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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
History of Maps
A brief history of maps with some great map links!
http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/map/h_map/h_map.htm
An explanation of the Cartesian Co-ordinate system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_coordinate_system
Book: Wayfinding Behavior: Cognitive Mapping and other Spatial Practices
http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/map/h_map/h_map.htm
An explanation of the Cartesian Co-ordinate system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_coordinate_system
Book: Wayfinding Behavior: Cognitive Mapping and other Spatial Practices
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Assignment for 2/25
For this week, you are to pick a partner. With your partner, you will go to a location where each one of you took a picture for last weeks "Photograph a heterotopia" assignment. When you near the location, the person who took the picture will lead the person who did not take the picture around the location. The person who did not take the picture will have their eyes closed and will explore the site through sound, smell, touch, taste, weight, mass, volume, sensation, association, memory, experience (Yi Fu Tuan). The person with their eyes closed will narrate their experience into the cell phone, phoning into the blog via Hipcast (see Neighborhood Narratives blog post on "Recording from your telephone") The person who took the picture (the photographer) will function at their site only as a seeing guide. Repeat with the the roles changed at the other person's site.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Photo assignment
...which was to walk around New Brunswick and try to photography Heterotopias, which you will understand (or try to) from the Foucault reading and post the photos to Flickr and link your Flickr account to your blog.
Answers
You are supposed to pick one question about each reading from a classmate (by going to their blog and reading their questions). Then you answer each one (3 in total) by writing on your blog.
Final Blog address list
Delete Julia Weich, add Tom Septak, change Jamie Kulger address and change Cassandra Sebastian Pernia address
Alexandra Stein http://astein-neighborhoodnarratives.blogspot.com
Amanda Downs http://amandadowns1.blogspot.com
Candace Lo http://blogcandace.blogspot.com
Cassandra Sebastian Pernia http://cassandrapernia.blogspot.com/
Daniel Weingard http://danielweingardsblog.blogspot.com/
Danielle Ditaranto http://rutgers-nn.blogspot.com
Denise Christinereed http://denniissee.blogspot.com
Donna Joseph http://donnajo58.blogspot.com
Emily Suzuki http://emilysuzuki.blogspot.com/
Gabriella Potievsky http://gabpot.blogger.com
Jamie Kulger http://jamiekugs.blogspot.com/
Justin Debrosse http://jdebross.blogspot.com
Kathryn Nguyen http://springnarratives.blogspot.com/
Kristie Alicia http://krisalicea.blogspot.com/
Lindsay Hulme http://disgustingthing.blogspot.com/
Mariam Ali http://psychgirl-thenandnow.blogspot.com/
Mary Finelli http://mfinelli.blogspot.com
Melanie Macdonald http://rutgersspring09-nn-melanie.blogspot.com/
Mindy Hsu http://itchyagnes.blogspot.com
Naeemah Davis http://naeemahi.blogspot.com/
Patrick Ree http://mysteree-mystery.blogspot.com/
Sarah Liguori http://sarahlig.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Danbrowney http://sdanbrow.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Schulman http://stepschu22.blogspot.com/
Sunny Eden http://sunnygulrajani.blogspot.com/
Tom Septak http://tomseptak.blogspot.com
Alexandra Stein http://astein-neighborhoodnarratives.blogspot.com
Amanda Downs http://amandadowns1.blogspot.com
Candace Lo http://blogcandace.blogspot.com
Cassandra Sebastian Pernia http://cassandrapernia.blogspot.com/
Daniel Weingard http://danielweingardsblog.blogspot.com/
Danielle Ditaranto http://rutgers-nn.blogspot.com
Denise Christinereed http://denniissee.blogspot.com
Donna Joseph http://donnajo58.blogspot.com
Emily Suzuki http://emilysuzuki.blogspot.com/
Gabriella Potievsky http://gabpot.blogger.com
Jamie Kulger http://jamiekugs.blogspot.com/
Justin Debrosse http://jdebross.blogspot.com
Kathryn Nguyen http://springnarratives.blogspot.com/
Kristie Alicia http://krisalicea.blogspot.com/
Lindsay Hulme http://disgustingthing.blogspot.com/
Mariam Ali http://psychgirl-thenandnow.blogspot.com/
Mary Finelli http://mfinelli.blogspot.com
Melanie Macdonald http://rutgersspring09-nn-melanie.blogspot.com/
Mindy Hsu http://itchyagnes.blogspot.com
Naeemah Davis http://naeemahi.blogspot.com/
Patrick Ree http://mysteree-mystery.blogspot.com/
Sarah Liguori http://sarahlig.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Danbrowney http://sdanbrow.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Schulman http://stepschu22.blogspot.com/
Sunny Eden http://sunnygulrajani.blogspot.com/
Tom Septak http://tomseptak.blogspot.com
Friday, February 13, 2009
Connecting Flickr to Blogger
It took me *forever* to figure all of this out, as I had completely forgotten and some of the settings are hard to find.
Okay, there are different ways you can post to your blog from Flickr and you can see three ways in my test blog here
1) To blog a photo from Flickr so that it shows up as a post:
In your flickr account, go to Your Account.
There are 4 subheadings: Personal Information | Privacy & Permissions | Email | Extending Flickr. The page you that you will see is Personal Information. Click the tab 'Extending Flickr' and go to that page. Under 'Your Blogs', click the link 'Configure your Flickr-to-blog settings.'
Choose Blogger Blog, Click ‘Next’
On that page, click 'Head over to google now'
At the bottom of that page, click 'Grant Access'
Choose your blog from your list of Blogs (if you have a list), otherwise it will just display your blog name. Click 'Next'
It will display your blog url and all the information it needs. Click 'All done'.
Click 'Create a custom template' and choose one (or not). Click 'Done'.
Okay, now go to your PhotoStream in Flickr:
Click on any photo in your album so that you get the large size in its own window. Above the image, you will see a button for 'Blog This'. Click on that button and you should see the link for your blog. Click on the link and you see a template where you can add text or not and 'Post Entry'. Voila!
2) If you want to Add a Gadget and have a permanent side bar link:
Go to the Layout page in your blog and Add a Gadget.
If you would like to add a slideshow: In Configure Slideshow, give it a title, and then pick source: Flickr. Type in your username and it should identify your photos. When you see your photos appear in the little window, click 'Save'.
If you want to add a photo as a sidebar: Go to Flickr, pick the photo that you want and click on it to get the large size in a separate window.
Click on button above the image 'All sizes". Below the photo, you will see a box that says 'Grab this photos url'. Copy the url. Then go to Blogger/Layout/Add a Gadget. Choose 'Add a Picture'. You will get a small window that gives you Title: whatever you want, Caption: whatever you want, Link: leave blank. Image: check the box for 'From the web" and paste in the url for your photo. The url code starts with http://and ends with.jpg. If you don't have the .jpg code, then you have grabbed the wrong code. you cannot use the url from the browser address line as it does not end with .jpg. Click 'Save" and you are done.
3) Linking a photo from Flickr in the body of a text without blogging from Flickr (i.e you might be using someone else's image).
Go through the steps to find the url of the image listed above (All sizes and then below the image). In your posting template for your blog, choose the picture icon. A new window appears that allows you to upload from your computer or add an image from the web. Paste in the url into the web address box. Click 'Upload Image" and you are done.
Okay, there are different ways you can post to your blog from Flickr and you can see three ways in my test blog here
1) To blog a photo from Flickr so that it shows up as a post:
In your flickr account, go to Your Account.
There are 4 subheadings: Personal Information | Privacy & Permissions | Email | Extending Flickr. The page you that you will see is Personal Information. Click the tab 'Extending Flickr' and go to that page. Under 'Your Blogs', click the link 'Configure your Flickr-to-blog settings.'
Choose Blogger Blog, Click ‘Next’
On that page, click 'Head over to google now'
At the bottom of that page, click 'Grant Access'
Choose your blog from your list of Blogs (if you have a list), otherwise it will just display your blog name. Click 'Next'
It will display your blog url and all the information it needs. Click 'All done'.
Click 'Create a custom template' and choose one (or not). Click 'Done'.
Okay, now go to your PhotoStream in Flickr:
Click on any photo in your album so that you get the large size in its own window. Above the image, you will see a button for 'Blog This'. Click on that button and you should see the link for your blog. Click on the link and you see a template where you can add text or not and 'Post Entry'. Voila!
2) If you want to Add a Gadget and have a permanent side bar link:
Go to the Layout page in your blog and Add a Gadget.
If you would like to add a slideshow: In Configure Slideshow, give it a title, and then pick source: Flickr. Type in your username and it should identify your photos. When you see your photos appear in the little window, click 'Save'.
If you want to add a photo as a sidebar: Go to Flickr, pick the photo that you want and click on it to get the large size in a separate window.
Click on button above the image 'All sizes". Below the photo, you will see a box that says 'Grab this photos url'. Copy the url. Then go to Blogger/Layout/Add a Gadget. Choose 'Add a Picture'. You will get a small window that gives you Title: whatever you want, Caption: whatever you want, Link: leave blank. Image: check the box for 'From the web" and paste in the url for your photo. The url code starts with http://and ends with.jpg. If you don't have the .jpg code, then you have grabbed the wrong code. you cannot use the url from the browser address line as it does not end with .jpg. Click 'Save" and you are done.
3) Linking a photo from Flickr in the body of a text without blogging from Flickr (i.e you might be using someone else's image).
Go through the steps to find the url of the image listed above (All sizes and then below the image). In your posting template for your blog, choose the picture icon. A new window appears that allows you to upload from your computer or add an image from the web. Paste in the url into the web address box. Click 'Upload Image" and you are done.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
How to photograph a heterotopia
When I say walk around New Brunswick and photograph heterotopias, what I actually mean are spaces that are "time out of time" and "place out of place"... which, in Foucault's terms, are parks, contained spaces, mirror reflections, prisons and insane asylums (but I doubt anyone is photographing these), hospitals (maybe), schools (maybe), but in general, things in everyday life that seem like contained, separate spaces.
It is interesting to see what you glean from the reading and how you interpret this in your photographs. This is actually quite challenging but I just made your life a lot easier by giving you these hints.
It is interesting to see what you glean from the reading and how you interpret this in your photographs. This is actually quite challenging but I just made your life a lot easier by giving you these hints.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Psychogeography
The Situationist International and Guy Debord experimented in the 1950s by wandering around urban cities, recording the emotional pulse emitting from the metropolis. Known as drifting, these artists would chart human experience to a geographic map to create psychogeography.
Networked Performance on the Turbulence web site displays different projects that operate in the realm of psychogeography:
http://transition.turbulence.org/blog/tags/pyschogeography/
and from Wikipedia, a definition of Psychogeography
Networked Performance on the Turbulence web site displays different projects that operate in the realm of psychogeography:
http://transition.turbulence.org/blog/tags/pyschogeography/
and from Wikipedia, a definition of Psychogeography
Psychogeography
The Situationist International and Guy Debord experimented in the 1950s by wandering around urban cities, recording the emotional pulse emitting from the metropolis. Known as drifting, these artists would chart human experience to a geographic map to create psychogeography.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Of Other Spaces
After reading the essay "Of Other Spaces," you may realize that the argument can be made that the mixed reality spaces that are created by the simultaneous experience of real place and the metaverse of Cyberspace is a third, heterotopic space - a time out of time, and a place out of place.
Here is a brief summation of the paper by Rickie Sanders, Professor of Geography, Temple University:
In his paper, “Of Other Spaces” Michel Foucault called attention to the centrality of space in the 20th century. Indeed it has surpassed history as the great obsession of our time. In his paper he moves along a theoretical trajectory which builds on a medieval hierarchical notion of space, substitutes it with a modern theory of extended space, and ultimately displaces both with the postmodernist claim to site. The site, is both central to the culture and at the same time, set aside – the cemetery, the prison or the hospital – mirrored in the actions that take place there.
Here is a brief summation of the paper by Rickie Sanders, Professor of Geography, Temple University:
In his paper, “Of Other Spaces” Michel Foucault called attention to the centrality of space in the 20th century. Indeed it has surpassed history as the great obsession of our time. In his paper he moves along a theoretical trajectory which builds on a medieval hierarchical notion of space, substitutes it with a modern theory of extended space, and ultimately displaces both with the postmodernist claim to site. The site, is both central to the culture and at the same time, set aside – the cemetery, the prison or the hospital – mirrored in the actions that take place there.
Adding student list
If you go into the Layout of Blogger and click on the sidebar selection of Add a Gadget, you get a small second window that then has a list of types of gadgets that you can choose from. You pick LINK LIST and then hit the little + sign. It will put you on a window called "Configure Link List". You give it the name "Students" and then you have to copy and paste into the new site name, the name of the student and into the New Site url, the url of the person's blog. It is a bit copy and paste intensive, but takes about 15 minutes to do everyone.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Blog Addresses
Here are all the blog addresses to add to the "Add a Gadget" function in the Layout mode of your blog. Call the gadget "Stundents" and add it as a list of urls. Also remember to put a link in for Main class blog with the url (http://rutgersspring09-nn.blogspot.com/) in a separate gadget.
Students:
Alexandra Stein http://astein-neighborhoodnarratives.blogspot.com
Amanda Downs http://amandadowns1.blogspot.com
Candace Lo http://blogcandace.blogspot.com
Cassandra Sebastian Pernia http://cassandra.blogspot.com/
Daniel Weingard http://danielweingardsblog.blogspot.com/
Danielle Ditaranto http://rutgers-nn.blogspot.com
Denise Christinereed http://denniissee.blogspot.com
Donna Joseph http://donnajo58.blogspot.com.
Emily Suzuki http://emilysuzuki.blogspot.com/
Gabriella Potievsky http://gabpot.blogger.com
Jamie Kulger http://jkugler.blogspot.com
Julia Weich http://jwiech.blogspot.com/
Justin Debrosse http://jdebross.blogspot.com
Kathryn Nguyen http://springnarratives.blogspot.com/
Kira McDonald http://gooselamp.blogspot.com
Kristie Alicia http://krisalicea.blogspot.com/
Lindsay Hulme http://disgustingthing.blogspot.com/
Mariam Ali http://psychgirl-thenandnow.blogspot.com/
Mary Finelli http://mfinelli.blogspot.com
Melanie Macdonald http://rutgersspring09-nn-melanie.blogspot.com/
Mindy Hsu http://itchyagnes.blogspot.com
Naeemah Davis http://naeemahi.blogspot.com/
Patrick Ree http://mysteree-mystery.blogspot.com/
Sarah Liguori http://sarahlig.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Danbrowney http://sdanbrow.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Schulman http://stepschu22.blogspot.com/
Sunny Eden http://sunnygulrajani.blogspot.com/
Students:
Alexandra Stein http://astein-neighborhoodnarratives.blogspot.com
Amanda Downs http://amandadowns1.blogspot.com
Candace Lo http://blogcandace.blogspot.com
Cassandra Sebastian Pernia http://cassandra.blogspot.com/
Daniel Weingard http://danielweingardsblog.blogspot.com/
Danielle Ditaranto http://rutgers-nn.blogspot.com
Denise Christinereed http://denniissee.blogspot.com
Donna Joseph http://donnajo58.blogspot.com.
Emily Suzuki http://emilysuzuki.blogspot.com/
Gabriella Potievsky http://gabpot.blogger.com
Jamie Kulger http://jkugler.blogspot.com
Julia Weich http://jwiech.blogspot.com/
Justin Debrosse http://jdebross.blogspot.com
Kathryn Nguyen http://springnarratives.blogspot.com/
Kira McDonald http://gooselamp.blogspot.com
Kristie Alicia http://krisalicea.blogspot.com/
Lindsay Hulme http://disgustingthing.blogspot.com/
Mariam Ali http://psychgirl-thenandnow.blogspot.com/
Mary Finelli http://mfinelli.blogspot.com
Melanie Macdonald http://rutgersspring09-nn-melanie.blogspot.com/
Mindy Hsu http://itchyagnes.blogspot.com
Naeemah Davis http://naeemahi.blogspot.com/
Patrick Ree http://mysteree-mystery.blogspot.com/
Sarah Liguori http://sarahlig.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Danbrowney http://sdanbrow.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Schulman http://stepschu22.blogspot.com/
Sunny Eden http://sunnygulrajani.blogspot.com/
Foucault reading
I just made the link on the syllabus active, but for those of you who don't want to scroll down and find it, here it is again:
http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html
http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Recording from your telephone
To record from your telephone, which is called Moblogging (meaning Mobile Blogging),
you can call (214) 615-6431.
When prompted, enter your PIN: 181-197-551 #
Your options will be: Record and Publish, or Record and Not Publish. If you select Record and Publish, you will be prompted for your Blog Number or Podcast Number.
The blog number is 1018.
Try it to test it!
you can call (214) 615-6431.
When prompted, enter your PIN: 181-197-551 #
Your options will be: Record and Publish, or Record and Not Publish. If you select Record and Publish, you will be prompted for your Blog Number or Podcast Number.
The blog number is 1018.
Try it to test it!
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Portraits in the 21st Century
The portrait I described in class is Merce Cunningham, with Shelly Eshkar, Paul Kaiser and Marc Downie: Loops
and here is the project again and if you click on the link where it says "Loops is opened up completely, you get the information for open source code, creative commons copyright liscence, all the motion capture data etc. You can build on the project, if you can code...:(
Public release of Merce Cunningham’s Loops Choreography
Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 6:30 PM
Merce Cunningham Studio
New York, NY—Merce Cunningham Dance Company and The OpenEnded Group present the public release of Merce Cunningham’s choreography for his signature solo dance Loops, and the accompanying digital artwork created by The OpenEnded Group, on Tuesday, February 26 at 6:30 PM in the Merce Cunningham Studio. This event is co-hosted by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. The evening will include a presentation of the choreography and of the digital artwork, remarks from Merce Cunningham as well as Paul Kaiser and Marc Downie of The OpenEnded Group, and a reception. The choreography for Loops will be made available under a “copyleft” intellectual property license (in the form championed by Creative Commons). This will permit anyone to perform, reproduce, and adapt this work for non-commercial purposes. Simultaneously, the digital artists of The OpenEnded Group (Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar, and Paul Kaiser) will release their digital portrait of Cunningham, also entitled Loops, as open source software. This artwork derives from a highresolution 3D recording of Cunningham performing the solo with his hands. The artists will also unveil a completely new realization of the work, now in color. The open source release will give digital artists and scholars the freedom to study the artwork in detail and to adapt or remix the artwork creatively. The release will also constitute a kind of “living will” for the artwork so that it can be recreated long after current technology has been superseded. This open source release goes beyond Loops itself, for it includes the complete multimedia authoring system, Field, that underpins Loops as well as other of the most technically challenging artworks made to date, spanning realtime graphics, interactive performance, and digital music. The open source release of Loops is made possible through support from the Cunningham Dance Foundation with major support provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. All the original materials for Loops will become part of the Merce Cunningham Archive at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center. The Merce Cunningham Archive was created unofficially by David Vaughan when he was hired by Merce Cunningham as studio administrator in December 1959. In 1976, his job as archivist was formalized by a National Endowment for the Arts grant for a two-year pilot project. At the end of that period, the Cunningham Dance Foundation asked him to remain as the first archivist in the history of American dance companies. The Merce Cunningham Archive’s works on paper include a virtually complete set of programs of performances, posters and flyers, Cunningham's personal choreographic notes from the 1930s to the present, books and periodicals of writing by Cunningham and Cage, as well as books and periodicals about Merce Cunningham Dance Company. The electronic media works include Cunningham's personal choreographic notes, dating from 1991, constituting some 50 hours of computer files; original moving camera recordings related to Cunningham's film/video collaborations; master films and videotapes; and recordings of performances and rehearsals, recorded interviews, documentaries, and newscasts featuring Cunningham and his work. There are approximately 1000 still images, approximately 200 hours of audiotapes and phonograph records of music relating to the repertoire; and sound recordings of music and of interviews, lectures and symposia, and oral histories. Merce Cunningham Studio is located at 55 Bethune Street, 11th floor, in Manhattan.
______________________________________________
Loops
Cunningham created Loops as a solo dance for himself in 1971 and continued to perform it until 2001. Though he originally danced it with his full body, Cunningham soon started channeling its intricate movements entirely into his fingers, hands, and arms. In this form, Loops became the signature solo work of Cunningham’s later career, often inserted as a cameo into Merce
Cunningham Dance Company Events. Cunningham eventually set Loops on an artificial “performer,” a software intelligence embodied in an abstract body coded and created by The OpenEnded artists for a virtual version of the work. This digital version of Loops was commissioned by the MIT Media Lab in 2001 and derives from a definitive recording of Cunningham performing the work in a motion capture studio. This recording preserved the intricate performance as 3D data, which portrayed not Cunningham’s appearance, but rather his motion. Cunningham’s joints become nodes in a network that sets them into fluctuating relationships with one another, at times suggesting the hands underlying them, but more often
depicting complex cat’s-cradle variations. These nodes render themselves in a series of related styles, rendered to resemble gesture drawings. The Loops soundtrack has two elements. The first is Cunningham reading carefully compiled diary
entries from his first three-day visit to New York City in 1937 at age 17, a marvelous evocation both of the spaces of Manhattan and of the young Cunningham. The second is a musical response to the sound and semantics of the narration as well as to the structural changes occurring on screen. This work draws upon sounds from the prepared piano of long-time Cunningham collaborator John Cage and, like the visual elements, creates itself in real-time. Just as the Loops imagery constructs a set of interacting processes that observe and recast the motion of Cunningham’s hands, the new score takes a set of interacting musical processes that listen to and restate the sound and language of Cunningham’s narration. Like Loops the physical dance, Loops the digital artwork is always "performed" live (computed and rendered in real-time), with no two performances the same. As a live performance it suggests the immortality of a dance that would appear to be fleeting and ephemeral. As a subject for creative reinterpretation, the digital work offers something radically new. Since the internal structure of Loops is revealed completely in its visibly open source, re-implementations of it can go far beyond the present-day practice of “remixes,” which operate only on the surface rather than on the structure of the original work. Merce Cunningham, born in Centralia, Washington, received his first formal dance and theater training at the Cornish School (now Cornish College of the Arts) in Seattle. From 1939 to 1945, he was a soloist in the company of Martha Graham and presented his first New York solo concert with John Cage in April 1944. Cunningham has choreographed nearly 200 works for his company. Cunningham's interest in contemporary technology has led him to work with the computer program DanceForms, which he has used in making all his dances since Trackers (1991). In 1997 he began work in motion capture with Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar of Riverbed Media to develop the decor for BIPED, with music by Gavin Bryars, first performed in 1999 at Zellerbach Hall, University of California at Berkeley. Another major work, Interscape, first given in 2000, reunited Cunningham with his early collaborator Robert Rauschenberg, who designed both décor and costumes for the dance, which has music by John Cage. In the 2002–03 season MCDC celebrated its 50th anniversary, beginning with performances at the 2002 Lincoln Center Festival in New York City and ending in the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival in October 2003, when a new work with music by two rock bands, Radiohead and Sigur Rós, Split Sides, was presented. The décor was by the photographers Robert Heishman and Catherine Yass, with costumes by James Hall and lighting by James F. Ingalls. Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge, an exhibition of recent design for MCDC, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, in January 2007. The major exhibition Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts closed on October 13, 2007. Cunningham’s most recent dance, XOVER, was presented at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in October 2007, featuring décor and costumes by Robert Rauschenberg, music by John Cage, and lighting by Josh Johnson. The Company also performs regularly at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries as part of the Hudson Valley Project, a series of residencies continuing into 2009.
The OpenEnded Group (openendedgroup.com) has its roots in film, dance, drawing, writing, computer graphics, and artificial intelligence, creating digital artworks like no others. Artists Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar, and Paul Kaiser have created numerous acclaimed works for stage, screen, gallery, and public space. Prior to Loops, their most notable collaboration with Cunningham was BIPED (1999), a tour-de-force of dance and technology that remains in Cunningham’s repertory. They have also worked with two other choreographers, Trisha Brown (how long does the subject linger on the edge of the volume... [2004]) and Bill T. Jones (Ghostcatching [1999] and 22 [2005]). Other OpenEnded works include the public art installation Pedestrian (2002), which has been extensively exhibited around the world, and two public art commissions from Lincoln Center: Enlightenment (2006) and Breath (2007).
# # #
Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Merce Cunningham Studio, 11th floor
55 Bethune Street, New York, NY 10014
tel: 212.255.8240 x14 fax: 212.633.2453
merce.org
and here is the project again and if you click on the link where it says "Loops is opened up completely, you get the information for open source code, creative commons copyright liscence, all the motion capture data etc. You can build on the project, if you can code...:(
Public release of Merce Cunningham’s Loops Choreography
Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 6:30 PM
Merce Cunningham Studio
New York, NY—Merce Cunningham Dance Company and The OpenEnded Group present the public release of Merce Cunningham’s choreography for his signature solo dance Loops, and the accompanying digital artwork created by The OpenEnded Group, on Tuesday, February 26 at 6:30 PM in the Merce Cunningham Studio. This event is co-hosted by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. The evening will include a presentation of the choreography and of the digital artwork, remarks from Merce Cunningham as well as Paul Kaiser and Marc Downie of The OpenEnded Group, and a reception. The choreography for Loops will be made available under a “copyleft” intellectual property license (in the form championed by Creative Commons). This will permit anyone to perform, reproduce, and adapt this work for non-commercial purposes. Simultaneously, the digital artists of The OpenEnded Group (Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar, and Paul Kaiser) will release their digital portrait of Cunningham, also entitled Loops, as open source software. This artwork derives from a highresolution 3D recording of Cunningham performing the solo with his hands. The artists will also unveil a completely new realization of the work, now in color. The open source release will give digital artists and scholars the freedom to study the artwork in detail and to adapt or remix the artwork creatively. The release will also constitute a kind of “living will” for the artwork so that it can be recreated long after current technology has been superseded. This open source release goes beyond Loops itself, for it includes the complete multimedia authoring system, Field, that underpins Loops as well as other of the most technically challenging artworks made to date, spanning realtime graphics, interactive performance, and digital music. The open source release of Loops is made possible through support from the Cunningham Dance Foundation with major support provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. All the original materials for Loops will become part of the Merce Cunningham Archive at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center. The Merce Cunningham Archive was created unofficially by David Vaughan when he was hired by Merce Cunningham as studio administrator in December 1959. In 1976, his job as archivist was formalized by a National Endowment for the Arts grant for a two-year pilot project. At the end of that period, the Cunningham Dance Foundation asked him to remain as the first archivist in the history of American dance companies. The Merce Cunningham Archive’s works on paper include a virtually complete set of programs of performances, posters and flyers, Cunningham's personal choreographic notes from the 1930s to the present, books and periodicals of writing by Cunningham and Cage, as well as books and periodicals about Merce Cunningham Dance Company. The electronic media works include Cunningham's personal choreographic notes, dating from 1991, constituting some 50 hours of computer files; original moving camera recordings related to Cunningham's film/video collaborations; master films and videotapes; and recordings of performances and rehearsals, recorded interviews, documentaries, and newscasts featuring Cunningham and his work. There are approximately 1000 still images, approximately 200 hours of audiotapes and phonograph records of music relating to the repertoire; and sound recordings of music and of interviews, lectures and symposia, and oral histories. Merce Cunningham Studio is located at 55 Bethune Street, 11th floor, in Manhattan.
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Loops
Cunningham created Loops as a solo dance for himself in 1971 and continued to perform it until 2001. Though he originally danced it with his full body, Cunningham soon started channeling its intricate movements entirely into his fingers, hands, and arms. In this form, Loops became the signature solo work of Cunningham’s later career, often inserted as a cameo into Merce
Cunningham Dance Company Events. Cunningham eventually set Loops on an artificial “performer,” a software intelligence embodied in an abstract body coded and created by The OpenEnded artists for a virtual version of the work. This digital version of Loops was commissioned by the MIT Media Lab in 2001 and derives from a definitive recording of Cunningham performing the work in a motion capture studio. This recording preserved the intricate performance as 3D data, which portrayed not Cunningham’s appearance, but rather his motion. Cunningham’s joints become nodes in a network that sets them into fluctuating relationships with one another, at times suggesting the hands underlying them, but more often
depicting complex cat’s-cradle variations. These nodes render themselves in a series of related styles, rendered to resemble gesture drawings. The Loops soundtrack has two elements. The first is Cunningham reading carefully compiled diary
entries from his first three-day visit to New York City in 1937 at age 17, a marvelous evocation both of the spaces of Manhattan and of the young Cunningham. The second is a musical response to the sound and semantics of the narration as well as to the structural changes occurring on screen. This work draws upon sounds from the prepared piano of long-time Cunningham collaborator John Cage and, like the visual elements, creates itself in real-time. Just as the Loops imagery constructs a set of interacting processes that observe and recast the motion of Cunningham’s hands, the new score takes a set of interacting musical processes that listen to and restate the sound and language of Cunningham’s narration. Like Loops the physical dance, Loops the digital artwork is always "performed" live (computed and rendered in real-time), with no two performances the same. As a live performance it suggests the immortality of a dance that would appear to be fleeting and ephemeral. As a subject for creative reinterpretation, the digital work offers something radically new. Since the internal structure of Loops is revealed completely in its visibly open source, re-implementations of it can go far beyond the present-day practice of “remixes,” which operate only on the surface rather than on the structure of the original work. Merce Cunningham, born in Centralia, Washington, received his first formal dance and theater training at the Cornish School (now Cornish College of the Arts) in Seattle. From 1939 to 1945, he was a soloist in the company of Martha Graham and presented his first New York solo concert with John Cage in April 1944. Cunningham has choreographed nearly 200 works for his company. Cunningham's interest in contemporary technology has led him to work with the computer program DanceForms, which he has used in making all his dances since Trackers (1991). In 1997 he began work in motion capture with Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar of Riverbed Media to develop the decor for BIPED, with music by Gavin Bryars, first performed in 1999 at Zellerbach Hall, University of California at Berkeley. Another major work, Interscape, first given in 2000, reunited Cunningham with his early collaborator Robert Rauschenberg, who designed both décor and costumes for the dance, which has music by John Cage. In the 2002–03 season MCDC celebrated its 50th anniversary, beginning with performances at the 2002 Lincoln Center Festival in New York City and ending in the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival in October 2003, when a new work with music by two rock bands, Radiohead and Sigur Rós, Split Sides, was presented. The décor was by the photographers Robert Heishman and Catherine Yass, with costumes by James Hall and lighting by James F. Ingalls. Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge, an exhibition of recent design for MCDC, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, in January 2007. The major exhibition Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts closed on October 13, 2007. Cunningham’s most recent dance, XOVER, was presented at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in October 2007, featuring décor and costumes by Robert Rauschenberg, music by John Cage, and lighting by Josh Johnson. The Company also performs regularly at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries as part of the Hudson Valley Project, a series of residencies continuing into 2009.
The OpenEnded Group (openendedgroup.com) has its roots in film, dance, drawing, writing, computer graphics, and artificial intelligence, creating digital artworks like no others. Artists Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar, and Paul Kaiser have created numerous acclaimed works for stage, screen, gallery, and public space. Prior to Loops, their most notable collaboration with Cunningham was BIPED (1999), a tour-de-force of dance and technology that remains in Cunningham’s repertory. They have also worked with two other choreographers, Trisha Brown (how long does the subject linger on the edge of the volume... [2004]) and Bill T. Jones (Ghostcatching [1999] and 22 [2005]). Other OpenEnded works include the public art installation Pedestrian (2002), which has been extensively exhibited around the world, and two public art commissions from Lincoln Center: Enlightenment (2006) and Breath (2007).
# # #
Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Merce Cunningham Studio, 11th floor
55 Bethune Street, New York, NY 10014
tel: 212.255.8240 x14 fax: 212.633.2453
merce.org
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Yi Fu Tuan
From the paper "Neighborhood Narratives, New Dialogues With/in the Mediated City", by Hana Iverson and Rickie Sanders. 2008.
Place, according to Yi Fu Tuan (1977) combines a sense of position within society and a sense of identity with a spatial location. Places have historically been viewed as physical sites, with natural and emotional endowments that speak to the limits of human freedom. Not only are our human identities bound up with the hills and valleys in which we live but our very humanness and humanity is bound in this way. It is place that gives rise to humanness – in the form of feelings, attachments, longing, nostalgia, desire, melancholy, and fear.
... Space is perhaps best thought of as a three dimensional void where things are held to exist only if they occupy volume. Location based technologies negate the consideration of volume and view space along the lines of abstract Cartesianism.
...Similarly, beginning with the 16th century, the conception of space which relied on the Cartesian coordinate system set in motion a marginalization of place. Space with its numerical properties was regarded as absolute and finite. Thus it was perceived as scientific and crucial to the goal of imperialism.
...Certain activities are accorded special spatial status, while others are not. Driving a truck is spatial (hence, work), talking on the phone is less spatial (hence, bureaucratic), and pondering an idea is simply ethereal (Sack, 1980, p. 17) hence, indolent.
Yi Fu Tuan refers to the kind of properties that create a sense of place. He also questions, what is space, and how does one have a sense of spaciousness? In what ways do people attach meaning to space and place? The answer goes beyond the cultural; there are certain "animal" relationships to space and place... one could say, embodied senses of how we orient ourselves to space and place. We are interested in how space and place are understood, so that we can question how technology disorients our sense of space and place, or amplifies our sense of space and place.
Try to think of some ways you would answer this question.
Three themes run through Yi Fu Tuans book:
1) The biological facts
2) The relations of space and place
3) The range of experience or knowledge.
He amplifies these themes on page 6 of the Introduction. Please refer to that and fill out the meanings.
A key term in the book is "experience." What is the nature of experience and the experiential perspective? (Yi Fu Tuan, p.7)
Our class is also based on the development of experiential exercises. How has each one informed your sense of space or place?
Chapter 2 focuses on the Experiential Perspective. Experience is made up of sensation, perception and conception. These influence on a continuum, emotion and thought.
Experience is directed to the external world. Seeing and thinking clearly reach out beyond the self. Feeling however, reflects the way in which the self is inwardly affected. (p. 9).
This is important to think about because as you come to define your own experiences, it helps you think about how to design experiences for other people. The final project will be the result of a complex experience design.
These are ideas that caught my attention:
tactile perception is at the extreme opposite of visual perception. The skin is able to convey certain spatial ideas and can do so without the support of other senses, depending on the structure of the body and the ability to move. (p. 14)
--- which leads me back to the push/pull exercise and the experience of touching your partner. How much information was communicated through touch? How do you spatially organize yourself in open and closed space?
Sounds, though vaguely located, can convey a strong sense of size (volume) and of distance. For example, in an empty cathedral the sound of footsteps tapping sharply on the stone floor creates an impression of cavernous vastness. (p15)
--- which makes me think of the creative possibilities of sound to create, record or alter space.
Three principal types of space (p. 17), with large areas of overlap, exist - the mythical, the pragmatic, and the abstract or theoretical. Mythical space is a conceptual schema, but it is also pragmatic space in the sense that within that schema a large number of practical activities, such as planting and harvesting of crops, are ordered. A difference between mythical and pragmatic space is that the latter is defined by a more limited set of economic activities.... When an ingenious person tries to describe the soil pattern cartographically, by means of symbols, a further move toward the conceptual mode occurs. In the Western world systems of geometry - that is highly abstract spaces - have been created out of primal experiences. Thus sensorimotor and tactile experiences would seem to lie at the root of Euclid's theorems concerning shape congruence and the parallelism of distant lines; and visual perception is the basis for projective geometry. (p.17)
---so how would you design an experience that would separate the senses, and give a single sense experience of space.
--- Where in New Brunswick, do you find mythical space and pragmatic space overlapping?
An object or place achieves concrete reality when our experience of it is total, that is, through all the senses as well as with the active and reflective mind. (p. 18)
---How can you deconstruct a place to recreate it as a new, whole, concrete experience?
Spatial Ability, Knowledge and Place
KEY THEMES OF OUR CLASS!
P. 68 - Walking is a skill, but if I can "see" myself walking and if I hold that picture in mind sp that I can analyze how I move and what path I am following, then I also have knowledge. That knowledge is transferable to another person through EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION IN WORDS, WITH DIAGRAMS, AND IN GENERAL BY SHOWING HOW COMPLEX MOTION consists of parts that can be analyzed or imitated.
P. 73 - When space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place. Kinesthetic and perceptual experience as well as the ability to form concepts are required for the change if the space is large.
How well do you relate to small or large spaces? Do you become disoriented in large spaces? How would you design an experience that relates small and large spaces so that the viewer/user has to orient through some kind of maze like experience to orient themselves.
What are the spaces that have become places for you? Like Rutgers campus itself?
Place, according to Yi Fu Tuan (1977) combines a sense of position within society and a sense of identity with a spatial location. Places have historically been viewed as physical sites, with natural and emotional endowments that speak to the limits of human freedom. Not only are our human identities bound up with the hills and valleys in which we live but our very humanness and humanity is bound in this way. It is place that gives rise to humanness – in the form of feelings, attachments, longing, nostalgia, desire, melancholy, and fear.
... Space is perhaps best thought of as a three dimensional void where things are held to exist only if they occupy volume. Location based technologies negate the consideration of volume and view space along the lines of abstract Cartesianism.
...Similarly, beginning with the 16th century, the conception of space which relied on the Cartesian coordinate system set in motion a marginalization of place. Space with its numerical properties was regarded as absolute and finite. Thus it was perceived as scientific and crucial to the goal of imperialism.
...Certain activities are accorded special spatial status, while others are not. Driving a truck is spatial (hence, work), talking on the phone is less spatial (hence, bureaucratic), and pondering an idea is simply ethereal (Sack, 1980, p. 17) hence, indolent.
Yi Fu Tuan refers to the kind of properties that create a sense of place. He also questions, what is space, and how does one have a sense of spaciousness? In what ways do people attach meaning to space and place? The answer goes beyond the cultural; there are certain "animal" relationships to space and place... one could say, embodied senses of how we orient ourselves to space and place. We are interested in how space and place are understood, so that we can question how technology disorients our sense of space and place, or amplifies our sense of space and place.
Try to think of some ways you would answer this question.
Three themes run through Yi Fu Tuans book:
1) The biological facts
2) The relations of space and place
3) The range of experience or knowledge.
He amplifies these themes on page 6 of the Introduction. Please refer to that and fill out the meanings.
A key term in the book is "experience." What is the nature of experience and the experiential perspective? (Yi Fu Tuan, p.7)
Our class is also based on the development of experiential exercises. How has each one informed your sense of space or place?
Chapter 2 focuses on the Experiential Perspective. Experience is made up of sensation, perception and conception. These influence on a continuum, emotion and thought.
Experience is directed to the external world. Seeing and thinking clearly reach out beyond the self. Feeling however, reflects the way in which the self is inwardly affected. (p. 9).
This is important to think about because as you come to define your own experiences, it helps you think about how to design experiences for other people. The final project will be the result of a complex experience design.
These are ideas that caught my attention:
tactile perception is at the extreme opposite of visual perception. The skin is able to convey certain spatial ideas and can do so without the support of other senses, depending on the structure of the body and the ability to move. (p. 14)
--- which leads me back to the push/pull exercise and the experience of touching your partner. How much information was communicated through touch? How do you spatially organize yourself in open and closed space?
Sounds, though vaguely located, can convey a strong sense of size (volume) and of distance. For example, in an empty cathedral the sound of footsteps tapping sharply on the stone floor creates an impression of cavernous vastness. (p15)
--- which makes me think of the creative possibilities of sound to create, record or alter space.
Three principal types of space (p. 17), with large areas of overlap, exist - the mythical, the pragmatic, and the abstract or theoretical. Mythical space is a conceptual schema, but it is also pragmatic space in the sense that within that schema a large number of practical activities, such as planting and harvesting of crops, are ordered. A difference between mythical and pragmatic space is that the latter is defined by a more limited set of economic activities.... When an ingenious person tries to describe the soil pattern cartographically, by means of symbols, a further move toward the conceptual mode occurs. In the Western world systems of geometry - that is highly abstract spaces - have been created out of primal experiences. Thus sensorimotor and tactile experiences would seem to lie at the root of Euclid's theorems concerning shape congruence and the parallelism of distant lines; and visual perception is the basis for projective geometry. (p.17)
---so how would you design an experience that would separate the senses, and give a single sense experience of space.
--- Where in New Brunswick, do you find mythical space and pragmatic space overlapping?
An object or place achieves concrete reality when our experience of it is total, that is, through all the senses as well as with the active and reflective mind. (p. 18)
---How can you deconstruct a place to recreate it as a new, whole, concrete experience?
Spatial Ability, Knowledge and Place
KEY THEMES OF OUR CLASS!
P. 68 - Walking is a skill, but if I can "see" myself walking and if I hold that picture in mind sp that I can analyze how I move and what path I am following, then I also have knowledge. That knowledge is transferable to another person through EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION IN WORDS, WITH DIAGRAMS, AND IN GENERAL BY SHOWING HOW COMPLEX MOTION consists of parts that can be analyzed or imitated.
P. 73 - When space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place. Kinesthetic and perceptual experience as well as the ability to form concepts are required for the change if the space is large.
How well do you relate to small or large spaces? Do you become disoriented in large spaces? How would you design an experience that relates small and large spaces so that the viewer/user has to orient through some kind of maze like experience to orient themselves.
What are the spaces that have become places for you? Like Rutgers campus itself?
One quick thought
Today, while I was driving through a school district, there was an electronic sign that was posted next to the regular speed limit sign. The electronic sign told me of the fluctuations in my speed as I was passing through. Somewhere, an invisible sensor was monitoring my speed and making me aware of the relationship between my actual speed of travel with the regulated limit. Just one small moment of surveillance and control, limit and legalization. Inside my car, I was following the GPS directions to my destination. Colliding, intersecting signals, mixed with the music from my radio, which was transporting me back in mental time to an experience when I was 15.
C++
What do these ideas mean for you?
Guglielomo Marconi invented the radio. That transmission has now exploded into a dense, global web of wireless infrastructure; "if you counted all of its terrestial, satelite and spacecraft linkage, it is now humankind's most extensive construction." (Mitchell, p.2) Simultaneously, the reception devise has scaled down to a fashion accessory.
"My natural skin is just layer zero of a nested boundary structure." (p.7) In the early years of the Cold War, outer defensive casements re-emerged, in extreme form, as domestic nuclear bunkers. The destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of that edgy era...
"All of my boundaries depend for their effectiveness, upon sufficient capacity to attenuate flow with sufficient thickness." (p.8)
Georg Simmel was a German social scientist who observed that "a connecting creature who must always separate and who cannot connect without separating."
"To create and maintain differences between interiors and exteriors of enclosures... I seek to control these networked flows." (p.9)
The discontinuities produced by networks result from the drive for efficiency, safety and security....
"You can pause wherever you want when you are strolling along a dirt track (DRIFT), but you must use stations for trains, entry and exit ramps for freeways, and airports for airline networks - and your experience of the terrain between these points is very limited. You experience the architectural transitions between floors when you climb the stairs, but you go into architectural limbo between the opening and closing of the doors when you use an elevator."
"Now the body/city metaphors have turned concrete and literal. Embedded within a vast structure of nested boundaries and ramifying networks, my muscular and skeletal, physiiological, and nervous systems have been artificially augmented and expanded." (p.19)
"Telephones... are yet another network of infrastructure - one that now stretches my speech production and reception system around the globe and multiplied its points of presence...
You were never quite sure who would pick up on the other end, and the relationship to our bodies as neither continuous or intimate." (p.24, 25)
I am both a surveying subject at the center of my electronic web and the object of multi-modal electronic surveillance. All of these constructions of the gaze that the post-Foucaultians have alerted us to - the gaze of desire, the gendered gaze, the consumer's gaze, the critical gaze, the reflexive gaze, and certainly the gaze of power - are extended, reorganized, and reconstructed electronically." (p28)
Guglielomo Marconi invented the radio. That transmission has now exploded into a dense, global web of wireless infrastructure; "if you counted all of its terrestial, satelite and spacecraft linkage, it is now humankind's most extensive construction." (Mitchell, p.2) Simultaneously, the reception devise has scaled down to a fashion accessory.
"My natural skin is just layer zero of a nested boundary structure." (p.7) In the early years of the Cold War, outer defensive casements re-emerged, in extreme form, as domestic nuclear bunkers. The destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of that edgy era...
"All of my boundaries depend for their effectiveness, upon sufficient capacity to attenuate flow with sufficient thickness." (p.8)
Georg Simmel was a German social scientist who observed that "a connecting creature who must always separate and who cannot connect without separating."
"To create and maintain differences between interiors and exteriors of enclosures... I seek to control these networked flows." (p.9)
The discontinuities produced by networks result from the drive for efficiency, safety and security....
"You can pause wherever you want when you are strolling along a dirt track (DRIFT), but you must use stations for trains, entry and exit ramps for freeways, and airports for airline networks - and your experience of the terrain between these points is very limited. You experience the architectural transitions between floors when you climb the stairs, but you go into architectural limbo between the opening and closing of the doors when you use an elevator."
"Now the body/city metaphors have turned concrete and literal. Embedded within a vast structure of nested boundaries and ramifying networks, my muscular and skeletal, physiiological, and nervous systems have been artificially augmented and expanded." (p.19)
"Telephones... are yet another network of infrastructure - one that now stretches my speech production and reception system around the globe and multiplied its points of presence...
You were never quite sure who would pick up on the other end, and the relationship to our bodies as neither continuous or intimate." (p.24, 25)
I am both a surveying subject at the center of my electronic web and the object of multi-modal electronic surveillance. All of these constructions of the gaze that the post-Foucaultians have alerted us to - the gaze of desire, the gendered gaze, the consumer's gaze, the critical gaze, the reflexive gaze, and certainly the gaze of power - are extended, reorganized, and reconstructed electronically." (p28)
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