Graham Wakefield
Makeshift
Computational Composition, 2009
An attraction of the machinic is the potential to investigate both abstractly and precisely the interplay of structure and change. This goes beyond conventional notions of the computer as instrument, tool, studio, entertaiment-machine and so on, and begins instead to conceive computation as a medium itself; as much a material as an environment.
In this work I am drawing upon evolving graphs (dynamic networks) as a model for individuation, in part inspired by the complex systematic networks responsible for our own biological development. The discrete nature of a mathematical graph is at the root of computation itself, from grammars to data-flow to neural networks, and yet it also permits a pre-linguistic approach to creative becoming.
In Makeshift, thousands of directed connections act as conduits for attractive forces and torque, smeared over time. The network as a whole has no root, and may contain loops and multiple branches. Individual connections may at times be broken and re-assigned to random other nodes in the network, triggering discrete differences in the play of forces that lead to diverse emergent behaviors. Portions of the network may separate into distinct islands, only to be snatched back later, or loops in parts of the graph cause the entire structure to begin to spin. In the installation, a controller may be used to indirectly influence the forces acting upon the structure.
Exhibited at Soongsil University Information Science Gallery, Seoul, Korea: June/July 2009
Artificial Nature
Virtual Ecosystem, 2007-2009
Artificial Nature is a research project and an evolving art installation by Haru Ji and Graham Wakefield.
You may remember experiences from your childhood, such as playing with your fingers in the flow of a river, or in the path of small marching insects, to alter their emerging patterns. Such play is a direct interaction with complex systems, provoking deep insights and aesthetically fascinating natural patterns; ludic investigations that may be considered an infinite game.
We approach this subject through a trans-disciplinary research project drawing upon bio-inspired system theories and the aesthetics of computational world-making, incorporating the development of engaging immersive ecosystems as art installations. Our motivation is to develop a deeper understanding of emergence and creativity as a form of art, study and play, by taking inspiration from nature’s creativity while recognizing the potential of natural creation beyond the known and the physical.
Installation at Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea (July/Aug 2008)
Installation at Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea (Apr/June 2009)
For more information: http://artificialnature.mat.ucsb.edu/
t0 Coincident
Computational Composition, 2005/2007/2009
"Naturally, we were all there, - old Qfwfq said, - where else could we have been? Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time either: what use did we have for time...?", All At One Point, Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino
This work is a generative exploration of tangled hierarchies of dimensionality though aural, spatial and visual domains. It draws inspiration from the strange loops of Douglas Hofstadter and the unique perspectives of Qfwfq in Italo Calvino's T Zero/Cosmicomics. It reconstructs the tangled nature of dimensionality through modelling a system eschewing 'strange resonance', macroscopic and microscopic, endlessly generative.
At heart it is a non-linear complex feedback network in which substrate properties are sonified into a spatial soundfield whilst a higher level translation is visualised as virtual geometric forms. The contents of three banks of three audio delay lines are used as a source matrix of information to generate a video image, whose properties of luminance and variation in turn feed back to control the duration, feedback and transition parameters of the delay lines. The video image is further transformed into spherical co-ordinates to produce an organic virtual space in OpenGL, and to spatialized the sound-field by direct synthesis in the Ambisonic domain.
Separate
Audio-Visual Composition, 2007
An audio-visual projection for the untutored eye and the pre-conscious ear by means of iterative systems and found sound. For Adriano Abbado.
Takeaway
Audio-Visual Composition, 2004/2005
This piece is about taking things away.
Given ten diverse but anonymous location recordings, the significant, recognizable or stable portions of each were removed, to retain only residual left-overs. Further subtractions were made using micro-segmentation, spectral gating, and so on to reduce diversity while introducing gestural control. The process was repeated on the macr0-scale results, removing sections and inserting space. Each section of the piece approaches the play between mimetic physicality and artificial breaks in different ways.
The visualisation is a variant of a Lissajous figure, in which the sonic waveforms are directly mapped onto spatial displacements of short line segments onscreen. My thanks to Lance Putnam for visual inspiration.
Asterisk
Audio-Visual Live-Coding, 2009
This piece began as accidental collaboration between Graham Wakefield, Wes Smith, and Aaron McLeran. An informal demonstration of the basic capabilities of LuaAV inspired a live-coding debut performed by Aaron and Graham at the MAT Everyone Wants Everything show.
An earlier incarnation:
* (asterisk) from Aaron McLeran on Vimeo.
Allobrain
An Interactive, Stereographic, 3D Audio Immersive Virtual World, 2009
The Allobrain project is an interactive, stereographic, 3D audio immersive virtual world constructed from brain data and installed as inaugural content in the CNSI Allosphere. The Allobrain project also served as a prototype driving the technological infrastructure of the Allosphere, leading to the Cosm toolkit amongst other results.
The project originated in the ideas of Marcos Novak–exploring a virtual architecture derived from fMRI data of his own brain. The project was carried out under the direction of Allosphere Director JoAnn Kuchera-Morin and CREATE Researcher Xavier Amatriain. The music and sonification was largely developed by Lance Putnam and John Thompson, and novel device interaction was contributed by Dan Overholt.
The Allobrain project is an interactive, immersive, multimodal art installation that uses fMRI brain data to construct a virtual world. Inside this world are dynamic elements that accompany the user in the exploration of the fMRI data. The Allobrain project makes digital data experiential, immersing the physical user into digitized physicality.
The Allobrain project was designed to highlight the potential of the CNSI Allosphere as a space, to be a test bed for the hardware infrastructure (leading to the development of the Cosm toolkit, for example), and to articulate, through its artistic statement, a vision of the possibilities of the space.
The Allobrain project was commissioned as the debut content for the Allosphere. The Allosphere is a recently constructed immersive space for scientific and artistic visualization and sonification. It is designed for the purpose of gaining insight and developing bodily intuition about environments in which the body cannot venture: N-dimensional information spaces, the worlds of the very small or very large, from nanotechnology to cosmology, from neurophysiology to new media. One of the Allosphere’s main functions is building immersive virtual worlds for the exploration of large scientific and artistic data sets. The Allosphere is composed of an acoustically porous metal sphere functioning as a 10-meter diameter projection screen that is suspended within a three story near-anechoic space. The space can accommodate approximately twenty people on a bridge that runs through the middle of the sphere.
The Allobrain project capitalizes on the immersive qualities of the virtual reality space to blur the divide between the physical and the digital. In plain terms, it digitizes the physical brain thus permitting users to physically inhabit this digital data space. Using the brain as virtual architecture succeeds as a poetic image, synthesizing many things into a seemingly simple gesture that creates an effective aesthetic experience. First, in its shape, it seizes on the elective affinity of the parallel between the two hemispheres of the brain and the medium of the Allosphere. Second, it engages a centuries-old debate about the relation of Architecture and the body. It consciously inverts the historical relation, where the exterior body was used to proportion architecture, and proceeds to create a compelling space from the geometries of the brain. Finally, it indicates the strangeness of a cultural moment when the mind has given to the brain, psychology to neurophysiology, and it has become possible for the artist/scientist to invite people, quite literally, inside one’s head.
More information at http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/research.php
Video excerpt available at http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/media.php
