Some snapshots from the Intimacy chat. A transcription is below; you might also go to http://www.alansondheim.org/intimacy_chat.txt - Thanks!



Transcript of Intimacy Session
December 8, 2007, England
Participants: Sandy Baldwin ("You"), Alan Sondheim (Alan Dojoji)

Premise:
Discussion of avatar theory and practice.


[6:04] You: THIS IS A SEMINAR: AVATAR PASTE. WE START IN 2 OR SO
MINUTES. A FEW MORE TO ARRIVE...
[6:05] Alan Dojoji: OH SNAP!
[6:05] Alan Dojoji: ITS THE BOMB!
[6:05] You: HO
[6:05] Alan Dojoji: AWESOME!
[6:05] You: BOSS
[6:05] Alan Dojoji: OH SNAP!
[6:05] Alan Dojoji: I'm interested in the relationship between
conscious and formal systems.
[6:05] You: YOU THE MAN
[6:06] You: My avatars! My little people! They run around everywhere,
underfoot. I will play a song, a little aire, a jig or rondelay!
[6:06] Alan Dojoji: AWESOME! ITS THE BOMB! OH SNAP!
[6:07] Alan Dojoji: ok
[6:07] Alan Dojoji: yes
[6:07] You: Hello and thank you for attending AVATAR PASTE AND CODE
SOUP IN FIRST AND SECOND LIFE. Sandy Baldwin, who is in Morgantown West
Virginia, will be speaking through me.
[6:08] You: The workshop will also be led by Alan Sondheim, who is in
Brooklyn, New York.
[6:08] You: This workshop is a part of Intimacy: Across Visceral and
Digital Performance, at Goldsmith's College, organized by the
Goldsmiths Digital Studios at the University of London.
[6:08] You: We thank Maria X & Rachel Zerihan and all the others for
involving us in Intimacy. The event website is
http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/intimacy/.
[6:10] You: Links to all the multimedia materials used in the workshop
and the location in Second Life are at the following webpage:
http://www.as.wvu.edu/~sbaldwin/london.html.
(NOTE: THESE MATERIALS CAN BE CORRELATED WITH THIS CHAT LOG.)
[6:12] You: We welcome your questions, but please work with us in this
environment to help ensure that the workshop goes smoothly.
[6:13] You: Through me, Howl Yifu, Sandy will provide some
introductory words: an overview of what you will experience in the
workshop, and some of the background history. After the introduction,
Alan will show and discuss the work, including the process of its
creation and the philosophy running through it.
[6:13] You: Sandy will return to discuss some of ways the work has
been presented and to suggest some other ways the work can be theorized
and understood. There will also be performance...
[6:13] You: As an introduction, let me say that this workshop combines
many things. It presents the history of a collaborative exploration of
virtuality. In this, it offers one direct or hand-on approach to the
intersection of the real and virtual...
[6:14] You: The workshop also presents works emerging from this
collaboration. Included in this work are theoretical considerations of
avatars and human modeling...
[6:14] You: Finally, the workshop includes performance in this space,
in Second Life. Everything happens here in a fury and explosion and
intensity. The remapped movements of real bodies and interiorities, in
the avatar Alan Dojoji, dance with / fight with / discourse with / fuck
with the pre-packaged signs and gestures, the "already read" body of
the avatar Sandy Taifun!
[6:14] You: None of this is true, none of this as matter of true. He
and I never touch. Nothing happens here in and on a screen that plays
out sprites and their gestures.
[6:14] You: The work we will present today emerges from Alan
Sondheim's collaborative and explorative work at West Virginia
University over the last several years.
[6:15] You: Alan is a pioneer in the use of computers and art, working
in this field since at least the 1970's. One way of seeing an ongoing
concern in Alan's work is with the "topology of intention" that he
theorizes in his important 1977 book _The Structure of Reality_.
[6:15] You: The dominant strain of discourse around digital technology
tries to discover the particularities of the technology as a formalism
or platform or medium. Sondheim's work is heterogeneous from but
crucial to this field by insisting on the problematic intentionality of
the digital as a lifeworldly domain in which we ex-ist...
[6:15] You: Alan began coming to WVU in 2003 and soon began intensive
collaboration with Sandy Baldwin of WVU's Center for Literary
Computing, and with WVU's Virtual Environments Lab, directed by Frances
van Scoy. ..
[6:16] You: Students at the graduate and undergraduate level were
involved as well, some from computer science, others from English or
visual arts. Additional collaborators joined from the Intermedia
program at WVU's Creative Arts Center, and most recently from the
GeoVirtual lab in WVU's Geography department. ....
[6:16] You: Through this interdisciplinary mixing of tools and
collaborators, Alan radically imagined the uses of virtual technology
at WVU. Of course, there's a long tradition of creative misuse of
technology.
[6:16] You: The aesthetics of the glitch music, for example, explores
the misuse of the CD. There's an initial similarity in Alan's work
here: working against the seeming purpose of the tools, refusing the
normative bodies mapped into these virtual spaces, wild dancing and
utterance in spaces where we are supposed to be still and silent before
the machine, an _ethical_ insisting on the pressure and weight and yet
ineluctable absence of the body in virtuality.
[6:16] You: But it would not be wrong to insist that a distinction be
made: misuse or glitch is not the goal but means for consciousness and
intention to problematize their inhabitation of the technology. This is
seance and tantra.
[6:17] You: The results are inspiring, awesome. They are also utterly
alien, but alien in the sense of the alien that I am and that inhabits
me and that is there when I shed the skins of habit.
[6:17] You: The results can be understood as works, works of art. They
are works, as well, of the real and the virtual, worked over
virtualities, so that the work of art is trembling with the work of the
artist. The result are endless and undetermined.
[6:17] You: They form in chains and links from dancing bodies to
clouds of code to avatars to writings and on and on. There are
specifics, of course:
[6:18] You: Alan's book _VEL_, named for the Virtual Environments Lab;
gallery installations in Morgantown and elsewhere; video and audio and
writing and stills on the web; conference presentations in New York,
Indiana, Providence, Portland, Paris, London, and elsewhere; dances in
Switzerland, France, Germany, and across Europe; and a new round of
collaboration about to begin, with Alan back at WVU for a ninth month
residency funded by the National Science Foundation (thank you NSF!).
[6:18] You: Alan will now discuss the background of the work and the
process of its creation, and he will show specific works resulting from
the collaboration. ...
[6:18] You: Once again, let me remind you that you should keep the
materials webpage running as well as Second Life. Alan will ask you to
turn to the webpage and view a file - it may be a movie, or an image,
or something else. You must keep Second Life running and look at the
file in a separate window; you must then return to Second Life. ...
[6:18] You: Are there any questions before Alan begins???
[6:19] You: Questions??
[6:19] You: No, then the floor is yours Alan - you are the bomb.
[6:19] Alan Dojoji: Ok, I'll start then; I'm going to combine cut and
paste with typing like this
[6:19] Alan Dojoji: So that hopefully this won't bore you too much; on
occasion I'll ask you to look at one or another video etc.
[6:20] Alan Dojoji: So to begin after the feedback -
[6:20] Alan Dojoji: I'm interested in the relationship between
conscious and formal systems.
[6:20] Alan Dojoji: That should be consciousness - in other words, the
relationship between how we think and how we think we think
[6:20] Alan Dojoji: and the way the world is
[6:20] Alan Dojoji: And it seems to me that working with avatars,
which can be
[6:21] Alan Dojoji: as much a projection of our 'selving' as our own
bodies -
[6:21] Alan Dojoji: both work with images, projections and
introjections -
[6:21] Alan Dojoji: both work with visual perception to a great
extent, locating ourselves visually in a world
[6:21] Alan Dojoji: and both work with forgetting - that is forgetting
the body - when I speak in a conversation
[6:22] Alan Dojoji: I'm ignoring my own hmmm... way of arranging my
limbs, etc.; I'm "just talking" and listening
[6:22] Alan Dojoji: So that occurs in and across these realms -
[6:22] Alan Dojoji: Our relationship to formal systems is related to
how we make sense of the world.
[6:22] Sca Shilova: i see alan typing a lot but i'm not getting any
text...?
[6:23] Alan Dojoji: We use systems, gestural systems, autonomic
systems, conscious and preconscious systems, etc., to make sense of
things; if we can't make sense, we begin to feel stress, anxiety
[6:23] Alan Dojoji: and this can further lead to one or another form
of collapse, perhaps catatonia
[6:23] You: Just a question - are others having trouble receiving?
[6:23] You: Sca: perhaps move closer?
[6:23] Joff Fassnacht: no finr here
[6:23] Alan Dojoji: To make sense of the world we have to consider our
bodies, our selves. It's clear for example that a 'healthy body' sees
the world differently than a sick one
[6:23] Morris Camel: mine's working here
[6:23] Bee Hifeng: I'm ok has a bit of crashing trouble initially so
not sure what I missed.
[6:24] sandy Taifun: bee - all will be recorded
[6:24] Bee Hifeng: great thanks
[6:24] Alan Dojoji: This is important - most philosophy or thnking of
any sort presupposes a healthy body however that's defined, which may
be very different from one culture to another and may not in fact
'record' or describe the world well at all
[6:24] Alan Dojoji: For example, that a depressed mind senses a
different world than, say, an optimist would.
[6:25] Alan Dojoji: In fact one might argue that depression is a
"truer" way of seeing the world than a more rational 'surface' one
[6:25] Alan Dojoji: We're further driven by desires; even the
development or discovery of a formal system is dependent upon our
wanting to develop or discover such.
[6:25] Alan Dojoji: Desire seems to underpin everything, and of course
'desire' itself is a word up for grabs
[6:26] Alan Dojoji: It seems to have components of abjection,
sexuality, instinct, survival skills etc.
[6:26] Alan Dojoji: I keep hearing the term but not much of a deep
description or phenomenology
[6:26] Alan Dojoji: Desires are like icebergs - their ostensible
content might be the peak above the sea, but beneath the surface lies
darker matter, abject matter.
[6:26] Alan Dojoji: By "abject" I mean matter that is partly of us,
constituted by us, and partly debris -
[6:26] Alan Dojoji: This is where the noise or dirt of the world
[6:26] Alan Dojoji: is descvribed
[6:27] Alan Dojoji: It's this matter that I'm interested in, the
abject or obscenity that makes us human, even beyond the guise or
presentation of language.
[6:27] Alan Dojoji: In some senses language is a surface phenomenon
[6:27] Alan Dojoji: In some senses what lies beneath is the "true
world" within the guise of the civil,
[6:27] Alan Dojoji: or the guise of etiquette
[6:27] Alan Dojoji: or the guise of protocol
[6:27] Alan Dojoji: Even online, shape-riding on this level is very
different
[6:28] Alan Dojoji: than someone hacking the machine at a lower level
[6:28] Alan Dojoji: Where things are being bent in secret, hidden
[6:28] Alan Dojoji: One can almost say that's the tantric level which
must be imagined
[6:28] Alan Dojoji: or can be imagined
[6:28] Alan Dojoji: and then discarded
[6:28] Alan Dojoji: after having been devoured or eaten
[6:29] Alan Dojoji: (The face on the associative object with me is
that of YAMANTAKA who is the destroyer of death)
[6:29] Alan Dojoji: Now to the virtual - bear with me, this is going
somewhere
[6:29] Alan Dojoji: The virtual is everywhere, the virtual is
symbolic, inscription, an index of our relationship with the real. Our
bodies are as virtual as anything online; we're a mess of codes and
protccols, languages, drives, instincts, communications, cries and
warnings.
[6:29] Alan Dojoji: Recently language has been related to gesture,
which brings it closer to the body - I'll repeat
[6:29] Alan Dojoji: The virtual is everywhere, the virtual is
symbolic, inscription, an index of our relationship with the real. Our
bodies are as virtual as anything online; we're a mess of codes and
protccols, languages, drives, instincts, communications, cries and
warnings.
[6:30] Alan Dojoji: There's nothing about us that isn't caressed by
language, that isn't languaging. There's nothing about us that isn't
read or inscribed; the real itself is an inscription, as far as we're
concerned.
[6:30] Alan Dojoji: Of course here's a contradiction, language and
dirt in tandmen or one against another
[6:30] Alan Dojoji: Etiquette above the surface of the Victorian
table, playing footsies down below
[6:31] Alan Dojoji: So I model the ostensible carapace, the outer
layers of the human and human behavior, the layers in space,
transforming through time, morphing, dividing in both conceivable and
inconceivable patterns.
[6:31] Alan Dojoji: I'll repeat then type and elaborate
[6:31] Alan Dojoji: So I model the ostensible carapace, the outer
layers of the human and human behavior, the layers in space,
transforming through time, morphing, dividing in both conceivable and
inconceivable patterns.
[6:32] Alan Dojoji: By "carapace" I mean the prims that constitute the
avatar - what I call "sheaves" since they reference laminated things,
bent things themselves
[6:32] Alan Dojoji: I'm composed of sheaves. I'm a sheave-girl.
[6:32] Alan Dojoji: If you get close enough, if you set your camera in
me, ther's nothing there
[6:32] Alan Dojoji: Nothing at all, empty space, and you see the
sheaves as thin slivers from within
[6:32] Alan Dojoji: there aren't any organs of course. So what we're
working with here
[6:33] Alan Dojoji: Is a kind of ORGANISM FROM OUTSIDE, which is where
the carapace comes in.
[6:33] Alan Dojoji: It looks, I look "real" in a sense, in a way
related to the external world,
[6:33] Alan Dojoji: but within there's nothing but emptiness,
[6:33] Alan Dojoji: Once Ben Hecht was asked to describe Hollywood and
said
[6:33] Alan Dojoji: It's a place where you scratch away the tinsel to
get the real tinsel underneath
[6:34] Alan Dojoji: So here you scratch away a prim or two
[6:34] Alan Dojoji: And things are emptied, there aren't organs,
nothing making the thing GO from the inside-out
[6:34] Alan Dojoji: It's topology - organisms outside the screen work
from the inside, they're busy containing themselves
[6:34] Alan Dojoji: which is how the auto-immune system works
[6:35] Alan Dojoji: but within the screen (so to speak) the protocols
are outside, they're for example
[6:35] Alan Dojoji: here in Linden Labs, not to mention thousands of
servers and routers worldwide
[6:35] Alan Dojoji: that bring you this stuff on your home or other
machines,.
[6:35] Alan Dojoji: So when I'm modeling, I'm aware that what I'm
doing is a kind of out-of-organic-body projection
[6:35] Alan Dojoji: I'm from space and maybe one gender into another
[6:36] Alan Dojoji: Although projecting smears these categories
[6:36] Alan Dojoji: So that I'm not sure where I am half the time.
[6:36] Alan Dojoji: All of this bears on modeling of course - which is
what this is about -
[6:36] Alan Dojoji: modeling the human or other organic or inorganic
natural object or process
[6:36] Alan Dojoji: though this modeling, I hope to better understand
what it means to BE human, particularly in relation to all of that
debris beneath the surface, our obscene nature itself.
[6:37] Alan Dojoji: Sorry if this appears to jump - the topic moves
from type to cut and paste
[6:37] Alan Dojoji: Again -
[6:37] Alan Dojoji: though this modeling, I hope to better understand
what it means to BE human, particularly in relation to all of that
debris beneath the surface, our obscene nature itself.
[6:37] Alan Dojoji: Why obscene? Because this nature is read,
processed differently than cool speech or conversation; this nature
constructs readings and writings, and for that matter communication
beyond or preceding language -
[6:38] Alan Dojoji: In other words the "obscene" is processed
differently than ordinary language
[6:38] Alan Dojoji: Just as sex in netsex or SLSex or any other sex,
even sexual communication through language and gesture in SL, is
processed differently neurologically than "ordinary" language
[6:39] Alan Dojoji: Stephen Pinker talks about obscenity as taking
different pathways in the brain
[6:39] Alan Dojoji: And producing intense reactions no matter what the
"conscious" mind wants to do or think
[6:39] Alan Dojoji: The first thing that appears is a negative
emotion, fear, etc. in relation to obscenity
[6:39] Alan Dojoji: It's a different kind of language, a SOMATIC
language, tied differently to the body
[6:40] Alan Dojoji: anyway this nature contructs, let's say, states of
affairs that, in terms of organism, might be considered PRIMORDIAL,
uncomfortable, construing presence itself, desire, an awakening in the
world, fear, dis/ease - anything before the world shuts down in
relation to language, to the processing of language.
[6:40] Alan Dojoji: anyway this nature contructs, let's say, states of
affairs that, in terms of organism, might be considered PRIMORDIAL,
uncomfortable, construing presence itself, desire, an awakening in the
world, fear, dis/ease - anything before the world shuts down in
relation to language, to the processing of language.
[6:40] Alan Dojoji: (again)
[6:40] Alan Dojoji: So that on one hand, again there's surfadce
language, and on the other, obscneity, and for me on the third, the
construction of avatars or modeling
[6:41] Alan Dojoji: I wonder if one couldn't say that one is always
modeling oneself in the real world as well?
[6:41] Alan Dojoji: Just different tools
[6:41] Alan Dojoji: Now to get practgical:
[6:41] Alan Dojoji: I began by thinking about the repertoire of human
physical behaviors, what the body can or cannot do; I used motion
capture equipment to record and modify the behaviors. The equipment
installs behaviors into files, much as labanotation filed away dance -
it's a form of dance notation - much as film records movement.
[6:42] Alan Dojoji: If you want to see one of the bvh files that
controls my avatar
[6:42] Alan Dojoji: Go to the browser screen youshould have up
[6:42] Alan Dojoji: And open up - under MOCAP (for motion capture)
materials
[6:42] Alan Dojoji: the file out2.bvh
[6:43] Alan Dojoji: This files indicates a LOT about motion and the
way it's recorded here
[6:43] Alan Dojoji: You have a root - the HIP - which is where the
action is grounded.
[6:43] Alan Dojoji: Everything moves out from the hip.
[6:43] Alan Dojoji: I can disappear underground like this
[6:43] Alan Dojoji: because I've still got the hip root, as far as
Second Life is concerned,
[6:44] Alan Dojoji: above ground
[6:44] Alan Dojoji: So after that, there are all the body nodes which
are set at an origin
[6:44] Alan Dojoji: In other words, one begins with a root and a body
posture, which forms the basis for the movement
[6:44] Alan Dojoji: If you can scroll down on thefile you'll then see
tens of thousands of numbers
[6:45] Alan Dojoji: These represent the movements proper - what occurs
from the original body stance
[6:45] Alan Dojoji: You might also relate all of this to tantra or to
roots in sutras and tantras -
[6:45] Alan Dojoji: a kind of originary stance which is as empty as
anything else
[6:46] Alan Dojoji: If you now can open, say, anitaberberr.mp4 also in
MOCAP -
[6:46] Alan Dojoji: You'll see a "dance" between a real-life dancer,
Maud Liardon, with the choreography of Foofwa d'Imobilite
[6:46] Alan Dojoji: and there are two other dancers, who are virtual
[6:46] Alan Dojoji: And pasted in
[6:46] Alan Dojoji: And who are controlled by one of the bvh files I
use
[6:47] Alan Dojoji: This video was shown here in Odyssey in Second
Life by the way.
[6:47] Alan Dojoji: If you have any qustions about opening the file,
please ask!
[6:47] Alan Dojoji: If an image appears and there's no movement,
double-click on the image and that should start it
[6:47] Alan Dojoji: You don't need to see the video through to the end
- you'll get the idea fast
[6:48] Bee Hifeng: Sorry someone's just got the e-mail about the
workshop can I teleport them in ?
[6:48] Alan Dojoji: Ok, if you
[6:48] Alan Dojoji: Definitely
[6:48] Bee Hifeng: great
[6:49] Alan Dojoji: Anyone who wants to can come; we'll have the log
of the talk for later
[6:49] Alan Dojoji: And put it up
[6:49] You: - taking snaps and movies as well
[6:49] Alan Dojoji: Anyway, if you open veda.mp4
[6:49] Alan Dojoji: You'll see another kind of mapping of a bvh file
[6:50] Alan Dojoji: This one maps the nodes of the body into 3d space
using Blender
[6:50] Alan Dojoji: a free 3d modeling program (I think check out
blender.org)
[6:50] Alan Dojoji: and here the nodes from motion capture are tied to
objects like spheres and cones
[6:50] Wanderingfictions Story: hi!
[6:50] Bee Hifeng: hi
[6:51] Alan Dojoji: If you can close that down and upen up
stripped.mov you'll see more abstract shapes modeled with thebvh files
[6:52] Alan Dojoji: Finally if you open up bulb1.mp4 you'll see the
same file modeled by what are called "metaballs" which attract each
other, join together - the model here is viewed FROM WITHIN, and unlike
the sheavemodeling of sheave-girl , me here in Second Life, there are
joints and connecting skins
[6:52] Alan Dojoji: within the blender model. It's a different kind of
structure altogether
[6:53] Alan Dojoji: Ok, now the bvh files themselves, beyond their
internal structure -
[6:53] Alan Dojoji: how are they used?
[6:53] Alan Dojoji: So these files, which contained behaviors, were
then used to reconstruct such behaviors with mannequins, avatars, in
two different kinds of spaces - ones that were completely recorded,
like film itself, and ones that were live and in real time - so that a
viewer might walk about an avatar behaving in a particular way, in a
particular live space.
[6:53] Alan Dojoji: Again,
[6:53] Alan Dojoji: So these files, which contained behaviors, were
then used to reconstruct such behaviors with mannequins, avatars, in
two different kinds of spaces - ones that were completely recorded,
like film itself, and ones that were live and in real time - so that a
viewer might walk about an avatar behaving in a particular way, in a
particular live space.
[6:54] Alan Dojoji: In other words, some stuff is prerecorded, some is
liveperformance
[6:54] Wave Looming: Please show me how to open the MOCAP fils again
[6:54] sandy Taifun: - from the website, click on the file name
[6:54] Alan Dojoji: Double click on them
[6:54] sandy Taifun: do you need the url for the site??
[6:55] Bee Hifeng: Also new arrivals is having trouble opening the
link I sent to the materials
[6:55] Alan Dojoji: When you're done looking, hit the return arrow to
get back to the index
[6:55] Wave Looming: yes
[6:55] sandy Taifun: www.as.wvu.edu/~sbaldwin/london.html
[6:55] Wave Looming: I had problems accessing this website since I got
the e-mail
[6:55] Alan Dojoji: I'm going to continue here - you might want to
paste that in again Sandy?
[6:55] Alan Dojoji: It shojuld come right up; it does on all my
machines here
[6:55] sandy Taifun: OK, alan you continue. I will im with wave
looming about alternatives.
[6:55] Sca Shilova: alan can anyone use blender with sensors to make
bvh files?
[6:56] Alan Dojoji: No, it's more complex than that
[6:56] Sca Shilova: ok
[6:56] Alan Dojoji: The sensors are connected to motion capture
equipment
[6:56] Alan Dojoji: Which in this case is attached to the body itself
- there are 18 sensors
[6:56] Alan Dojoji: so that a neck sensor for example wouldconnect to
the neck, etc.
[6:56] Alan Dojoji: The mapping is one-to-one
[6:56] Alan Dojoji: Leg to leg, etc.
[6:56] Alan Dojoji: What I've worked with is'breaking' the mapping down
[6:56] Sca Shilova: si tis more hard than only software
[6:57] Alan Dojoji: So that the sensors might be randomly distributed
- yes - on the body
[6:57] Alan Dojoji: or inverted on the body
[6:57] Alan Dojoji: or thrown in a heap on the floor
[6:57] Alan Dojoji: or placed in a star pattern
[6:57] Alan Dojoji: or dstributed among more than one body
[6:57] Alan Dojoji: so that you get:
[6:57] Alan Dojoji: But more than that - the behaviors themselves were
INCONCEIVABLY CODED, that is, created in such a way as to presence an
impossible body - which then becomes a distorted body, a body
transformed by the pressue, for example, of war, of torture, of
incandescent sexuality - an impossible body -
[6:57] Alan Dojoji: Again -
[6:57] Alan Dojoji: But more than that - the behaviors themselves were
INCONCEIVABLY CODED, that is, created in such a way as to presence an
impossible body - which then becomes a distorted body, a body
transformed by the pressue, for example, of war, of torture, of
incandescent sexuality - an impossible body -
[6:58] Alan Dojoji: The body is "inconceivable" because it's moving in
ways a "real" organic body can't - except perhaps under torture.
[6:58] Alan Dojoji: or ecstatic modeling of one sort or another, or
hallucinatory modeling etc
[6:58] Alan Dojoji: For me what happened, the real obscenity of Abu
Gharayb - which for a lot of us in the US was a kind of shattering -
[6:59] Alan Dojoji: is this distortion, this abject torture, which
threw our own national behavior in our faces
[6:59] Alan Dojoji: I want to explore this further in SL where at
least for the moment it's safe to do so...
[6:59] Alan Dojoji: Anyway to continue -
[6:59] Alan Dojoji: But a body that, being impossible, also represents
our desires in the world, desires which, if they could, would take
apart a real body, dissolve it in the throes of passion.
[7:00] Alan Dojoji: - which roughly says the same thing...
[7:00] Alan Dojoji: Again, on the technique -
[7:00] Alan Dojoji: The techniques are surgical, cutting and suturing
- separating and bringing together. The operations occur first in real
life; when a participant wears a motion capture harnass, a number of
sensors are aligned with her body parts - left leg sensor on the left
leg, neck sensor on the neck, and so forth.
[7:00] sandy Taifun: no, the bvh is just a text file of code - an
example of the code that is running the distorted avatar movements that
alan is speeaking of
[7:00] Alan Dojoji: Again -
[7:00] Alan Dojoji: The techniques are surgical, cutting and suturing
- separating and bringing together. The operations occur first in real
life; when a participant wears a motion capture harnass, a number of
sensors are aligned with her body parts - left leg sensor on the left
leg, neck sensor on the neck, and so forth.
[7:00] Alan Dojoji: We rearrange these sensors, splitting them among a
number of people, reorienting them; the body maps become distorted,
impossible.
[7:00] sandy Taifun: sorry -
[7:01] Alan Dojoji: We ask the participants to move. We record the
impossible movements of a single body.
[7:01] Alan Dojoji: The recording is in the form of a file which is
fed into one of three applications: a 3-D modeling application, where
abstract forms are mapped onto the recording, resulting in an 'abstract
performance' or 'performer' - a mannequin modeling application, where
human forms are mapped onto the recording, resulting in considerable
distortion -
[7:01] sandy Taifun: wave: does that make sense now?
[7:01] Alan Dojoji: again -
[7:01] Alan Dojoji: The recording is in the form of a file which is
fed into one of three applications: a 3-D modeling application, where
abstract forms are mapped onto the recording, resulting in an 'abstract
performance' or 'performer' - a mannequin modeling application, where
human forms are mapped onto the recording, resulting in considerable
distortion -
[7:01] Alan Dojoji: And a 'live' virtual space, where the behavior
recordings are used in live avatar performance. I'll demonstrate these
in turn. I'll also demonstrate various ways and results of scanning the
body itself.
[7:02] Alan Dojoji: Ok, so this is what all of this is about, at least
for me -
[7:02] Alan Dojoji: relating thinking and consciousness to formal
systems
[7:02] Alan Dojoji: and using formal systems for modeling organisms
[7:02] Alan Dojoji: particularly the human body
[7:03] Alan Dojoji: in a way hopefuly that can tell us something about
the world.
[7:03] Alan Dojoji: Here is another example - if you go to scan
materials
[7:03] Alan Dojoji: (lower left), open up gunscan2.mp4
[7:03] Alan Dojoji: This is a scanned toy gun which is 'deconstructed'
in two ways
[7:03] Alan Dojoji: - first by moving the gun during the scan
[7:03] Alan Dojoji: and second by reworking the suturing program - the
program that combines still images tomake the 3d image -
[7:04] Bee Hifeng: sorry to interrupt again but - Ive been trying to
send wanderingfictions the link to materials but its not working
[7:04] Alan Dojoji: in different ways - in other words, stitching the
gun together awkwardly
[7:04] Alan Dojoji: please IM Sandy back-channel?
[7:04] You: -yes
[7:04] Alan Dojoji: I can't repeat this, I'm typing away from the
script unforutnately
[7:05] Alan Dojoji: This scanned version is highly compressed which
makes the image a little rough but you get the idea I hope
[7:05] Alan Dojoji: If you look at the largescanner jpgs in the same
area
[7:06] Alan Dojoji: Click on 05 - this is Azure Carter moving slowly
while being scanned with a laser ordinarily used for buildings
[7:06] Alan Dojoji: Her body breaks down into sheaves, but the chair
and table in the foreground are "clear" because they're stationayr
[7:07] Alan Dojoji: So this is another area to work within - the use
of laser scanners for deconstructing the way the world appears to us.
[7:07] Alan Dojoji: Please, if you can, open, in the same quadrant,
ruler.mov
[7:07] Alan Dojoji: This is a plastic ruler, also deconstructed,
highly enlarged
[7:08] Alan Dojoji: If you notice, there are "ridges" visible which
seem to repeat - serrated edges
[7:08] Alan Dojoji: These represent the indentations, markings, on the
ruler itself
[7:08] Alan Dojoji: I'm using this sort of thing to look at the way we
observe and count things in the real world
[7:09] Alan Dojoji: How do we decide what quantity is, what an object
is, for that matter?
[7:09] Alan Dojoji: You can't count sheep in Sumer unless you have
some idea of counting, markers, sheep, things, and even data-storage
[7:09] Alan Dojoji: - a way to remember the count as it goes along.
[7:09] Alan Dojoji: So I'm thinking about this, working with these
visual images as a way of understanding this as well.
[7:10] Alan Dojoji: A couple of other things, and then I'll turn over
to Sandy after answering questions; I'll also be back.
[7:10] Alan Dojoji: Please open, under Second Life materials, the
vector1.jpg and then look at the vector2.jpg
[7:11] Alan Dojoji: With these, I'm trying to find some way to
represent sexuality, abjection , a sense of discomfort
[7:11] Alan Dojoji: with the images themselves -
[7:11] Alan Dojoji: This is done with both texture mapping from
photographs
[7:12] Alan Dojoji: and intensifying, over-saturating, the color so
that it looks as if the skin is bursting out
[7:12] Alan Dojoji: I've also worked with issues of disease this way,
to see how much 'emotional debris/material' can occur with what are
after all only avatars, abstracted mathematical objects
[7:13] Alan Dojoji: A second area of importance for all of this is the
edge of the protocols etc. - what happens when things are pushed to the
limits.
[7:13] Alan Dojoji: A simple example of this - please look at
corner.mov under Second Life materials
[7:14] Alan Dojoji: Here movement is occurring at the edge of the game
space of Second Life
[7:14] Alan Dojoji: This was done with Sandy and myself
[7:15] Alan Dojoji: I'm trying to escape Second Life, go off the edge
of the gamesapce
[7:15] Alan Dojoji: but I keep getting returned asymptotically to the
space itself
[7:15] Alan Dojoji: This goes on and on and one
[7:15] Alan Dojoji: on and on and on
[7:16] Alan Dojoji: So this is another area of exploration - what
happens at the limits of geographies/gamespaces, etc.? What can we
learn from this , particularly in relation to what we consider the
normative social in these spaces?
[7:16] Alan Dojoji: Clearly this is more'lunar' than anything else.
[7:16] Alan Dojoji: For a final example for the moment, pleaes open
control.mp4 just above - this is a recording of a performance Sandy and
I did
[7:17] Alan Dojoji: and what's of interest is not only the interaction
which is occurring at the edge of the game space etc.
[7:17] Alan Dojoji: But also Sandy's covering the screen with text, a
kind of obliteration of communication by communication itself
[7:18] Alan Dojoji: Before I turn this over to Sandy, are there any
questions?
[7:18] You: questions?
[7:18] Sca Shilova: um... many :)
[7:18] You: well, let's take some!
[7:19] Sca Shilova: i am curious to know more why you are disecting
[7:19] Alan Dojoji: Disecting?
[7:20] You: - you mean like a surgeon?
[7:20] Alan Dojoji: Please say more?
[7:20] Sca Shilova: well for lack of a better word
[7:20] Sca Shilova: decontructing
[7:20] Sca Shilova: silly question
[7:20] Sca Shilova: nvm
[7:20] Alan Dojoji: Because we take so much for granted, I think,
about our bodies
[7:20] Alan Dojoji: And this taking-for-granted breaks down in
obscenity, death, torture, sexuality, tantra, etc.
[7:20] Alan Dojoji: In other words, our lived-body is in a sense empty
[7:21] Alan Dojoji: (this relates to Nagarjuna buddhism btw)
[7:21] Alan Dojoji: And at the same time is mind, is emptied universe,
[7:21] Alan Dojoji: And at least within the world of computation,
computers, digital and analog modeling,
[7:21] Sca Shilova: .... all the code...
[7:21] Alan Dojoji: This gives me a gateway to all of this -
deconstruction as opening, not taking apart -
[7:22] Alan Dojoji: into something that, at least for me, couldn't be
described linguistically
[7:22] Sca Shilova: cool i understand... temporarily forgot :))
[7:22] Alan Dojoji: "language fails here" or some such -
[7:22] Alan Dojoji: Please ask more?
[7:22] You: other questions?
[7:23] Wave Looming: What about the corner sample you showed? the fact
the 'abstracted entity' was constantly turned back to the virtual world?
[7:23] Alan Dojoji: You can open up "whatremains.mp4" to see a Poser
avatar at work
[7:23] Alan Dojoji: Yes - the virtual world wouldn't let go. One
reason I love gaz' work so much is that it breaks through
theconventions of second life
[7:24] Sca Shilova: well i think this is an amazing way of scratching
that surface ...is all i can say ..thanks
[7:24] Alan Dojoji: That it's almost always work at the limits
[7:24] You: - voice in what remains is azure carter
[7:24] Alan Dojoji: And I think from the limits, the boundaries,
that's the place to look back in and see what's going on!
[7:24] Alan Dojoji: singing about delusion (if you have the speaker
on) from a text I wrote
[7:25] You: unravelling of form as the video goes on
[7:25] Alan Dojoji: Any other quetions?
[7:25] Alan Dojoji: Yes!
[7:25] You: the avatar unravels from within
[7:25] Morris Camel: what do you think of the possibility of a birth
taking place in second life? if the "emptiness" of an avatar could
spring forth the life of another avatar from within (given that they
are virtual and digitally recreatable)
[7:25] Alan Dojoji: That's interesting - the birth is always occurring
in a sense, since the avatar's always being redrawn, not only on your
screen, but also by the servers at Linden Labs
[7:26] You: - this would go to the naming in SL as well.
[7:26] Alan Dojoji: But if you mean a birth of an independent
organism, that occurs whenever we create an avatar, I think
[7:26] Alan Dojoji: It's interesting, in thetext-based ancestor of
Second Life,
[7:26] You: Note: you must have a name and that is fixed fixed, can't
change it.
[7:26] Alan Dojoji: the MOO, to create something you'd type
[7:26] Alan Dojoji: @create $thing called "sheave-girl"
[7:26] Alan Dojoji: and you'd get back
[7:27] Alan Dojoji: You own sheave-girl with number #
[7:27] Alan Dojoji: for example - some such
[7:27] Alan Dojoji: Which means that youv'e created an object or a
space in the data-base
[7:27] Alan Dojoji: and given it a name, "sheave-girl" - and the
server has given it a
[7:27] Alan Dojoji: number, an identification number, which it uses
internally, and which you can also access directly
[7:28] Alan Dojoji: You can see all the uneasy implications here.
[7:28] Alan Dojoji: In SL, objects are also given number/letter
addresses, but I don't know enough about the entire structure of the
software
[7:28] Morris Camel: like creating a physical space on the hard disk
within the SL server as well
[7:28] Alan Dojoji: - in other words, what sort of distributed
hierarchy is used - to say much about it.
[7:28] Alan Dojoji: So our creations here (not necessarily on the MOO
which is open-souarce)
[7:29] Alan Dojoji: are really surface-creations, server-blips...
[7:29] You: but the distinction between creating an avatar vs. an
object is interesting. can't exactly build an avatar the same way -
[7:29] You: prims on up -
[7:29] You: different matter and entities.
[7:29] Alan Dojoji: How so?
[7:29] You: well, you can change shape but you must have a shape
[7:30] Alan Dojoji: That's true; on another level, in both you have
parameters, objects that can be manipulated given a certain vocabuary.
[7:30] You: agreed
[7:30] Alan Dojoji: If you build a rock in a MOO, there are only
certain things you can do to it, just as with an avatar
[7:30] Alan Dojoji: but the avatar appears and is infinitely richer!
[7:31] You: can't be here without an avatar, also
[7:31] Alan Dojoji: We can't.
[7:31] You: more questions? I can offer brief remarks otherwise?
[7:31] Alan Dojoji: Linden Labs employees might be able to. I think
they definitely could be here without an avatar
[7:31] Alan Dojoji: Just as a wizard in a MOO can be entirely
invisible, bodiless.
[7:31] You: yes, that's true, so different for them.
[7:32] Alan Dojoji: Any other qustions?
[7:32] You: Some of my comments are just glossing Alan’s arguments as
well – and mostly what I’ll say is quite simple, part of my making
sense of the philosophical questions Alan raises through the art you
see here…
[7:32] You: You can interrupt me too --
[7:32] You: Theorization of avatars – look at any discussion of
avatars in critical theory, art theory, etc., Ars Electronica,
Leonardo, etc. - makes mention of their (Hindu) origin as the
incarnation of a god, but loses the fact that the avatar is always an
intentional incarnation, and moreover that the god can only be
incarnated as intention.
[7:33] Alan Dojoji: Can you repeat these? Thanks
[7:33] You: Theorization of avatars – look at any discussion of
avatars in critical theory, art theory, etc., Ars Electronica,
Leonardo, etc. - makes mention of their (Hindu) origin as the
incarnation of a god, but loses the fact that the avatar is always an
intentional incarnation, and moreover that the god can only be
incarnated as intention.
[7:33] You: So, I see Alan’s work here as dealing with intentionality
through avatars. I’ll call this a passion of/for avatars.
[7:34] You: I think of a kind of humanism in SL - exactly tied to the
emphasis on avatars as appearance the requirements around naming.
[7:34] You: I am interested here in the implications for performance
in SL. One the one hand, for the masquerade of an audience and
performer, on the other hand, implications for performance in terms of
the pasting of views involved.
[7:35] You: By humanism, I think of the welcoming remarks when you
start in SL. "We hope you'll have a richly rewarding experience, filled
with creativity, self expression and fun," goes the welcome to second
life.
[7:35] You: I like all these terms: "we," "you," "richly rewarding
experience," "creativity," self expression," "fun." Codes with
addresses, signals with sources.
[7:36] You: The big six social codes in SL of tolerance, harassment,
assault, disclosure, indency, disturbing the peace redress and address
code / semantics of appearnace. The address and source of avatar may be
deep or shallow, but they are personal and proper.
[7:36] Alan Dojoji: (again?)
[7:37] You: OK. There are six social codes that Linden requires we
adhere to in SL. They are: tolerance, harassment, assault, disclosure,
indency, disturbing the peace (i.e. not distrubing the peace etc.)
[7:37] You: All these social codes are about behaviors and proper
presenations.
[7:37] You: Similarly, Enormous work is expended building exact
replicas of real structures and real bodies. Universities, companies,
military units, and so on replicate their real estate here.
[7:38] You: Here I'm identifying a drive towards fidelity to first
life in second life.
[7:38] You: Another version of this argument insists on marking the
differentiations and deviations from first life. So, identify the
masquerade and pull aside the curtain. Please remember this is second
life! (All this goes to what we take for granted – as Alan wrote of a
bit ago)
[7:39] You: So, I'm noting these background assumptions of the world,
to think about in relation Alan's work and the philosophy he's presented
[7:40] Sca Shilova: weird thing i find is that in even in SL (as in
RL) the boundary lays at what each individual perceives as, assault for
example, so that you will find that even here women wont report rape
abuse, even though it's just clicking a button...
[7:40] You: One approach to the materials Alan and I work on is a
question of reading in relation to the body of the other, and the
interference in reading by technical protocols of the software,
platform, etc.
[7:40] You: say that again sca -
[7:40] Sca Shilova: sorry
[7:40] Alan Dojoji: assault is just as real here in one sense, as in
real life - people get damaged..........
[7:41] Sca Shilova: yes
[7:41] Alan Dojoji: Sandy?
[7:41] You: well, it seems to me we (not us here but in general) don't
have a good logic i.e. way of talking about this distinction
[7:42] You: My remarks underline the life here as both
representationally life “first life” and ontologically distinct.
[7:42] Alan Dojoji: Which is also true I think of just about any
social issue at all, "intellectual propertly," etc. - Yes!
[7:42] You: My remarks underline the life here as both
representationally like “first life” and ontologically distinct. I mean
this in a simple way: we see things, through various representational
techniques, that are like first life; we know at other levels – through
reflection, and so on – that this is virtual. It seems seamless, at
least at the level of signs, so land is clearly signifying land, bodies
signifying bodies, and so on; yet discontinuous in its coded prim-ness.
[7:42] Alan Dojoji: please again?
[7:43] You: Well, I'm reiterating: we have a mixed zone. I mean this
in a simple way: we see things, through various representational
techniques, that are like first life
[7:43] You: we know at other levels – through reflection, and so on –
that this is virtual.
[7:43] You: It seems seamless, at least at the level of signs, so land
is clearly signifying land, bodies signifying bodies, and so on; yet
discontinuous in its coded prim-ness.
[7:44] You: So, the world of SL, the life-world here is constituted
through this mixture or medial state; and it’s not like this in first
life, where the self-evidence of appearance is part of the world.
[7:44] You: Of course, immediately there are problems with this
proposal, as there are no end of first life exceptions, i.e. first life
has its unstability as well and well
[7:44] You: e.g. dreams, ecstasies, artwork, and so on; I would not
argue against this shading of SL into FL, as inhabitation of the real
by the virtual. I’m just interested here in the difference in SL.
[7:44] You: - I think this is where Alan'
[7:45] You: oops, Alan's point about "intellectual property" or any
social concept comes in
[7:45] You: So, I suggest that the work Alan and I present here
projects the unstability of the world through the avatar, or smears it
across the avatar.
[7:45] You: - a movie like planetearth.mov (see it on the SL materials
list) is about - for me - the unstable "worlding" here
[7:47] Alan Dojoji: For me, planetearth also brings in other issues,
dealing with radio and radiowaves and the organization of the physical
world -
[7:47] Alan Dojoji: we're interpenetrated in RL (RL? FL?) by
radiations in a way that's almost uncanny -
[7:47] You: Aren't these related? This interpenetration is what I mean
by worlding?
[7:48] You: vs. a clean world that is suggested by the views of the
interface
[7:48] You: views: I mean the camera views, the remediation of the
third person cinematic deigesis, etc.
[7:48] Alan Dojoji: I don't think so? I meant it literally -
radiations/dusts that create dis/ease, cancer, etc. in the real world -
there's no equivalent I know of in SL, but I may be misunderstanding you
[7:49] You: I would argue yes, that the dis/eased or dis/comforted
body we working with here is equivalent in signifcant ways to those
bodies in RL
[7:50] Alan Dojoji: I'd think otherwise, since the FL body has a
limit, that is, death, that connects to pollutions, overpopulations, FL
violence;
[7:50] You: vs. again, the suggestion of a clean body that
(paradoxically) formed through the hypermediation of viewpoints.
[7:50] Alan Dojoji: you can rebuild, resurface in SL, but not in RL
[7:50] Alan Dojoji: What do you mean by "hypermediation"?
[7:51] You: Hypermediation: its a term commonly used for interfaces
where there are multiple views (e.g. bolter and grusin's theory)
[7:51] You: the multiple views work together to suggest a single
viewer or controller
[7:52] Alan Dojoji: I understand, but in this context? I wonder if
"viewpoint" can even be used in relation to cancer in FL? Perhaps
cancer is even characterized by an absence of viewpoint... In SL in a
sense all we have is viewpoint
[7:52] You: - Yes, that's what I'm saying.
[7:52] You: Well, to continue.
[7:53] You: I want to call this, problematically, a wilderness – i.e.
where we can’t comfortably speak of single view or body or location,
where ruptured world of SL that I described above –
[7:53] You: the divergence of meaning and being is everywhere, where
the masquerade is nothing but this mixed or medial state (here
refracted through performance).
[7:53] You: (The avatars’ wandering in control.mov or corner.move,
wandering in a corner is part of this wilderness: finding it
everywhere, not only at the edges.)
[7:53] You: “Wilderness” of avatars also invokes the nonhuman and
animal. I think here of a distinction between human and technical
machine that maps onto the human animal distinction.
[7:54] You: Without simply accepting these distinctions, I would say
they need to be worked through productively. I think these are places
where the humanist notion of consciousness and control, all over “here”
as it were, is broken down by a notion of wandering and following, of
waywardness as being.
[7:54] You: again:
[7:54] You: I think these are places where the humanist notion of
consciousness and control, all over “here” as it were, is broken down
by a notion of wandering and following, of waywardness as being.
[7:55] You: OK. These are some quick remarks. I also want to develop a
notion of surface that would articlate SL and FL - i.e. in the kind of
questions raised by Alan in response above -
[7:55] You: but I think I'll turn things over to others
[7:55] You: and I can get to the discussion of surface in a bit...
[7:55] You: questions? or need for a break?
[7:56] You: or Alan do you want to take up and talk some more?
[7:56] Alan Dojoji: Why not continue?
[7:56] You: ok.
[7:56] Alan Dojoji: I'd like to hear about surface...
[7:56] You: by wilderness of avatars I mean the environments show in
corner, or control
[7:56] You: but also in hhhh.mov (take a look at this one under the SL
materials()
[7:57] You: OK. Given the “wilderness of avatars” I described earlier,
my second proposal is to describe an ontology of surfaces
[7:58] You: In describing the pasting of views and positing of the
viewer here (audience), I assume that there is a reading through
surface to an other.
[7:58] You: (This is a version of what Alan said above: only
viewpoints here.)
[7:58] You: i.e. I assume a relation to this other – you are reading
my message, watching my actions, and so on.
[7:59] You: With the wilderness of avatars, I want to describe a field
of performance that exceeds and destroys the boundaries of “I” and
self, it can be a basic field of “we” or of intimacy.
[7:59] You: Again, this is predicated on the basic
semiological-ontological distinction of SL.
[7:59] You: I think of this in relation to the scan materials Alan
showed earlier or the mocap materials
[8:00] You: see for example the largescanner images
[8:00] sandy Taifun is Offline
[8:00] You: here The surface is a “midst” (medium) or zone of visual
appearance, fragrances, sound productions…
[8:01] You: (I see these thinking of surfaces as not borders or
barriers to the interior )
[8:02] You: I see a similar process in the other mocap materials - the
bub movies as well.
[8:02] You: (that you looked at earlier, bulb1 and so on -- feel free
to look at them again)
[8:02] Alan Dojoji: the .avi bulb is good too
[8:03] You: Yes, take a look at that one
[8:03] Alan Dojoji: bulb2.avi
[8:03] You: (note: avi may not open directly in browser)
[8:04] You: OK. The surface as midst or zone of display is “part of
the presentation of self of a living being.”
[8:05] You: My point here, returning to the earlier discussion, is
another approach to appearance
[8:05] Alan Dojoji: I wonder if lobe.mov might not also be relevant
here - a mapping that's half-"cartoon" and half "avatarish"
[8:05] You: yes, good - take a look at lobe.mov as well.
[8:06] You: The cartoonish forces a sense of the constructed and yet
it's also directly from the body's interior -- all the movements.
[8:07] You: I'd say: the cartoonish even tends towards the absurd;
[8:07] You: absurd or the earlier discussion of abject images are ways
of Surface opacity as manifestation (pastiness) of inwardness
[8:07] You: i.e. thickening of representation as intensification of
projection and manifestation
[8:08] You: So, in all this, dealing with avatars not an image of my
body; it is, however, part of the imaging of my body, part of the
visual imaginary of my body.
[8:08] You: I think, for me, the best and most amazing example is the
scan24s.mov.
[8:09] You: I know Alan has a lot to say - other things than I would
about this - but
[8:09] Alan Dojoji: Sandy, I wonder if you could bring up gnats.mov in
this regard, since it's recorded in FL but has strong implications here?
[8:09] You: yes, sure!
[8:09] You: listen / look at gnats -
[8:09] Alan Dojoji: gnats.mp4 under Human
[8:10] Alan Dojoji: This was recorded in Salt Lake City, Utah - on the
Jordan river - gnat swarms that behave as single vertical columns,
meta-organisms...
[8:10] Alan Dojoji: the surface for the gnat is most likely one of
scent
[8:11] Alan Dojoji: for us it's "constructed" out of a pointillist
vocabulary so to speak
[8:11] You: i find i tend to see forms, figures in the swarm, though
it's nothing but pieces - for me, like the shieve-girl you spoke of
earlier
[8:12] Alan Dojoji: Yes! Which brings up the porosity, lack of
surface, of our own bodies, something Hegel mentions
[8:12] You: but the forms are, surely, tied to the air currents,
weight of gnats, following each other - etc.
[8:13] Alan Dojoji: Tied to, but also internally constructed; in the
still air, the columns get thinner and thinner - which happens at the
end of gnats,mp4. This "tying together" and scent etc relates to the
skeining of any organism I think... (I maybe wrong here)
[8:13] You: i agree: this would be the visual / appearance of the
inwardness of the gnat (so to speeak): i.e. the presentation of it and
its environment
[8:14] Alan Dojoji: Should we look at things like frenzy.mp4 or
jump.mp4 or hold off for the moment?
[8:14] You: i want to see a similar presentation occuring through
avatars
[8:14] You: yes, frenzy first. under human materials.
[8:14] Alan Dojoji: That's where the blender stuff comes in.
[8:14] Alan Dojoji: Please open frenzy.mp4
[8:15] Alan Dojoji: I work with Foofwa d'Imobilite, a Geneve- based
dancer who has a company; I think he's one of the best dancers in the
world at the moment
[8:15] You: Award winning dancer...
[8:15] You: This is not in relation to a specific avatar recording, is
it Alan?
[8:15] Alan Dojoji: And he takes the avatar material, SL for example,
"returns it" to FL, and back and forth; we mutually interpenetrate
activities this way
[8:15] sandy Taifun is Online
[8:15] Alan Dojoji: No - it's in relation I think both to our work on
producing-as-fast-as-possible and avatar in general;
[8:16] Alan Dojoji: the duetavatargrante.mov or thewall.mov are
directly related to avatar recordings
[8:16] You: - frenzy, not the file but the movement of foofwa, is in
relation to his body in a way that the avatar movements are to theirs
though
[8:16] Alan Dojoji: please try and look at these - they may stutter...
[8:16] Alan Dojoji: Yes -
[8:17] You: so, tied to the question of appearance of inwardness
[8:17] You: ok, let'
[8:17] You: oop, at duetavatargrange.mov
[8:17] Alan Dojoji: (Please do interrupt with questions if you have
any)
[8:18] Alan Dojoji: I'm watching thewall.mov now
[8:18] You: Well, I know Alan has a great deal to say about
duetavatargrange and thewall. Let me close my thoughts on surface -
[8:18] Alan Dojoji: - avatar movements constricted by the very real
wall of a grange in the Alps, Maud Liardon and Foofwa dancing
[8:18] Alan Dojoji: Ok, sorry
[8:19] You: and then alan can say more about these one's.
[8:19] You: Closing: I set out an idea of surface as thickening or
manifesting inwardness.
[8:19] You: Add to this being-with or following surfaces,
[8:19] You: being-with avatars as avatar touching avatar touching
viewer as thickening and projective residue of consciousness
[8:20] You: so, by this I mean avatars as self-announcement of being
into sl
[8:20] You: all this set against what i earlier (too quickly) marked
as a "humanism" of avatars, where the task is to read back to the
"driver" as it were
[8:21] You: self-announcement as what happens in the "wilderness of
avatars" I mentioned earlier
[8:21] Alan Dojoji: Is self-announcement of being similar to rewrite?
Can you elaborate?
[8:21] You: - yes, continually self-announcement and production (with
implication of work, economy) through the avatar
[8:21] You: rewrite: an important concept developed by alan in the
internet text
[8:22] You: the subject writes and rewrites into existence.
[8:22] You: i would say self-annoucenment is cognate, but i wanted to
focus on the appearance of the avatar as opaque signal (thus
announcement)
[8:23] Alan Dojoji: avatar as emblem -
[8:23] You: yes, ikon
[8:23] You: Are there questions? Happy to answer more? Or, happy to
turn back to duetavatargrange and here more on that
[8:23] You: [quickly: i distinguish between sematic appearnace and
cryptic appearance, both zoological terms for how animals appear -
[8:24] You: but both the cryptic (camoflauge) and sematic (display)
are part of the self-annoucement of the avatar]
[8:24] You: But: questions?
[8:24] You: Also: a quote from Mishima.
[8:25] You: “If the law of thought is that it should search out
profundity, whether it extends upwards or downwards,
[8:25] You: then it seemed excessively illogical to me that men should
not discover depths of a kind on the ‘surface,’ that vital borderline
that endorses our separateness and our form, dividing our exterior from
our interior.
[8:25] You: Why should they not be attracted by the profundity of the
surface as well.”
[8:26] Alan Dojoji: Ok, I'm a bit mixed in relation to IM here, but
I'll type for a while.
[8:26] Alan Dojoji: Please open duetavatargrange.mov under the
lower-right quadrant
[8:27] Alan Dojoji: This is again a Liardon/Foofwa performance
[8:27] Alan Dojoji: Before I begin with this I want to mention again
rewrite - for it's important here.
[8:27] Alan Dojoji: Simply, embodiment in Second Life or online in
general is INTENTIONAL
[8:27] Alan Dojoji: In other words, one has to write to have presence,
has to have an avatar to presence oneself
[8:28] Alan Dojoji: And one continually writes/performs/acts in these
spaces
[8:28] Alan Dojoji: As a way of ascertaining, indicating existence
[8:28] Alan Dojoji: Log off and you're gone
[8:28] You: - alan, this differs from RL in the sense of not being
able to log off so easily, so to speak?
[8:28] Alan Dojoji: Even if you use a bot to keep you online in
appearance
[8:28] Alan Dojoji: One moment
[8:29] Alan Dojoji: Even if you use a bot to keep you online in
appearance, it's not responsive to someone, although someday a Turing
test might prove different
[8:29] Alan Dojoji: But at the moment, you're "hereness" is indicated
by behavior, statement, etc.
[8:30] Alan Dojoji: So embodiment is not background, the way it is in
FL; it's not GROUND, not Primordial so to speak - it's always already a
deliberate and intntional construct that needs renewing...
[8:30] Alan Dojoji: Re: What you were saying, you can log off in RL,
but this brings up all those issues of euthanasia, legislation against
suicide, etc., which are problematized in SL...
[8:30] Alan Dojoji: With duetavatargrange.
[8:31] Alan Dojoji: Foofwa and Maud were working from studying the
kinds of avatar-moement
[8:31] Alan Dojoji: from the BVH files you see here - and using this
movement as a choreography, bending the human back into the virtual.
[8:31] Alan Dojoji: So for example, their contact with one another is
problematic - as if they shojld be transparent with each other
[8:31] Alan Dojoji: but aren't -
[8:32] Alan Dojoji: The materiality - what Rosset calls the "idiocy"
of the real world interferes, interrupts
[8:32] Alan Dojoji: just like, or in a sense just like, dreams are
interruptions, are interrupted
[8:32] Alan Dojoji: When we work together, Foofwa & whomever and
myself and Azure Carter,
[8:33] Alan Dojoji: we move betwen language, sexuality, body, virtual,
prim, construct, choreography, improvisation, projection,
introjecdtion, etc.
[8:33] Alan Dojoji: all of these things so that after a while it's
almost as if we can't tell what world we're in.
[8:33] Alan Dojoji: Please look at jump.mp4 in Human Materials for an
example of this
[8:34] Alan Dojoji: That's about all I have to say at this end, -
Sandy - or questions? Please, any sort of dialog would be greatly
appreciated!
[8:34] You: I wanted to ask, first, back about rewrite.
[8:35] You: The distinction between rewrite and ground, let's say,
insists on the distinction between FL and SL.
[8:35] Alan Dojoji: Different modes of presencing... yes
[8:35] You: And, of course, as you note the places we consider rewrite
in first life are limit cases: suicide, euthanasia, etc.
[8:36] You: Still, there is a presencing in first life that seems to
me like rewrite.
[8:36] You: we do "show" our selves and there is an intentional aspect
that always there...?
[8:36] You: in part, I'm trying to pressure the difference between
these worlds / lives
[8:37] You: (as in earlier, you mentioned that there's real damage to
those hurt in Second Life, and so on)
[8:38] Alan Dojoji: For me, that's an issue of roles, Goffmann; the
kind of presencing I'm thinking about is fundamental - someone "is"
there or not - the codes, protocols, are upon or within that matrix.
And presence is different in these areas. The "real damage" in SL isn't
one of disease, death, the violence of Darfur for example - modes of
coercion are very different and more benign in SL
[8:38] Alan Dojoji: They're absolute in FL
[8:38] You: - second, can you say more about Maud and Foofwa -
[8:39] You: there was a phrasee: they should be transparent,
[8:39] Alan Dojoji: Yes - it's as if they're following the gestural
order, regime, of SL etc. - but can't - the obdurate, inert gets in the
way.
[8:40] Alan Dojoji: For me this brings up again Abu Gharayb - what are
people thinking when they move the bodies of others into obscene
positionings and then photoraph them?
[8:40] You: yes!
[8:40] Alan Dojoji: (Which is one reason I want to see Abu Gharay
re-enacted here.)
[8:40] You: in Second Life....
[8:40] Alan Dojoji: Yes
[8:40] You: I'm curious about response to that (both from those
gathered here and in general)
[8:41] Morris Camel: id participate... i think thats a great idea
[8:41] You: In terms of following the gestural order - a good way of
putting it, I think -
[8:41] You: this isn't just at the level of chains of signs, but also
they way those stick to the body -
[8:42] Alan Dojoji: I think, under the Bush administration, this order
has been foregrounded in a sense - I'm thinking of the beheading of
Perl (Pearl?) and others as well.
[8:42] You: By "order" I'm thinking of a command and also a logic or
representation?
[8:42] Alan Dojoji: I think this confrontation with the imminence of
violence is a change of regime in a sense - YouTube etc. contributes to
this, the slaugter of the world becoming transparent
[8:43] You: and al jazeera (new network)
[8:43] You: news network
[8:43] Alan Dojoji: A logic or representation of a regime of commands -
[8:43] Alan Dojoji: Yes, and not just al jazeera -
[8:44] You: Can you discuss the effect of setting that order here?
[8:44] Alan Dojoji: I don't really know; I think it should be
explored..
[8:44] Alan Dojoji: For me SL appears like a safe house, literally
[8:44] Alan Dojoji: in that slaughter and mass animal extinctions seem
somehow remote
[8:45] You: i think sprites.mp4 relates?
[8:45] You: and wolf.mov
[8:45] Alan Dojoji: and they shojldn't be; the suffering - YES, please
look at this?
[8:45] You: look at sprites.mp4 under the mocap materials on the web
page
[8:45] Alan Dojoji: but they're not remote, they're contingent
[8:46] You: sprites is set at a wind power generating station in West
Virginia, USA, on a ridge above some old lead mines.
[8:47] Alan Dojoji: And the torn-up bodies were in direct relation to
Abu Gharayb
[8:47] You: There's a sense, for me, of natural power and intense
technological power.
[8:47] You: Also, look at wolf.mov in the mocap materials.
[8:48] Alan Dojoji: Wolf.mov was in response to 9/11 - the background
was shot in the "bathtub," the exposed basement of the blown-apart
towers,.
[8:49] You: again, the avatar is destroyed? reworked? eaten? from
within.
[8:49] Alan Dojoji: The foreground is a wolf mannequin from the Poser
software which is deliberately distorted by hand until the planes fall
apart; the mouth also opens, a destroyer as well
[8:50] Alan Dojoji: Susan Sontag, I think, wrote about the tens of
thousands of dead birds found around the towers...
[8:50] You: Well, please we welcome questions from all of you!!
[8:50] Alan Dojoji: I think this is a good place to stop for dialog,
if we can; we've done our best to present an outline of thework so far
[8:51] Alan Dojoji: In the future I'll be embedding these
figures/behaviors in a Cave (3d environment) , taking it out of
thecave, back in, etc. etc.
[8:51] Alan Dojoji: and working with Sandy and Foofwa on the results
which are still really unknown
[8:51] You: (thanks alan, was just going to mention that)
[8:51] Alan Dojoji: I also want to try working with more complex
motion capture equipment on one hand
[8:52] Alan Dojoji: and more complex bvh files on the other so that
larger amounts of data could be dynamically mapped onto virtual
organisms
[8:52] You: There's also another dimension of exploring analog waves,
radiations, etc. through very low frequency radio, crystal radio, etc.
[8:52] You: that seems to me to work in a counter space or dialog with
this work
[8:52] Alan Dojoji: But I'm probably kiding myself - this requires a
lot of computer science I don't know at all...
[8:52] Alan Dojoji: I depend on the kindness of strangers...
[8:52] You: Well, questions?
[8:53] Alan Dojoji: Just want to mention this text will be made
available online, with all its faullts and mistypings...
[8:53] You: Can you think of things to take from this to your own work
- or do you know of similar work in this area?
[8:53] You: yes, I will post it to the website and the blog
[8:53] You: and it will be available on the intimacy site
[8:54] Wave Looming: just a quick comment on the spirtes film
[8:54] You: ok
[8:54] Wave Looming: there is a real tension between what alan refers
to as the natural and technology power
[8:55] You: - those were my terrms (sandy) not sure if alan would
endorse that?
[8:55] Wave Looming: the wind seems to be generated by the power
planet which caused the body parts floating
[8:56] Alan Dojoji: Ah yes, I'm also thinking of the propellor vanes
themselves cutting into bodies; this happens with birds for example,
but here I'm thinking more of a microtome...
[8:56] Wave Looming: it can be read in many ways - floating =
suffering?
[8:56] Alan Dojoji: yes
[8:57] Wave Looming: or floating as a result of being tied together by
the wind?
[8:57] Alan Dojoji: maybe, re buddhism, suffering can also
beconsidered part of the natural order of things
[8:57] Wave Looming: perhaps, it can also been seen as a pleasure that
can only experienced in SL
[8:58] You: - I think of Sontag again, whom alan mentioned earlier -
re suffering and photos
[8:58] Alan Dojoji: I don't really see this degree of distortion as a
pleasure; if suffering is pleasurable as in masochism, I'd think it
would have to be implicit in real life, felt, keywords and all. the
difficulty for me is that it's hard toget away from SL cartooning, make
something felt as political, abject etc.
[8:59] You: i think, also, just as earlier we said that we don't have
a clearly articulated language for the mixture of FL & SL,
[8:59] Wave Looming: if it's intended to be read as suffering, then,
it makes me question more about the agency we think/believe we might
have in SL
[9:00] You: so too, viewers of these videos or of SL in general don't
know how to process the content & poltical point
[9:00] Alan Dojoji: I'm not sure the reading is that "intended" but
certainly the sphere, reference, is
[9:01] You: I think this question, like that of "staging" abu ghraib
here is an important one - especially if tethered to other media
(youtube, etc.)
[9:01] Wave Looming: it brings back the issues relates to the limits
in SL which also applies to the technological limits in RL
[9:02] Alan Dojoji: What I've seen or heard about re-enactment here -
it's art performance about art performance; I'm not sure why, when
there are so many more urgent things to explore
[9:02] You: - yes. Other questions?
[9:02] Alan Dojoji: The technological limits in RL are also -vis-a-vis
bandwidth - limits in SL. This is also related to limits of economy -
who canafford, for example, DSL, who has access to T1 or T3 lines at
what institutions, etc. -
[9:03] You: yes, or simply the economy of development, programming,
etc. definitely.
[9:03] Wave Looming: agree
[9:03] You: Well, thank you all for attending.
[9:04] You: If there are no more questions we will end this workshop.
[9:04] Wanderingfictions Story: Thank you very much for letting me come
[9:04] Morris Camel: yes, thank you!
[9:04] You: As we noted, the discussion, plus snaps and videos will be
posted - look on the blog and the workshop site...
[9:04] Alan Dojoji: I agree! We appreciate your coming; this is a long
session for SL I think -
[9:04] Alan Dojoji: so thank you also for bearing with us
[9:04] Joff Fassnacht: thanks
[9:05] Wave Looming: thanks
[9:05] Bee Hifeng: I've enjoyed the ideas that have been raised and
feel quite 'full up' lots to think about thanks
[9:05] Wanderingfictions Story: Its been fascinating
[9:05] Alan Dojoji: Thank you

(Session Ends)