MIND, THE GAP
(synaesthesia and contemporary live art practice)
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Misuse can mean the crossing of wires, both literally or figuratively.
"Mind, the gap" is a practice-based research project dedicated to
the development of collaborative, interdisciplinary, performative live artworks
that are influenced by the notion of synaesthesia - the cross wiring of sensory
perceptions.
2.0 BACKGROUND
Synaesthesia (Greek, syn = together + aisthesis = perception) roughly translates
as "the bringing together of the senses" and refers to the phenomenon
that the stimulation of one sense modality gives rise to a simultaneous sensation
in another sense modality. In medical terms synaesthesia is often regarded
as a disorder, while people with the synaesthetic condition often regard it
as a gift.
Despite considerable scientific research there is little clarity as to what
causes synaesthesia. Some studies seek to prove that everybody is born with
synaesthetic abilities that diminish as a result of social conditioning, but
give little evidence of why others retain their abilities.
The notion of synaesthesia caused a buzz in both scientific and artistic spheres
in the early 20th century. Experiencing a revival in the 1960's, synaesthesia
was connected to hallucinative experiences (often induced by drugs), the arts,
science, pop/rock culture, new inventions - in short, the pursuit of a radically
new way of perceiving the world. In the late 1980's Ecstasy intensified the
sensations of ravers and clubbers to the brink of pre-hallucinogenic synaesthesia
- a regurgitation of the 60's. Currently, psychologists approach synaesthesia
foremost as a neurological phenomenon, while generally artists are exploring
digital devices to elicit synaesthesia. In the case of the latter example
most work has been carried out in the audio-visual sphere, and less focus
has been given to more complex modes of performance where more sensory combinations
are involved. (While several international institutions, such as the SIGGRAPH
2004 Conference Exhibition in Los Angeles and the ICA in London, have featured
synaesthesia as an exhibition theme that reflects the current in interest
in the topic, there is little evidence of work that stems from a performance
perspective in these events.)
The development and accessibility of digital and communications technologies
have increased the potential for artists to work in a multi-sensory mode.
Current art practices utilizing digital technology build "instruments"
in a "modular" fashion where digitized inputs from the analogue
world can be broken down to component properties and those parameters can
control or affect other properties of media. As such, they mimic synaesthesia.
Networked environments allow collaborating artists to affect each other’s
mediated inputs and outputs creating a cacophony of cross-wired connections
that affect the total output.
The integration of digital and communications technologies in everyday life
creates possibilities to experience the interaction and direct manipulation
of combined sensory activity - a potential readily grasped upon by mass media
and market industries. Additionally, prosthetic industrial technologies such
as ultrasound (that renders surface images of depth via sound) simultaneously
draw upon more than one sensory mode to reveal that which is otherwise hidden,
and can be considered in synaesthetic terms.
The title of my project, "Mind, the gap", can be read as a warning
sign. If synaesthetic influences are everywhere, and are commonly experienced,
consciously or subliminally, by everyone, what is the point of conducting
a research based on a focus on something as general as synaesthesia? While
I must admit to be fascinated by the phenomenon of "genuine" synaesthesia,
I am not concerned with issues such as whether or not notorious 19/20th century
artists like Alexander Scriabin and Wassily Kandinsky possessed genuine synaesthetic
abilities. However, I am interested in the social and historical context in
which they formed their ideas and synaesthetic systems.
My background is in dance where cross-sensory integration was daily fodder
throughout my education. I have worked professionally as co-director of the
artist collective "Motherboard" for the past 9 years creating collaborative,
hybrid, live art events, performances and installations that utilize and "misuse"
digital and communications technologies in process and realisation. From a
retrospective perspective several of these productions relate strongly to
the synaesthetic notion.
3.0 MIND, THE GAP
The synaesthetic notion cuts across the imaginary frontiers of the
senses and offers the potential of escape from the segregation of art genres.
It embraces elicited synaesthesia via cross-wiring analogue, digital, poetic
and conceptual devices.
"Mind, the gap" focuses on a formal/structural artistic approach
to the subject to inform the development of a performative live artwork where
synaesthetic strategies are employed to evoke both unusual sensory connections
and experiences and new aesthetic potentials.
3.1 Questions
01) What methods can be found to identify and structure synaesthetic traits
in performance/artworks?
02) Can an artwork be described as "successful" in synaesthetic
terms in relation to:
a) Process, input and output - from an artist perspective?
b) Output - influencing the way an audience perceives a work?
03) What is the relationship between stimuli (input), feedback and perceptions
(output), and time/space structures?
3.2 Process and product
While my aim is to produce an artwork at the end of my research period,
emphasis is placed on hands-on process and experimentation infused with analytic
and theoretic investigations.
I will conduct my research through the construction of an instrument with
synaesthetic abilities called "The Emotion Organ" (described below
in point 3.3). It will initially function as a research tool, and evolve as
an artwork. The gradual construction of "The Emotion Organ" will
feed into the research project "Mind, the gap" and vice versa. The
diagram below represents the feedback effect of process and product.
My main digital tool for hands-on experimenting is Keyworx, a multi-user
networked environment and media-synthesizing software currently in development
at WAAG (The Society for Old and New Media, www.keyworx.org) in Amsterdam.
Keyworx allows real-life gestures to enter and affect the collaborative environment
via periphery devices such as cameras, microphones and sensors. I have been
using Keyworx for both creating, sketching and prototyping artworks since
2000. When more refinement becomes a necessity, more specialised hard- and
softwares will be utilized and expert advice and competences will be sought,
drawing on national and international resources in the field of both the arts
and science, and the existing network that has grown through my work with
Motherboard.
By adopting a "working alone-together" approach I am able to remain
relatively autonomous in my special field of interest while working collaboratively
on specific areas of development and production.The diagram below represents
my current networking partners:
3.3 "The Emotion Organ"
I plan to transform a donated Ostlind and Almquist pump organ from
1901 into a synaesthetic testing instrument, exploring the potential of rebuilding
its existing mechanisms with electrical, mechanical and digital devices.
"The Emotion Organ" is inspired by a futuristic simulacra contraption
of the same name that features in Philip K. Dick's novel, "We can build
you" (1972). When played, the emotion organ could evoke the deepest of
emotions in the shallowest of people. My Emotion Organ will be treated as
a responsive body whose nervous system is made up of a networked combination
of hard- and software connections. I intend to extend the organ’s inputs
and outputs such that the player can "compose through experiencing",
with and through combinations of elements such as sound/music, projected imagery,
lights, scents/smells, and tactile and kinetic elements. As a networked instrument,
the potential to include stimulus from the world beyond shall be explored.
Theoretically, the Emotion Organ should function as
a) A device for driving/inspiring initial experiments.
The organ is a reed instrument. Air is pumped in and out of its bellows via
2 foot-pedals. It has 61 reeds corresponding to 61 keys that route the flow
of air to produce different tones, while 8 sliding knobs and 2 knee-levers
produce mood changes. The organ’s existing logic will be used as a point
of departure for extending its abilities by connecting diverse sensors and
devices to its various parts, which will feed information into a computer
program. The analogue input is translated to digital information. It passes
through custom made digital "emotion filters" which modulate or
transform various other predominantly live medias (for example, the video
image of the player) and control other additional physical devices (such as
the valves on airbrush bottles containing various aromas) to create a combination
of diverse sensory outputs - that can also be used as "new" inputs.
The challenge, then, is to design a system that is both functional and expressive.
Early experiments will therefore explore how combinations of sensory information
(primarily touch, sight, sound and smell) can be structured to elicit synaesthetic
responses and produce mood changes, and to find out how these can be organized
in terms of non-linear dramaturgy.
b) A diagnostic tool for "testing" a player's perception
of the synaesthetic output.
Guests will be invited to take part in a variety of sensory experiments and
prototype tests of the organ. Their responses will be used as feedback to
inform the development of the organ itself. This will also help to define
the risk factors involved regarding artistic value, technical functionality
and time scheduling. The multitudes of possibilities will be sharpened down
towards the final presentation of my project. Additionally, it may be feasible
that the organ is presented publicly as a synaesthetic testing machine.
c) A potential live art "object" for players of any age,
cultural background and ability.
The physical appearance of the organ is envisaged as an eclectic mix of ancient
and modern gadgetry - simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic; a keyboard
and a menagerie of sliders, knobs, buttons, switches, lights, bottles and
tubes, including a built-in computer connected to the internet, a projector
and a responsive piano stool. It should be seductive, inviting people to touch
and play with it. When played with, the organ will release a synergy of sensory
information, which, having passed through digital "emotion filters",
evoke roller-coaster states of emotion that are not necessarily controllable,
but never the less make sense. "The Emotion Organ" will therefore
be a spectacle as an art object, and simultaneously the main instrument in
a live performance.
d) A potential instrument for live performances by virtuoso players.
Imagine that a pianist is invited to play Beethoven’s "5th Symphony"
on "The Emotion Organ" - and experiences very unusual results!
3.4 Presentation and documentation
"The Emotion Organ" will be presented publicly in the form of a
live art performance/ installation in November/December 2006. The main format
for the documentation of "Mind, the gap" is a comprehensive website
containing:
a) Texts - project notes, references and reflections.
b) Visual representations - diagrams, illustrations and photographs.
c) Audio-visual media – reference and documentation media.
d) Relevant links.
The design shall clearly represent my process and promote easy use in terms
of structure and navigation, and shall evolve in relation to my progress.
The final version will also contain a print-friendly reflection of the presentation
of "The Emotion Organ" based on my own assessments and the reactions
of the public. The website should also function as a resource for a wider
public.
3.5 References: articles and papers
(Syn)aesthetics and Disturbance - A Preliminary Overview
Josephine Machon, Body, Space and Technology Journal,
Vol 1 No.2, Brunel University
KeyWorx: A Working-Alone-Together Reflection - Collaborative practice
on a collaborative product
Sher Doruff, Waag Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam
Digital Space: A Summary
David Dunn and Woody Vasulka
Hypermedia and mediation
James C. Morrison, Media Ecology Association Publications, 2000
Tele-synaesthesia: presentation of a hypothesis
Dr. Hugo, 1997
Synaesthetic Performance In The Club Scene
Annet Dekker, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts
Amsterdam
Kinetic Synaesthesia: Experiencing Dance in Multimedia Scenographies
Marc Boucher, Contemporary Aesthetics, Vol 2, 2004
New Directions in Audience Research. Advances in Reception and Audience
Research 2
Willmar Sauter (ed), Tijdschrift voor Teaterwetenschap, 1988
Synesthesia: Phenomenology And Neuropsychology. A Review of Current Knowledge
Richard E. Cytowic, PSYCHE, 2 (10), 1995
[see the "links" section for URLS to several of these items]
4.0 DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Since my employment at the Norwegian Theatre Academy in May 2002 I have experimented
with various forms of networked environments in relation to performance/live
art situations. I have used and tested this research by attending and speaking
at international symposiums, in collaborative performances and live art events
with (amongst others) Motherboard, by leading workshops in Norway and Uganda,
and producing a video work that has been screened internationally, as well
as publishing articles. Through these activities and many conversations with
colleagues, the notion of synaesthesia has gradually emerged as an important
factor for how I approach issues of interactivity in such environments and
appeals to my interest in cross-wired sensory connections.
Earlier this year I collaborated with my colleague Per Platou to develop a
project called "The 8th Sister" that is, in principle, strongly
connected to the notion of synaesthesia. This project has successfully received
funding from Arts Council Norway and will hopefully be realized as a Motherboard
event in the summertime, 2005. As "The 8th Sister" is relevant to
my work leading up to this application, it will be included in "Mind,
the gap" as research material and documentation.
This is my proposed schedule for the next 2 years.
December 2004
Refinement and public release of the website "Mind, the gap".
Spring/summer 2005
Identify and prototype key areas and difficult processes. Conceptual/artistic
development. Website.
Autumn/winter 2005
"Soft" reconstruction work. Prototype tests. Decide on the final
hard- and software platform. Conceptual/artistic development. Website.
Spring/summer 2006
Hardcore reconstruction of the organ, programming and testing. Conceptual/artistic
development. Website.
Autumn/winter 2006
Focus on the artistic output of the work, adjustments and tests. Website.
November/December 2006
Public presentation of The Emotion Organ.
Presentation of the Emotion Organ and final documentation of my research project
"Mind, the gap" for a selected evaluation committee.
5.0 THE BIG PICTURE
The organ transformed by accessible, modern day technology draws a red line
from the early 20th C, a period of rapid developments in the arts, science
and technology, to the current day.
As an experimental interdisciplinary artwork heavily influenced by my background
in the performing arts it should generate both national and international
interest.
Today artists engaged in issues of how technology is affecting our environment
and the way we live our lives are a driving force in offering alternative
(and resistant) visions of the way our world is perceived. I hope that through
my research project "Mind, the gap" and the consequent development
of "The Emotion Organ" as an artwork, I can contribute to the expanding
research in this field.
Amanda Steggell
(Oslo, 08.11.04)