lotu5 on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:39:30 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Becoming Dragon, Performance in the Fall |
I would like to announce this project I am beginning to work on. It is in a preliminary stage, as I am still seeking funding, but I do have early commitments from the Center for Research in Computing in the Arts (CRCA) and from two collaborators, Kael Greco and Christopher Head. Becoming Dragon: Stage 1 ------------------------ http://www.sharingissexy.org/wiki/index.php?title=Becoming_Dragon:_Stage_1 //Overview// I am interested in exploring the question of how technology can facilitate new somatic practices of gender and sexuality beyond male and female and even beyond the limitations of what we consider human. Using a conception of identity and a process of social interactions and feedback loops, I plan to use the online public space of Second Life as the site of my investigation. While Marshall McLuhan said that “We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us,” I am interested in the time after that. What is the process by which we shape our avatars and then our avatars shape us and then we reshape our avatars and on and on? In the Lacanian Mirror Stage, an infant tries to achieve the image of themselves that they see in the mirror when they mistakenly think they are standing on their own. How does this process continue in a feedback loop and develop into new conceptions of self beyond our current conceptions of our own limits? "The becoming-woman serves as a point of reference, and eventually as a screen for other types of becoming (example: becoming-child as in Schumann, becoming-animal as in Kafka, becoming-vegetable as in Novalis, becoming-mineral as in Beckett)... There is no such thing as woman per se! No maternal pole, no eternal feminine... The man/woman opposition serves to establish the social order before class and caste conflicts. Inversely, whatever shatters norms, whatever breaks from the established order, is related to homosexuality or a becoming-animal or a becoming-woman." - Felix Guattari, Becoming-Woman //The Performance// I would like to experiment with long durational performances of non-human characters in Second Life. How much immersion is possible? Transsexual people are required to live for a year as their chosen gender before being allowed by their psychologist to get their Gender Confirmation Surgery. Could this be replaced by virtual living? Many contemporary performance artists claim to be doing performances "in second life". I would like to try to get a little closer to this claim by waking up and falling asleep "in second life". My initial plan is to do up to 30 days "in second life", but I may have to scale back to 14 days. There is a long history of durational performances in performance art, such as Teching Hsieh's One Year Performance 1980 - 1981 (Time Piece) [5], Marina Abramovic's "When Time Becomes Form" [6] and her series of durational works, Joseph Beuys "I Like America and America Likes Me", and Chris Burden's "White Light/White Heat" [7] where he lived in the gallery. How does the duration of the performance change its effect? Can the identification with an Avatar or a virtually constructed identity be pushed farther than it is with frequent users of these environments? Can one live "in second life"? During the performance, I would be available to an audience both in Second Life and in the physical space of CRCA at Calit2. There are a number of interesting options for audience interaction such as the display wall, having multiple screens/computers in the performance space and even having an additional immersive environment where a viewer could participate. How can technology facilitate a powerful, interesting, compelling performance simultaneously in physical and virtual space? [edit] Technical Approach - Augmented Reality The goal here is to develop a working, immersive Augmented Reality system, to port a motion capture and head mounted display to control a character in Second Life, an Online Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). [Some Second Lifers use the term "Metaverse" over MMORPG to emphasize SL's very different "Magic Circle". In SL, the game is a very different one, less an escapist fantasy world of play, or a more mature projection of identity in an economy with real currency and a capitalist business culture designed to soften the connotations of gameplay ... -BS] [8] My initial conception of this project is to model my physical environment to enable me to live in the virtual environment for extended amounts of time. This is an approach of Augmented Reality, where the physical world is mapped into the virtual. Of course, Augmented Reality is a misnomer, because Reality itself is a mediated state, it seems a better term would be Augmented Bodies. The plan would be to use the following components: * An immersive head mounted display (HMD) The display would allow me to move around in my physical environment within calit2 and still remain "in game". Head tracking would help to provide a realistic feeling of immersion and audio is built-in to the device as well. * A motion tracking system. The Performative computing lab at CRCA houses a Vicon motion capture system, which allows real-time motion tracking data to be sent to a windows pc. Using these signals, I would be able to map my physical motion in the real world back into game space, so that, for example, I could easily get to my food source or to the restroom. * A computer running second life, receiving the data back from my physical interface and sending them to my character "in game", allowing me to participate in social interactions. //Limitations and Challenges// A number of "fundamental" components of "virtual reality" are not met by Second Life, or are hard to meet. * One main issue is stereoscopic or true 3d vision. Can Second Life be augmented/configured to send out two video feeds for the same character? * Another issue is the question of the Second Life API's and how much interactivity they facilitate. How can we send the Vicon motion capture system signals to second life to map into "in game" gestures? * Another hardware issue is the HMD. Many HMD's are heavy and not designed for long term use. In addition, having screens so close to one's eyes for an extended period of time is very strenuous. I plan to discuss the possible stress effects with a doctor at UCSD. //Timeline and Plan// In the spring 2008 quarter, I will be teaching an advanced elective in the Visual Arts Department entitled "Collective Art Practice - Networked and Performative Approaches to Challenging Power" with final projects in Second Life. If there are students who are interested in collaborating with me, they may work with some of the above mentioned hardware and software, collaborating and working towards the technical solutions to the above problems. You can read more about the class here: http://www.sharingissexy.org/wiki/index.php?title=Spring_Class_-_Collective_Art_Practice I plan to develop the technical components of the project between June and October, with a goal of doing the performance in November or December. //Conceptual Background and Frame// For more conceptual background and to see the other stages of my Becoming Dragon project, see Becoming Dragon: http://www.sharingissexy.org/wiki/index.php?title=Becoming_Dragon Footnotes 5. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/one-year-performance/video/1/ 6. http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/28029 7. http://www.feldmangallery.com/pages/exhsolo/exhbur75.html 8. BS - contributions from Brett Stalbaum -- blog: http://technotrannyslut.com gpg: 0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org