on what was important and was not, from at least one perspective.
The controlling software application was Aviary [11]
,
an “Augmented Reality” system based on the AR toolkit [12]
. Aviary analyzed live video input and searched for pre-defined patterns, called
“fiducial markers”. When these patterns were recognized other images were
superimposed on the markers, thus hiding them. These images could be moved
around with the patterns and had 6 degrees of movement: X, Y, Z (height), yaw,
pitch and roll.
On recognizing a fiducial marker, Aviary would also output OSC
datagrams over a network connection to the audio application SuperCollider 3 running on another computer.
The purpose of this was to reduce the computational load on the machine running
Aviary. The sound, processed audio files and some real-time synthesis, was
diffused through an 8 channel sound system, which included 2 sub-woofers.
There were 6 performers: 4 diners and 2
waiters. Although there were a number of rehearsal and trials with various
technical and performance configurations, it was clear that improvements in the
performer’s roles would only be possible with more performances and rehearsals.
The fiducial markers were handled by the
performers who were ‘acting’ out a dining scene, which as mentioned above, was
broken up into several acts (Entrée, Main, Desert courses and a Toast). Interludes indicated to the audience
what was going to happen next.
The performers were to the audience’s
left with the projection screen centre stage. Perhaps they should have been
located in front of the screen to enhance the idea of making a connection
between the theatrical action and the projected image but that is only
speculation. It might have made the experience more confusion or had no
significant effect. The audience mostly saw the site of the performance with
not much detail. The acting deliberately exaggerated gestures but the fiducial
markers were small and probably not recognizable from a distance. They were
however, occasionally visible on the main screen. This should have given the
audience a clue as to the relation between the markers and the superimposed
images.
The performance started with a title
screen triggered by a particular marker on the table. This marker was then
replaced with an “Entrée” title maker. The first diner entered and sat at the
table. A plate of four Entrée markers was served and the diner began to move
one of four unique markers around. At this point the audience could easily
observe the relationship between the marker, the image on screen and the
movement of the sound.
One by one the other diners entered and
joined in the performance, selecting markers and moving them around in the
camera space. It can be assumed that not much of the theatricality of the
performance at the dining table was visible too all the audience. What the
audience could see clearly was the video projection of the table top, where the
markers and the performer’s hand could be seen with the addition of the images
superimposed by Aviary.
Image 1. Still from
Liquid Architecture 6 DVD of the Edible Audience performance.
Performers are on the
left. The screen shows the fuducial markers with and without images
superimposed.
So from a visual perspective, two points of reference existed but were perhaps not easily correlated due to size, position and perspective. There was also a small delay between the movement of the performers and the image projected on the screen but because both could not be viewed at once, the delay was probably not a significant factor in the visual experience.
The next layer of experience existed
between the movement visible in the projection and the sound. Even though the
relationship between the performer’s movement of the markers and the sound was
in real-time, to make this explicit, the performers had to know how to optimize
their movements to make the spatial movement of the sound very defined. The
movement of the performer’s markers across and around the table corresponded to
the movement of the sound in the audience space. This would have been very
clear if there had only been one performer with one sound but there were four
and the sounds were not always that dissimilar nor always in discrete
locations.
In addition the visual mapping on the
screen did not immediately correlate with the audience space. If the audience
figured out how to view the screen as compass bearings, they might have been
able to appreciate how the sound was mapped into their space. This may have
been understood through listening and making connections with certain
performer’s movements but difficult and elusive with 4 active performers and
rapid changes in sound.
The question is whether the
sound/movement correlation was important to appreciate and whether it added
anything to the audience’s experience would probably be answered in the
affirmative from the artist’s perspective. Clarifying the mapping strategy, and
there clearly was some obscurity here, might be seen as an intellectual
exercise but not necessarily crucial to a better appreciation of the aesthetic
experience. All that might have been required on the part of the audience,
avoiding the tedium of technical detail, was that they understood that there
was a correlation.
The other issue was that the performers
themselves were not experienced in moving the markers with a specific
understanding of how the sound moved. Even learning how to do that was
problematic given the nature of the interface. Talking about the ‘Iamascope’,
an interactive kaleidoscope that uses computer video and graphics technology,
Fels et al state:
The player’s
movements are unconstrained and the player has to discover the mapping on his
own. The closest metaphor is that the interface is like a ten-string guitar
where the computer holds down the chords automatically. The player strums the
strings by moving in the bins. While this metaphor helps make the mapping
easier to understand it does not help in learning to play the device. This is
because the metaphor is not quite accurate.[13]
And later:
In general,
this attribute of free hand or free form gesture mapped to sound is
problematic. Very few metaphors provide a strong enough link between gesture
and output to provide an easy-to-learn mapping. Thus, even if the metaphor and
the mapping are easy to understand, they will not necessarily lead to a very
expressive instrument. In this situation, other paths to achieve transparency
need to come into play to make the instrument expressive.[14]
The task of mapping gesture to action for the Edible Audience performers was made even more difficult because while it was important to try and keep the markers visible to the Augmented Reality system it had to be done without looking at the projection screen. This would have detracted from the theatrical nature of the performance. If the markers were not identified by the system both the superimposed image and the sound were also not present.
Another problem was that the performers
were not in the same specific audio space as the audience. So the performers
could never really hear the sound moving in response to their hand/arm
movements. It was possible to hear changes in some locations of the sound if
the performer was concentrating on their sound while moving a marker.
What, of course, would have improved the
performance immensely, would have been more rehearsals. It is probably
symptomatic of many Data Art performances that the performers suffer from a
lack of experience, confidence and certainty, which must get conveyed to the
audience at the beginning. If the performers know that what they want to convey
can get communicated then that expectation must pervade each subsequent
performance.
Conclusion
This text constitutes a singular and
private attempt to raise one artist’s perspective on a Data Art performance and
the audience. It should be viewed as the beginning of a process of
self-evaluation of practice with the objective of strengthening the
relationship between concept, performance and the audience.
It is expected that under the vagaries of
performance, the implementation might be compromised before and during the
event but not after. Knowing that the project has been thought through from an
external perspective rather than only being concerned with the internal
mechanics should compensate for performance irregularities and hopefully the
audience will recognize them for what they are and still appreciate the overall
intention in the work.
In the case of Edible Audience, was the audience able to
navigate and connect the performance as theatre, as sound and as projected
modified video? The answer to this is probably a cautious ‘yes’. The audience
had to at some point make a connection between the performers’ actions and the
video image then make frequent updates during the course of the event. The
question of the perception of the performers’ relationship with the sound is
more complex because the mapping of the sound to the action was less evident,
especially for that part of the audience who could not clearly see the
performers. The sound appeared to be understood as somehow separate or with a
more obscure connection from later discussions. Even the performers struggle
with this aspect of the performance.
The Edible Audience critique of ‘consumption in
contemporary society’ was probably not presented to the audience strongly
enough prior to performance but whether this really mattered in context is
difficult to assess. In later general discussions about the performance, it was
clear that this could be understood as a sub-text for conversation and a form
of explanation and justification of the performance. In a sense independent and
itself, in need of explication beyond or in addition to what was conveyed in
the performance. In this case and perhaps to the advantage of the performance,
the concept was not ponderously or intensely didactic.
The achievement of presenting such an
experimental project went a long way to creating a sense of success even though
there was one glaring problem to the performers and a mild sense of
disappointment that real food could not be used. The audience might have sensed
that the project was cohesive and performed without obvious or disruptive
technical problems.
Thinking of how the audience might
receive a performance does not mean to pander to them by making the work
transparent to the point of shallowness but rather is a way of ensuring that
the optimal conditions for concept and performance presentation are achieved.
This is by no means easy to understand and even less so if it has not been
thought about at all. In developing the Edible Audience project we did from the
outset think about the audience. We tried to include them and directly inspire
a critical perspective on consumerism, as we are all part of our immediate
community and society. That may have been confronting if understood and
contemplated throughout the performance but nevertheless a significant
achievement for the project. I personally felt that this was not clearly
understood. The theatre and media presentation formats were complex and
required constant engagement by the audience. In effect, the performance was
too demanding and the concept could only be considered in retrospect.
From the analysis of one Data Art work it
is not possible to generalize exhaustively on the effectiveness or shortcomings
of all future performances but there are questions in many forms that can be
asked and addressed on the basis of any creative experience when considering
undertaking another. The point of formulating and responding to such questions
is to accumulate over time, a body of experience and mode of thinking about a
project prior to any practical undertaking. While the final outcome cannot be
fully predicted, understanding and analyzing aspects of a project in the very
early stages can indicate and highlight issues that might, if acted upon, make
a significant positive difference.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to Professor Stephen
Barrass for the discussion that sparked the subject of this paper. Also, I wish
to thank my fellow ‘Consumers’ who performed in the Liquid Architecture 6 Sound
Art Festival at the National Gallery of Australia on the 23rd July
2005. They were Stephen Barrass, Tim Barrass, Anita Fitton, Peter Morse and
Onaclov.
References
Fels, Sydney,
Ashley Gadd and Axel Mulder, ‘Mapping transparency through metaphor: towards
more expressive musical instruments’, Organized Sound. 7(2). pp. 109-26
Manovich, Lev
2001, The Language of New Media, Cambridge: Mass. MIT Press.
Manovich, Lev
2001, The Anti-Sublime Ideal in Data Art,
www.manovich.net/DOCS/data_art.doc viewed 5-Sept-2005.
Paine, Garth 2002, ‘Interactivity, where
to from here?’, Organized Sound. 7(3). pp. 295-304.
Pritchett, James 1993, The Music of
John Cage,
Cambridge University Press.
Rebelo, Pedro 2003, ‘Performing Space’, Organized
Sound. 8(2).
pp. 181-86.
Revill, David 1992, The Roaring
Silence,
Arcade: New York.
Winkler, Todd 2000, ‘Audience Participation and Response in Movement-Sensing Installations’, ISEA. Paris.
End Notes
- There was an unexpected and not hitherto experienced sustained false triggering on a pattern which caused images and sound to appear sparodically throughout the performance. They should only have appeared at the end. return
- I prefer the term ‘Data Art’ as defined by Manovich to ‘New Media’, the former term being more relevant where diverse digital technologies are combined in one performance. Although a ‘Sound Art’ festival in this case, the term emphasizes what was important in this project. return
- Pritchett. pp. 89-90.
Revill. pp. 143-44. return - Fels et al. p110. return
- Manovich. p5. return
- Rebelo. p182. return
- See a later discussion of this in the text.
return - Winkler. p2. return
- Rebelo. p182. return
- Paine. p297. return
- Aviary was written by Tim Barrass. return
- www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/ (accessed 10-09-05). return
- Fels et al. p115. return
- Fels et al. p116. return