Brigitta Zics’ research statement
First Published: CRUMB Discussion: http://www.crumbweb.org/ December
2008
Aesthetic Tools for Interactive Media Art: Body-Mind Nexus / Noise-Signal / Invisibility-Transparency
Keywords: body-mind nexus, passive interaction, cognition-based interaction, cognitive feedback loop, affective environment
My main research concerns how the philosophy of consciousness and cognitive sciences provide a new potential for applications in technology-based art and design. My most recent art work is the Mind Cupola (2008) which is intended to produce what might be called an affective environment.
As an artist my particular interest is to evaluate how philosophy might help us artists to implement technology in a way that is different to the scientific modality.With this view I clearly reject the assumption that as technology emerged through a scientific validation process it only applicable effectively in this context. Instead I suggest that interactive technology introduces a new potentiality to art, or possibly art uncovers unforeseen potentials. The means of aesthetic enquiry might, in this context, reveal or recover yet unknown or forgotten qualities of human condition and experience.
My recent practice, that builds upon a reciprocal exploration of philosophy and practice, introduced the concept of a cognitive-feedback loop which also develops the discussion of the concept of the body-mind nexus.In my investigation, body and mind is transposed and rather relates to qualities of the material and immaterial and to the quality of their interconnection, and then how they might be separated. Based upon this I argue that there are art works which build on the semiotics of the body movement, in that they produce, through the variety of body states, a spectrum of states of consciousness. Integral to my research interest however is the modality of interaction I term as ‘passive interaction’ (the earlier model: ‘active interaction’) which operates through cognitively inclusive bodily actions as emotion, gesture and quality of the motion. Through this new-modality of interaction which is also introduced as cognitive-driven interaction, a more effective way of interaction might be produced.
As such, the cognitive-feedback loop is a bodily passive interaction which interconnects technologies of affective computing (face/temperature analysis, eye-tracking) with instant affection technologies (audiovisual affect, mechanical affect: hot or cold stream etc.) to subject the participant to intentional decisions to operate the system. Applying the concept of the cognitive-feedback loop, the Mind Cupola’s participant is subjected to an immersive experience in the art work (Mind Cupola). The system measures the emotional and behavioural reactions of the participant and acts to guide them towards an optimal experience, which is an immersive state in a condition of ‘equilibrium’. It is anticipated that the desire to enter this condition and the mastering of the interaction produces new levels of immersion and cognition.Since the immersive states for the aesthetic experience is crucial it was important to apply a particular biofeedback technology which is non-contact. The physical invisibility of the technology (even though the spectator can see cameras) is intended to reinforce a cognitive impenetrability to the experience so that the process of mastering the interface fully centred on the aesthetically visible interfaces.
With this I come to the important claim that artistic interfaces might have qualities which are ‘out of control’ or in other words in my interpretation: the artist implements technology in the way that produce new functionality which we cannot yet control. In my recently completed thesis Transparency Cognition and Interactivity: Toward a New Aesthetic for Media Art (2008) discuss this extensively, but in short I propose that artistic interfaces have to be both cognitively invisible (as designers would argue) and artistically reflective. What this means is that artists should design the interfaces in a way that the participant is not aware of their quality, however when these new functions of technology are linked to particular artistic meaning creation they might become visible; this produces the aesthetic experience. This experience, in my view, oscillates between the invisible and the newly visible, a condition, which I term as the Transparent Act (Zics, 2008) since transparency is both reflective (new knowledge) and pellucid (embodied knowledge).
As such, visibility could be understood as noise. But similar to Umberto Eco’s explanation with the examples of the mosaics (which have diverse angle but in whole they produce a novel aesthetic) the ‘noise belongs to the creative processes which at the end greatly contribute to the aesthetic experience. The struggle (in a certain level of course) of the ‘mastering the interface’ is a creative quality, which contribute to the exploration of new in the art work.‘Out of control’ in this discussion might also refer to the argument that I introduce through the Mind Cupola experience, namely that simple interactive process between human and machine might result in a great complexity in the participant’s consciousness. This is the unpredictable outcome, which I termed as the ‘fractal structure’ in the participant’s cognition. Thus, the reputed similar action might generate a new state in consciousness. As you see my aim is not to develop a philosophical meta-conception but, much more modalities, which assist us artists to produce artistic meaning and enable critical approach to technology. However I guess inevitably this investigation might offer something to philosophy too.
Even though I understand that it is crucial to experience these art works it would be great if the discussion would produce reflections on the art works introduced here (as a virtual exhibition maybe) with regards to contact/non-contact technology, quality of experience, quality of biofeedback, how these art works might provide a contribution to the discussion of the body/mind problem or to introduce new qualities in human/machine interaction.
Dr. Brigitta Zics for CRUMB
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Earlier Project: Mirror_SPACE 2004/05
Investigating the potentiality of the multi-self representations of virtual realities, my interest was to produce a responsive environment in which the user undergoes a unique aesthetic experience based on full-body movement and triggered by the means of a particular visual language. As such, this experience built upon the interconnection between the body’s semantics and visual perception with the aim of formulating a meta-conception of human existence as a mirrored reality. More information please see here.