"...replaying a scenario in hopes that it will become the brilliant original he had in mind." (p.341) - Hillel Schwartz from Culture of the Copy
September 9, 1997
a quest for the role of the self within technologies
(The Thunder, Perfect Mind)
a matching game
gittery, magical, mathematical movements
Re-enactments
intrusions
immortality as a need
met by re-enactment
to make eternal every conceivable
type of behavior
to experience & see ourselves in the
moment
and eternal
September 13, 1997
computer as cataloguer
and creator
of charged moments
The computer is the dollhouse
dissolving boundaries
dissolving linearity
September 16, 1997
repetition & reflection
the effort to be present
re-enacting dramas continuously in search of the transcendent present - the magical access to the place where boundaries and linearity dissolve. What forms can follow function here? physical objects in virtual spaces (dolls in VR space, dolls in projected video space); virtual objects in physical space (monitors in the doll's house); taking on an avatar in a 3D MUD looking for enlightenment; video-taping visits to fortune tellers; temples with statues;...
(role of actress is really role of avatar)
September 21, 1997
The means of expression must confront the physical fact of the spectator
let them see something about the 'who' they think they are --
and maybe also the 'where' they think they are --
November 30, 1997
What's been going on in my head around my thesis premise?
I was thinking a bit about control...control and wildness...the computer as a subtle controller --
of course, hackers naturally try to undermine and break security...
security...
is that not what re-enactment is for?
Or historical pageantry assuring us that the past is truly past; dramatic theatre assuring us that - as spectators - everyone struggles in their own way and - as players - that there is somebody to be, that our being and our expression isn't useless, it brings pleasure, it brings recognition, it brings insight
often an insight into our desire for security...our desire to know what's happening, to understand, to plan, to have expectations...to see a 'somewhere' to get to...
December 1, 1997
I am thinking of the behind-your-back security installation piece as a reminder of the inevitability of inner demons no matter how much control is exercised...
something to do with technology controlling the unconscious...or technology revealing the unconscious...our desire that all of life be in our image; our desire to control everything...
January 13, 1998
One of the central issues raised by interactive media is the question of control. Is the machine "in control"? Is the 'user' "in control"? Is the programmer "in control"? (Or All and None of the above?) And if one element is "in control" are other elements at the mercy of that control? Subordinate, repressed. Or perhaps they are "out of control", wild, rabid, furious, hysterical.
And one of the central issues raised by installation works is the purpose of presence. What is the role of the viewer in the space? Is it a necessary role? Is it even possible.....?
January 23, 1998
Carolee [Schneemann] was saying
stay with the visual
do a watercolor of the stone room, let it dissolve
stay with the visual
and ask to see some insights into
the messes I'm making
stay with the visual
stay close to the characters, let them be parts of myself
let my eyes, as they see
find the forms and the metaphors
February 4, 1998
Sandra [McLean] said that she wasn't 'scared of' or 'confronted by' or even 'identified with' the personifications - but was delighted as they revealed themselves to her, showing some of who they are, saying some of how they think. That it had something to do with intimacy, for her. --These comments seem accurate. I am interested in revelation and intimacy.
But I'm also looking for something...an expression that creates disjuncture, that calls attention to our perpetual dream-state.
Kathy [High] was urging me to push it further...she mentioned that Mike Kelley piece from the Whitney Biennial - the chocolate syrup video installation piece that was so distrubing with the bound woman being force- fed and the evidence of the job all askew in a tumbled room - eveything hard to look at. She said I could go that way, I could do something extreme like that...
What was startling about that piece was the taping of the operation - the fact of the operation, of someone being operated upon...force-fed a substance that usually indicates pleasure...the off-balance quality of the room, that fact that it couldn't all be apprehended simultaneously...it all became dangerous, risky, but still silly...children playing mean games in the basement...
February 5, 1998
in Violence in the Arts John Fraser pp.98-99 cites Richard Roud saying that Godard wanted to make a film about the holocaust from the point of view of the torturers - the typists making careful inventories of all the hair, every extracted gold tooth, etc...The unbearable ordinariness of regimented cruelty.
February 6, 1998
from Fraser p.116
"The true mental daring and hardihood are those displayed when the artist simultaneously acknowledges the worth of what is being violated and yet presents unflinchingly its violation."
March 9, 1998
I began these pieces thinking about wildness and control, about the way I watch myself and control myself and guard myself against my wilder, perhaps violent inclinations.
Now I have a piece that is about expressions of selves emerging and vanishing within a controlled space.
March 11, 1998
What is my work about anymore, anyway?
(Programming. Hardware configuring)
What is it about?
What do I have to offer through it?
Observations about being human...
(being flounder, floundering)
April 6, 1998
The value of an artwork arises out of contemplating the subtle variations within its consistency,
not marvelling at the rapidity or unpredictability of its informed programming.
I guess I just prefer the contemplative to the marvellous...
or don't they share the same energy?
The Dynamo and The Virgin...[I'm referring to an essay in The Education of Henry Adams, an American autobiography first published in 1918]
by debrah malater
School of Visual Arts
Graduate Computer Art
Class of 1998
Carolee Schneemann, Thesis Advisor
Ken Feingold, Thesis Group Leader