Lecture 28 Scape to the future HUM 201 Winter 2005
Itinerary Contemporary art (and music and literature) is often a demonstration of how to NAVIGATE the world(s) in which we live. –Complexity of the scapes we inhabit –Importance of conjunctive relationships –What happens if these relationships generate new possibilities? (Informational Poesis, Biomedia) Non-scalar theory Bioart
From crossroads to networks Remember Barstow and Harry Partch? –Crossroads with travel stories Not all crossroads are equal –Some are more stable –Some are more popular –Some are more attractive
Non-scalar networks An emergent complex network containing many highly connected hubs Not a uniformly distributed network
How do scale free networks emerge? Nodes are added one at a time Probability of attachment proportional to attachee’s number of connections –Popular attachments get more popular
How do scale free networks emerge? Nodes are added one at a time Probability of attachment proportional to attachee’s number of connections –Popular attachments get more popular
How do scale free networks emerge? Nodes are added one at a time Probability of attachment proportional to attachee’s number of connections –Popular attachments get more popular
How do scale free networks emerge? Nodes are added one at a time Probability of attachment proportional to attachee’s number of connections –Popular attachments get more popular
How do scale free networks emerge? Nodes are added one at a time Probability of attachment proportional to attachee’s number of connections –Popular attachments get more popular
How do scale free networks emerge? Nodes are added one at a time Probability of attachment proportional to attachee’s number of connections –Popular attachments get more popular
How do scale free networks emerge? Nodes are added one at a time Probability of attachment proportional to attachee’s number of connections –Popular attachments get more popular
How do scale free networks emerge? Nodes are added one at a time Probability of attachment proportional to attachee’s number of connections –Popular attachments get more popular
Scale free networks Human social networks –Six degrees –Sexually transmitted diseases –Nomads and genetics Protein interactions WWW Airlines
The scape artist Return to conjunctive relationships (William James) –Realize some places are hubs and connectors –Some places let you go other places Navigation happens in time, therefore space creates new places (de Certeau) –Emergence –Middle world Not all sites equivalent –Reemergence of sacred sites? The “wanderer” can initiate social change
Bioart What happens when the scape is alive? –Microsoft applies for patent on the concept that the body is a network –Complex networks exhibit lifelike behaviors (Rodney Brooks) Bioart –Critique of biological art –Art that uses biological materials
Alexis Rockman, The Farm, 2000
Genesis Eduardo Kac –1998/99
LET AAN HAVE DOMINION OVER THE FOWL OF THE AIR AND OVER EERY LIVING THING THAT IOVES UA EON THE EARTH
Developing a transgenic art, for Kac, is important because it promotes a “consideration of non-semiotic (sign-based) notion of communication as the sharing of genetic material across traditional species barriers.”
Marta de Menezes “nature?” 2000
Scape to the future Inhabit the scape (Merleau-Ponty)! We are part of the world –For the affective agent, certain practices in certain places CAN have consequences (Swamp Thing, scale-free networks) –Intertwining –We wander but the world wanders as well (sometimes even in us!) –This allows the world to present itself differently to us