Computer Art and Tehnocultures

Creative participatory behavior in a programmed world

by Stephen Bell

This is a link to a 10.4 Mb .pdf version of my thesis: Participatory Art and Computers.

In the original 1991 edition, submitted for my PhD examination, the diagrams were on facing pages. In this version they are included in the text, which has led to a change in page numbering.

When submitted, the thesis had an accompanying vhs video appendix which has now been converted to a number of clips uploaded to http://vimeo.com/stephenbell

I would appreciate feedback and comments from readers. email sbell@bournemouth.ac.uk

This research was initiated to determine the essential characteristics of participatory works of art that use computer... more This research was initiated to determine the essential characteristics of participatory works of art that use computer technology.

Through comparing ideas and practices which emerged during the practical development of a participatory work called Smallworld with those reported by makers and critics of existing works a need was identified for a general system of analysis of these works which can be remembered easily and applied in their critical evaluation and realization.

The thesis proposes a system of analysis in which the principle characteristics are considered to be those which contribute to the degree and manner of control afforded to participants.
The system can be applied in the composition of works as well as in their analysis: it is demonstrated that the characteristics identified can be composed and that works can be considered to be compositions of changing degree and manner of control.
The system proposed is intended to serve as a paradigm for the development of further systems to analyse such works and to contribute to the evolution of a language with which to discuss them.

Although the thesis addresses a special class of the use of interactive computer technology it is intended to contribute to the broader discussion of the use of computer technology in participatory situations.

Subverting the Market: Artwork on the Web

by Julia Morrisroe

Evolution, Mutation and Hybridity in Bio-Performance Practice: Wet Biology and Hybrid Arts in the Performance/ Installation BioHome—The Chromosome Knitting Project

by Dr Catherine Fargher

In this paper I explore the influence of ‘Wet Biology’ and Hybrid Arts practices on the development of my... more In this paper I explore the influence of ‘Wet Biology’ and Hybrid Arts practices on the development of my installation-based performance work BioHome: The Chromosome Knitting Project. This work has been developed as part of my recentl;y completed Doctorate of Creative Arts (DC.A) at the
University of Wollongong.

‘Wet Biology’ is the term currently used for working with live plants or cells in experimental contexts. It includes genetic modification of organisms and cell culturing. Hybrid Arts, as I define them, involve the incorporation of new technologies into the traditional creative art forms, as well as hybridising/
cross-fertilisation of art forms through creative partnerships with industry, science and other knowledge bases, such as critical theory. At the moment there is a rapid hybridisation and evolution taking place in digital technologies and biotechnologies. For example digital forms allow communication and cross-fertilisation between radio and web-based formats, computers, radio and mobile phones, while
biotech and Life Science industries are developing biological modifications and hybrids to respond to commercial markets. Artists who cross fertilise with these technologies can create
hybrids and mutations of traditional forms. To use a Darwinian metaphor, some of these digital, creative and biological products may become strong enough to survive and possibly form new varieties, or where successful, new species of program formats and performance forms.

This paper documents my experience working with contemporary Wet Biology techniques including
D.N.A. extraction, cell culturing and genetic modification of organisms during the research and development stages of the performance and how the influence of the scientific practices and notions of hybridity, evolution and mutation have influenced the form, content and processes of my work.

The key topics I investigate for the purposes of this paper include, first, that the message does respond
to the medium: new biotechnologies can inform creative processes; and, second, that the biological metaphors of evolution, hybridity and mutation are relevant to the development of hybrid performance.
works.

Evolution, Mutation and Hybridity: Audio Arts and Live Biotechnology Recordings

by Dr Catherine Fargher

In this paper, I discuss the creation of hybrid audio works that include “field” recordings of biotechnology practices... more In this paper, I discuss the creation of hybrid audio works that include “field” recordings of biotechnology practices in laboratory situations, archival radio sound and contemporary
performance texts. I will also respond to the hybridising of forms in contemporary audio arts.

As a part of my Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong, I have created a number of new media performance texts, including radio works, based on a series of
bioethical fables. These fables respond to the “miraculous futures” promised by contemporary biotechnologies.
These works include a radio play, The Woman Who Knitted Herself a Child, presented by ABC Radio National “Airplay” in December 2004,1 Chromosome Knitting, an installation
based performance which incorporates live biotechnology and sound, and Dr Egg and The Man with No Ear, a puppetry and animation performance which has been commissioned by
the Sydney Opera House “Kids in the House” program, for young adult audiences. Finally a more documentary style piece, Recipe for Life is in development stage with producer Jane Ulman at the ABC. All these works will include sound recordings and from a biotechnology workshop I undertook at “SymbioticA”, the science/art laboratory that is incorporated in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia.
This took place during the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth 2004. For the purposes of this paper I will focus on the works produced or in development for radio, as well as a brief discussion of Chromosome Knitting installation, as an “extreme mutation” of sound and live science. Some of the questions I am asking for the purposes of this paper
include:
• How can concepts of evolution, hybridity, cloning and mutation inform current
audio arts practices?
• How does the medium of radio lend itself to the areas of live microbiology
recordings? Can we hear the sound of one cell dividing?
• Does the medium need to respond to the message? And vice versa - should new
technologies inform the creative practices?
• How does “presentation” of “live” biotech science, rather than “representation”
allow audiences to grapple with the ethics of biotechnologies?
• How can concepts of evolution, hybridity, cloning and mutation inform current
audio arts practices?

Ontological Implications of Being In Immersive Virtual Environments

by Jacquelyn Ford Morie

1980s Home Coding: the art of amateur programming

by Melanie Swalwell

published in Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader, Stella Brennan and Su Ballard (eds), Auckland: Clouds/ADA, 2008, pp. 193-201.

<first para>
Writing code oneself was a key part of the reception and culture of early home computers;... more <first para>
Writing code oneself was a key part of the reception and culture of early home computers; systems such as the BBC, the Spectrums, the TRS-80, the Atari, Commodore and Amiga ranges, and the Sega SC3000. In the 1980s, home coding was a significant use of these computers, both in terms of the numbers of people who dabbled at coding, and as a mode of engagement with a then new technology. A highly experimental practice, it presaged many of the contemporary practices involved in digital culture, the often-discussed phenomena of appropriation, modification, and remixing. Yet while the ‘advent’ of Web 2.0 has raised the profile of productive consumers, remarkably little attention has been paid to the earlier practices of home coders.

Independent Game Development: Two Views From Australia, An Interview With Julian Oliver and Kipper.

by Melanie Swalwell

published in Videogames and Art, Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell (eds), Bristol, Intellect Books, 2007, pp. 160-180.

The meme game: Escape From Woomera

by Melanie Swalwell

published in RealTime issue #55 June-July 2003 p. 24.

‘This isn’t a computer game you know!’: revisiting the computer games / televised war analogy

by Melanie Swalwell

Paper delivered at Level Up: Digital Games Research Conference, and published in the proceedings: Marinka Copier and Joost Raessens (eds), Universiteit Utrecht/DIGRA, Netherlands, 2003.

During the Gulf War of 1991, the television coverage was frequently observed to be ‘just like a video game’. This... more During the Gulf War of 1991, the television coverage was frequently observed to be ‘just like a video game’. This analogy primarily derived from the specific, ‘bombs-eye’ perspective of camera-equipped weapons, approaching their targets. The troubling nature of this coverage was said to derive from the viewer’s sense of direct involvement: the argument was that viewers were able to marvel at the ‘high tech’ nature of the weapons, at a remove from the bloody reality on the ground. These criticisms of a vicarious aesthetic (dis)engagement were taken to also characterise the playing of computer games. At a time when we have once again been confronted by TV coverage of war in the Gulf, this paper revisits the TV war/computer games nexus, informed by research on players’ engagements with games. It argues that comparisons between televised war and games have little to offer to those concerned with theorising games, at least in their current form. Research with players of games is, however, able to provide insights useful for theorising the fraughtness of watching televised war.  Considered in this way, the analogy can be revealing. Drawing on previous research on players’ aesthetic engagements with games, as well as a range of other sources, this paper re-considers televisual war spectatorship, in terms of the figures of proximity/distance; here and there; negotiations between different materialities and realities; and virtuality. It proposes these figures as bases around which a more productive dialogue on computer games and televisual war might be conducted.

Aesthetics and Hyper/Aesthetics: Rethinking the Senses In Contemporary Media Contexts.

by Melanie Swalwell

My unpublished PhD thesis, University of Technology, Sydney, submitted 2002.

This thesis addresses the escalation of interest in the senses, across a range of media technological contexts, dating... more This thesis addresses the escalation of interest in the senses, across a range of media technological contexts, dating from the mid 1990s. Much of this discourse has focussed on the experiential, particularly intense, multi-sensory experience of the present. As there are numerous discourses on the senses, technology and affect individually, my concern is to examine some of the intersections between these, in order to reconsider the contemporary significance of aesthetics in media contexts.

I develop a ‘hyper/aesthetic’ approach to try to think about aesthetic relations with technology in a nuanced way, opening up a space from which to investigate a variety of relations with technology. Walter Benjamin’s work on the senses and modern technology is useful in this, as is that of two of his commentators, Susan Buck-Morss and Miriam Hansen. In providing the outlines of a hyper/aesthetic approach in this thesis, I am, in particular, seeking to complexify understandings of audience reception and meaning-making, to return some ambivalence to conceptions of the sensory encounter with technology.

Hyper/aesthetics is a term that draws together ambivalence, doubling, virtuality, unfamiliarity, innervation, and moving beyond, all concepts that are relevant to the senses and subjectivity.

In close readings of case studies drawn from the areas of advertising, computer gaming practices, and new media art, I argue that as well as critiquing their claims to newness, it is also important to attend to the ways in which particular relations with technology exceed or refuse the logic of instrumentality. In particular, these cases consider the emerging aesthetic experiences that technologies of computer gaming and new media art facilitate, and the new subjective possibilities that follow from each.

Approaching these studies hyper/aesthetically enables me to go beyond other accounts in appreciating the more experimental character of some of these relations with technology. I particularly focus on the effects and affects generated by encounters with the unfamiliar, including that which is considered strange, ‘unnatural’ or ‘inhuman’, and critically appraise the significance of encounters such as these for the manner in which subjectivity is conceived.

Esthétique et programmation (2001)

by Chatonsky Gregory