MAKING REALITY REALLY REAL Ascott | Gangvik | Jahrmann TEKS
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MAKING REALITY REALLY REAL Interactions between the arts, technology, and the sciences, specially in respect of the mind and consciousness, are leading to the emergence of new artistic forms, technological systems, and cultural behaviours, as well as to re-evaluation of the hegemony of western M AKING science, and the significance, both spiritually and materially, of the practices and paradigms of other societies. Over the past eleven years, the Consciousness Reframed conferences have been convened in Europe and the Far East, involving leading-edge artists, scientists and scholars in an emergent discourse that is transdisciplinary, transcultural and syncretic. This year, hosted by TEKS, and as part of the Meta.Morf biennial of art and technology, an international REAL ITY group of experts met in this context, under the rubric Making Reality Really Real. Some 60 provocative, visionary, poetic and pragmatic perspectives, proposals and projects are published here, including papers by Roy Ascott, Marco Bischof, James Gimzewski, Luis Eduardo Luna, Ryohei Nakatsu and Victoria Vesna. RE ALLY Ascott | Gangvik Jahrmann R EAL Consciousness reframed www.teks.no TEKS Ascott/Gangvik/Jahrmann (eds.) MAKING REALITY REALLY REAL MAKING REALITY REALLY REAL Reflections on Art, Technology and Consciousness EDITORS: Roy Ascott | Espen Gangvik | Margarete Jahrmann THE 11TH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL ReSEARCH CONFERENCE, CONSCIOUSNESS ReFRAMED: Art And consciousness in the post-biologicAl erA, MAking reAlity reAlly reAl. Trondheim 2010 Convened by Espen Gangvik Director, Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre teks.no November 4–6, 2010 C ONFEREN E DIRECTOR Roy Ascott President, Planetary Collegium p rogrAMMe coMMittee Marco Bischof Espen Gangvik James Gimzewski Margarete Jahrmann Luis Eduardo Luna Roger Malina Ryohei Nakatsu Victoria Vesna Chair: Roy Ascott C ontents Editors This work is subject to Copyright images: This book is made possible I NTRODUCTION copyright. All rights are Authors unless otherwise by the financial support of: Roy Ascott reserved, whether the whole indicated 8 Roy Ascott Founding President of the or part of the material is Arts Council Norway 10 Espen Gangvik Planetary collegium, Full concerned, specifically those KORO Professor of Technoetic Arts at of translation, reprinting, re-use NTNU the University of Plymouth, UK of illustrations, broadcasting, Stiftelsen Fritt Ord PSAPER reproduction by photocopying Sør-Trøndelag County Council 137 Simeon Nelson Margarete Jahrmann machines or similiar means, The City of Trondheim 12 Julieta Aguilera 140 Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a) Professor for Game Design, and storage in data banks. Torstein Erbo’s Gift Fund 14 Inês Albuquerque / Rosa Oliveira 143 Glauce Rocha de Oliveira University of Technology, 17 Hava Aldouby 147 Mary Oliver Austria Product Liability 20 Peter Anders 150 Luisa Paraguai The publisher can given o 25 Kęstutis Andrašunas 151 Pam Payne Espen Gangvik guarantee for the information 28 Kathrine Elizabeth Anker 153 Mike Phillips Director of TEKS, Trondheim contained in this book. The 31 Artifist: 157 Clemens Plank Centre of Electronic Arts use of registered names, C. Cottereau / G. Meurée-Cottereau / V. Meurée 161 Barbara Rauch / Michael Page trademarks, etc. in this 34 Elif Ayiter 164 Julian Rennie Graphic Design: publication does not imply, 37 Marco Bischof 167 Clarissa Ribeiro Tibe T reklamebyrå AS even in the absence of specific 40 Pier Luigi Capucci 171 Paolo Rodrigues tibe-t.no statement, that such names 43 Claudia Cardoso-Fleck 174 Emily Schleiner are exempt from the relevant 46 Alexander Ćetković 178 Ellen Sebring Cover design: protective laws and regulations 49 Jacques Chueke 180 Paul Sermon / Charlotte Gould Roy Ascott and therefore free for general 53 Geoff Cox 183 Diana Reed Slattery use. 56 Dew Harrison 187 Simona Sofronie / Oswald Devisch Proofreading & editing: 59 Blanka Earhart 191 Marko Suvajdzic Tibe T reklamebyrå © 2010 62 Heinrich Falk 194 Victoria Vesna / Siddhart Ramakrishnan Margarete Jahrmann TEKS Publishing 65 Maria Luiza Fragoso 199 Claudia Westermann Espen Gangvik Printed in Norway 68 Martha Gabriel 201 Xiaoying (Juliette) Ying teks.no 71 Luis Gustavo Bueno Geraldo Printing and binding: 74 James K. Gimzewski Wennberg, Trondheim ISBN 978-82-998211-2-4 78 Luis Miguel Girao BI ogrAphies Printed and bound in Norway TEKS Publishing 81 Jane Grant 86 Salvatore Iaconesi / Luca Simeone 90 Eiko Ikegami / Edward Colin Ruggero 94 Margarete Jahrmann 100 Katerina J Karoussos 104 Max Kazemzadeh 107 Rachel Kessler / Matthew Fielder 112 Linus Lancaster 115 Renata La Rocca 117 Živa Lubjec 120 Luis Eduardo Luna 127 Nadia C. Meinhardt 128 Ryohei Nakatsu 133 Enrico Nardelli INTRODUCTION R oy Ascott p resident plAnetAry collegiuM, university of plyMouth, uk In contemporary Western culture, the transformation of our sense of being, of presence, and the nature These issues form the background to the papers collected in this publication, which have been prepared of time, can be seen as a consequence of accelerated developments in the technologies of mind and for presentation at the 11th Annual International Research Conference, Consciousness Reframed: art of the body (technoetics). Much earlier cultures also developed technologies, often dismissed as “sim- and consciousness in the post-biological era. Since 1997, when I first established the series, the con- ply” somatic or vegetal, that had the capacity to transform consciousness, reaching it would appear a ference has continued to bring together artists, scholars, scientists, and engineers in a transdisciplinary spiritual significance that has so far, in these early days of digital development, eluded us. There may discourse of exceptional vitality and relevance. This year the conference is convened and co-directed by be political, corporate or cultural reasons for this. But as we move out of the era of techno-primitivism Espen Gangvik of the Trondheim Elektroniske Kunstsenter, whose discerning, energetic commitment and reductionist fundamentalism, we can hopefully look to the encoding of empathy and emotion in has provided the conditions for creative and intellectual excellence. Previously, institutions in Australia, computational systems, and so to an understanding that only when the computer can feel will there be Austria, China, Germany, and the United Kingdom have hosted the conference. The series is part of a machines that think. This may lead, in turn, to a greater understanding of what constitutes reality, or, as larger conference programme of the Planetary Collegium that has convened in over thirty cities is Europe, some might see it, a greater capacity to (re)build it, and ourselves, bottom up. North and South America, and the Far East. A significant part of our lives is spent online, communicating and relating to each other asynchroni- The publication contains Keynote papers invited from Marco Bischof, James Gimzewski, Luis cally; we inhabit phase-space, and live in non-linear time. Central to this ontology is the emergence Eduardo Luna, Ryohei Nakatsu, and Victoria Vesna. Guest contributors include Peter Anders, Elif of field-thinking, especially in the new biophysics, which may generate quite new understandings of Ayiter, Margarete Jahrmann and Diana Slattery. Papers by some seventeen researchers currently in- behaviour, communication, and identity, leading perhaps to new cultural and social systems and struc- volved with the Planetary Collegium, and a further 30 submitted papers selected by the scientific com- tures. Field-consciousness can contribute to a more collaborative, syncretic approach to the ways we mittee, complete the publication. come to understand the nature of reality. Whether based in the nanofield and quantum domains, or in energy-field sciences yet to be unfolded, emergent forms of connectivity will amplify the hypercortex, and our understanding of mind-at-large, and will transform the potential of art to contribute to the vari- ability of culture, to what can be identified as Variable Reality, coming a long way from the old VR. This is to aspire to a kind of accelerated alchemy. The deeper we go into ourselves, the more selves we discover. We recognise that the self is not fixed but generative. We are in an endless state of becoming. And it’s the same with what we consider to be “reality”: the deeper we penetrate it, the more realities we encounter, the more variable its constitution. In this respect, it is in the destiny of art, and the re- sponsibility of the artist, to navigate consciousness by all means that might contribute to the definition and construction of the variables. The status of our reality is entirely uncertain. Our current understanding asserts that the material world experienced through our senses is a representation of quantum phenomena that can be meas- ured at another level of resolution. For those who live largely online or in cyberspace, virtual reality provides a vivid normality that renders the material world largely obsolete, just as those contained in a Cartesian world-view feel that the limits of their reality are substantially definitive. But may not sub- atomic particles in turn be representations of something beyond, something that approaches the really real? The question haunts all speculation on the nature of reality. If our real, three-dimensional and solid world depends on our senses, how will the world look as our sensory systems evolve? How was it constituted before mankind existed? Therein lies the technoetic question of our time. If our sense of reality