Questions Regarding the Progression of My Work
For each question come up with several research methods for answers:
• How does the degradation process of digital footage similar to the process of degradation of memory?
• What do my memories look like?
• How can I visualize those things that are intangible?
• What is the correlation between watching and remembering?
• Are memories prescribed?
• Does one actually remember or are they remembering the media?
• What is the difference between mind memory vs muscle memory?
• Can I choreograph technology?
• What is the difference between film editing and choreography?
• Is this interesting/important to anyone other than me?
Observations
Record of me in motion:
G Train, Wednesday 9/8/2010 @ 2:35pm
So I’m on train to Williamsburg from the Carroll stop in Carroll Gardens. It is interesting to see who is on the train at this time of the day. No 9-5′ers, no students because school is back in session. There are a group of guys, maybe early 20′s, talking loudly about wanting to beat up Justin Beiber. I bet they’re just jealous. They left the train at Jay Street and now the car is pretty quiet, except for the couple sitting next to me. They look like the artistic hip type. He’s sporting a hipster beard with big sunglasses and a fedora. She’s got a short little bob cut with high wasted shorts and ruffled blouse…cute couple. Why aren’t they at work? So far there have been three different sets of mother/stroller combos in this car. I guess that makes sense, seeing that it is the middle of the day.
As the train goes through Brooklyn I always find it fascinating to see the types of people that get on and off at each stop. For me, it becomes a way to measure how gentrified a certain neighborhood has become. Classon and Clinton/Washington…hip hip hip hip. This guy gets on the train with a fantastic red plaid shirt. I want it. Myrtle Willoughby, the couple next to me get off and the car is silent again. I notice this girl sitting a few seats away from me, and I recognize her. We danced in some show together several years ago. She has been junking up my facebook feed with tons of things I have no interest in, so I blocked her. This happened just a few weeks ago, ironic that I’m seeing her on the train. I have little desire to make small talk with her so I will avoid eye contact.
A bunch of teens or tweens, whatever they are called now a days, just got on the train at Flushing. School must be out, so it must be around 3pm. Isn’t that when school gets out? Metropolitan Ave, the hipster mecca of central Williamsburg. Everyone who looks like someone I would want to be friends with, make out with, get drunk with, gets off the train. Damn they all look so cool.
Nassau, I get off. 2:50pm.
Record of me making:
So I’m trying to make a Max patch where the movement will trigger the playback speed of a movie. The longer that the movement continues, the faster that the movie will play. When the movement stops, the video stops playing. I already made a Max patch where movement triggers the video to play and I am using that as a starting point. I went into the tutorial section of Max and found a tutorial that explains how to adjust the playback speed of a video. I need an object that holds a floating number value, and a message to object. The message object tells the video object that the number it is receiving will be the playback speed. 1 is the normal playback speed, so anything higher than that will make the video play faster.
I plug the rate message box into the video object to see if I can manually adjust the play rate. And I can. The next step is to pull in the information which detects movement, and have that incrementally increase the play back rate. The program is checking to see if there is movement 33 times a second, if there is movement it sends out a bang out of one outlet, if there isn’t is sends a bang out of its other outlet. I set up a counter, which will count the number of bangs that occur while there is movement. I also tell it to reset the counter back to 0 if there is no movement. That number is then multiplied by 0.01 and is then added to 1. I needed to do this because the playback speed always needs to be 1 or greater or else the video won’t play. By multiplying by a smaller number, the playing will speed gradually. I finally attach this final number the to rate message sent to the video object. And it works!
In order to make the video stop playing when there is no movement, I just send a 0 to the rate message every time there is no movement. This makes it stop playing.
Writing that I like:
Fiction:
This summer I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. It had been a long time since I had read a piece of fiction, but my boyfriend had been urging me to read this novel for a long time. I’m glad I finally did, as I loved every page of it.
Written in 1992, Stephenson paints a picture of his vision of the world during the early 21st century. Any form of government has been practically destroyed, and geographic areas are run and owned by private organizations and people with lots of money. There exists two separate “realities”. There is the real world, and there is the “Metaverse”, Stephensons’ vision of the predecessor to the Internet. The Metaverse is a virtual environment where individuals can interact with each other using personal avatars. The quality of your avatar is a status symbol, not only of how wealthy you are, but of the strength of your programming skills.
The basic plot of the book, follows Hiro Protagosnist, a hacker by trade. Throughout the novel Hiro is trying to uncover the mystery of a computer virus that has appeared in the Metaverse called “Snow Crash”. The peculiar thing about this particular virus, is that it not only affects the virtual self, but also the self in real-life. In discovering its origins, Hiro finds out that it is linked to the ancient mythologies of Sumaratan culture, where a virus of the tongue was transmitted through language. It is believed that this “virus” caused a diversity in languages, thus alluding that the bible story of the Tower of Babel is true.
I had never really read much science fiction, but I really enjoy seeing how accurate an author’s perception of the future can be. Reading this book, almost 20 years after it was published, is part of the appeal. How similar, or how different is this vision of what is now present day? The Metaverse has a seemingly very similar relation to today’s Second Life, a virtual world where people interact using avatars. It is pretty spot on.
Non-Fiction:
I recently read the Newsweek article The Creativity Crisis. What struck me as interesting was the way in which creativity was broken down, into a skill that can be learned and practiced. I have never really thought of it that way, but it makes complete sense. The more creative you are the better you become at it. I was also interested in the ways that creativity carries over to contexts that are not necessarily artistic. I have always thought of the fine and performing arts as the main outlets one can be creative in, but the article made me realize that creativity lies in so many other areas, especially where problem solving is key. It is mentioned towards the end of the article that there could be a correlation between childhood hardship and creativity levels. They say that children who grow up in conditions that are challenging and difficult are more apt to be flexible doers and thinkers. I am interested in this concept. Overall, the article was fantastic and insightful. The gallery on the website of all the different drawings from children and adults measuring their creativity is also amazing to look at.
Forums to Present In
Dance Film Festivals:
Dance Films @ The Flea : Deadline September 17
Dance on Camera Festival : Deadline October 1
FEDAME 2010 : Deadline October 25
American Dance Festival : No Application Yet
Dance Camera West 2011 : No Application Yet
Performance Venues:
Dixon Place
The Kitchen
PS 122
DTW
DNA – Raw Material
Movement Research @ St. Marks Church
BAX
WAX Works
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
Joyce Soho
La Mama
Blogs:
www.dance-tech.net
motionographer
make magazine
Festivals/Meetups:
siggraph
dorkbot
ars electonica
Man on a Wire
“Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge – and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope.” – Philippe Petit, Man on a Wire 2008
Growing up Philippe Petit had always been inclined to climbing. He explains that from a very young age, he found himself eager to explore the heights of objects and buildings. His close friend Anne, attributes this inclination to the fact that his upbringing was highly structured and regimented. His desire to climb probably derived from this as a form of rebellion against his strict family. As he grew older, his fascination with heights and climbing developed into wire walking. Within one year of practicing, Petit had mastered this skill.
It is never directly mentioned in the movie who Petit admired as a “hero” or where he specifically drew inspiration from, but it is not difficult to guess. Throughout the film, in addition to his wire walking, there are several shots of him riding his unicycle and juggling. I can imagine, from these collections of video footage that much of Petit’s work derived from his interest in the circus and other performing arts. He also refers to his wire walking as wire dancing, so this was another clue as to the artistic traditions that he drew from. In addition to the performing arts, I believe that Petit has a fond curiosity and admiration of architecture. His desire to scale these immense structures, and walk between them, is a sign that they too were a large source of inspiration.
Before Petit was able to embark on his infamous World Trade Center walk, there were several different iterations and experiments that he carried out. In the movie, we see that in the early stages he practiced by setting up “walking wires” in the fields outside of Paris. He had built rather high posts to place the wire in between. Here is where he practiced and honed his craft of wire walking, mastering such techniques as laying on the wire, standing on one leg, walking backwards and somersaults. After much practice, he decided to take his wire walking one step further, and conquer the famous Pont Notre Dame in Paris, by walking in between its two towers. Shortly after, he walking across the two pillars of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, in Sydney, Australia. I believe that it was these series of events which led Petit to believe that walking between the World Trade Centers was possible. Not only was he physically able to master the feat of walking on wire so high up, but he had also proved on two occasions that he could break his way into private buildings and rig his wires up on top of them.
Tackling the World Trade Center, which he nicknamed “le coup”, was a 6 year process from start to finish. Much of this time was spent observing the buildings themselves. Petit made sketches, diagrams and 3-d models of the towers, in order to map out how he was going to rig the wire between the two buildings. He made several trips to New York, and made his way to the roofs in order to take photographs and see first hand the structures he would be working with. These trips however, were productions in themselves, as Petit was not allowed inside the buildings. On one occasion, he disguised himself as a reporter in order to make his way to the top of the WTC. In addition to studying the physical make up of the buildings, Petit also closely observed how individuals would enter and exit the premises. He knew that he was going to need a large amount of equipment brought in, so he needed to devise a plan to do this discretely without getting caught. By studying the flow of people, Petit decided that entering the building through the underground parking lot would be the “safest” bet. He also held trial walks, because he knew that the conditions of the wire would be something he was unfamiliar with. The two towers slightly sway which would cause the wire to move, and he needed to simulate this. He would have his friends shake the practice wires as hard as they could, so he could become adjusted to that type of environment.
In thinking about how Petit evaluates his work, I’m not quite sure that there was a specific process that he engaged in. It appears that due to the nature of the work, his wire walking was an “all or nothing” act. When he successfully completed one of his walks, it worked. If he were to ever fall, he perhaps would die, or be seriously injured. What was apparent however, was that after completing each of his walks, he desired to go bigger and better. In theory, his evaluation process became one of sequentially performing walks that were more dangerous and difficult.
I would say that Petit’s thesis was the actualization of his dream to walk on a wire between the World Trade Center buildings.
