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Module 3 - Tangible Media

Explore the Module

• About this Module
• Schedule
• Deliverables and Deadlines
• Guest
• Looking out - full brief · outcomes
• Warm up Brief - full brief · gallery pool
• Creative Assignment Brief - full brief · gallery pool
• Readings
• Screening
• Extra Credit
• Resources

About this Module

We’ve spent two modules looking and making digital media for screens. Now we’re going to examine how digital media can be deployed in the world; how it can interact with objects, materials and place to create media-driven spaces. In this module, we’ll tangible media, site-specific interventions and interactive installations through media. Or to get more specific, we’re going to get really interested in three key concepts:

• Liminality: ‘Liminality in art as works that deal with transitional states or identities’ and is ‘always associated with ephemerality and transitional passage between alternative states’. The idea of liminality is much simpler than it sounds. It re-contextualizes the physical environment in order to create a situation that either changes our perception of space or ourselves. Here our goal is to create an ‘other’ or hybrid space through media. Artists like James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson, Andy Goldsworthy, and Richard Serra all provide exellent examples of changing our experience of space that we can draw on.

• Materiality: To create liminal experiences, we need to think about how they’re constructed. What space is it in and how can it be transformed with light, projection, or sound? What objects can be projected on and how do their material properties (texture, transparency, etc.) help construct new space or new experiences of space? Artists like Eliasson use raw materials and their material properties like gravel, light, water, and mist to construct incredibly compelling liminal environments. We’ll investigate how matter and media can be blended.

• Embodiment: This is how we find meaning in the material. “Embodiment is the property of our engagement with the world that allows us to make it meaningful” (Dourish). Embodiment is all about our experience of the world. How we encounter, understand, create and share meaning through our encounters and actions with physical stuff. When we start to bring media into the world, we need to think about how participation (direct or indirect) and engaged interaction with that media environment leads to experience, and helps communicate intent.

Learning goals

In this module, our learning objectives will be the following:

1. Familiarity: become familiar with media installations and the strategies used by artists in this realm to compose media spaces with sound, projection, light and media;

2. Concepts: explore liminality, materiality and embodiment; learn about the material and embodied relationships between digitial and physical; explore how intent can be given three dimensional form; and understand the interactions between material, media and experience;

3. Techniques: explore projection mapping, 3d audio, interactivity and other methods for creating immersive and liminal spaces with media; and

4. Application: prepare media installations based on these ideas and concept.

Content and Methods

To get to grips with the breath and depth of media installations, we’re going to explore them together. Each person will uncover and present two case studies of exciting media installations. We’ll review them to learn about the techniques and methods that leading artists use to construct media spaces and liminal experiences (familiarity, techniques.) Then to being to think about translating digital content from the screen to the real world, our warm up exercise will invite you to translate a digital sound into a material form (concepts, application).

This type of translation will be our primary form of remix in this module. We’ll remix and rework media from the screen and translate it into the world, onto objects and into spaces. The key here will be embodiment “phenomena are those that by their very nature occur in real time and real space ^*“. Our guest lecture will explore liminality in art and architecture and how we can construct hybrid spaces through, with and for media. Our screening will dig deeper into this from the perspective of a skilled artist: Olafur Elliasson (familiarity, connections, techniques). Our readings will take this further. Dourish’s ‘Where the Action Is’ will ground the concepts of the module and deepen understanding of embodiment, while Kwastek’s ‘Interactive Art’ will give practical cases and techiques for participation and interaction with media installations (familiarity, techniques). Finally, you’ll grabble with liminality, materiality and embodiment directly by building a site-specific installation for Hunt Library in your end of module project (application).

Context: What are media installations?

Media installations are artworks that involve a material component and a media component. Instead of hanging a painting on the wall of a Gallery, the space of the gallery itself is used to create a media driven environment. Media installations can range from small scale (objects that present media) to the large (where the entire gallery is used). They build on the lineage of conceptual and installation art by involving media and computation in the construction of new environments.

Installation artworks (also sometimes described as ‘environments’) often occupy an entire room or gallery space that the spectator invariably has to walk through in order to engage fully with the work of art. Some installations, however, are designed simply to be walked around and contemplated, or are so fragile that they can only be viewed from a doorway, or one end of a room. What makes installation art different from sculpture or other traditional art forms is that it is a complete unified experience, rather than a display of separate, individual artworks. The focus on how the viewer experiences the work and the desire to provide an intense experience for them is a dominant theme in installation art. As artist Ilya Kabakov said: “The main actor in the total installation, the main centre toward which everything is addressed, for which everything is intended, is the viewer.” ¹

It should be noted that installation artwork is not the same as sculpture:

At first glance, some installations may resemble traditional craft based sculpture or the more modernist assemblage art. But this is an illusion. Installation art effectively inverts the principles of sculpture. Whereas the latter is designed to be viewed from the outside as a self-contained arrangement of forms, installations often envelop the spectator in the space of the work. The viewer enters a controlled environment featuring objects as well as light, sound and projected imagery. The formalism of the composition remains of secondary importance - it is the effect on the spectator’s spacial and cultural expectations that remains paramount. ²

Schedule

Date	Type	Description
Tuesday, Oct 11	Intro	Introduction to module (10-15 mins)
Thursday, Oct 13	Cases	Exploring Media Installations with Examples
Tuesday, Oct 18	Guest	Eddy Man Kim
Thursday, Oct 20	Screening	Space is Process
Tuesday, Oct 25	Discussion	Mediated Spaces and Architecture
Thursday, Oct 27	Desk Crits	Review and feedback for creative project development. Joined by Eddy Man Kim, and Jake Marsico.
Tuesday, Nov 1	Critique	Critical review of creative project outcomes. Joined by Eddy Man Kim, Jill Chisnel.

Deliverables and Deadlines

Due Date	Deliverable	Details
Thursday, Oct 13, 9am	Looking out	Share your research/review of media installations and present in class.
Monday, Oct 17, 9pm	Warm up	Document your outcome for Tangible Translation and post to the Gallery
Tuesday, Oct 18, 9pm	Digital Crit	Give feedback to 2 projects online by Tuesday night
Thursday, Oct 20, 9am	Proposal	Create a proposal for your creative project (200 words + illustrations) and share on the Gallery
Thursday, Oct 20, 9pm	Digital Crit	Give feedback to 2 proposals online by Thursday night
Tuesday, Oct 25, 9am	Readings	Complete your reading reflections to prepare for in-class discussion
Thursday, Oct 27, 9am	Project	Develop a first cut to discuss during desk crits
Thursday, Oct 27, 9pm	Tech	Complete the tech rider and indicate any technical needs for your installations (We’ll use this to make reservations of IDeATe equipment)
Tuesday, Nov 1, 9am	Review	Review, tour and exploration of installations.
Tuesday, Nov 1, 6pm	Documentation	Deliver documentation of your creative project
Wednesday, Nov 2, noon	Digital Crit	Give feedback to 2 projects online.

Guests

Eddy Man Kim, School of Architecture, CMU

Eddy Man Kim is a designer, researcher, educator, and entrepreneur who was awarded the George N. Pauly, Jr. Fellowship to join Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor for the academic year of 2014/2015. A technologist and futurist at heart, Eddy Man is interested in interdisciplinary efforts to mutually augment design and technology—especially as they relate to current trends in web technology. Eddy Man is also one of the founding members of openUU, a design research agency based in Hong Kong. While holding the position of Technical Director, Eddy Man marketed for, managed, and delivered openUU projects that won four Best-of-Year Awards by Interior Design magazine and the 40-under-40 Award by Perspective Global magazine. While managing his practice in Hong Kong, Eddy Man taught graduate students at The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Architecture as a visiting design studio instructor and design workshops for Hong Kong Interior Design Association.

Eddy Man received his Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University College of Architecture, Art & Planning and obtained his Master in Design Studies at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, with a concentration in Design Technology. Upon completion of his Masters thesis, Sandbox3D: Web App for Real-time Design Collaboration, he was awarded the Digital Design Prize for “the most creative use of digital media in relation to the design professions.” Eddy Man has worked in the offices of POSCO A&C of Seoul, South Korea; Robert A.M. Stern Architects in New York City; EPIPHYTE Lab of Ithaca, New York.

And…

• Jake Marisco, Principal at ultra low res studio and Adjunct Professor, CMU School of Architecture. Jake runs Ultra Low Res studios and teaches several courses on Reactive Spaces and Architecture within IDeATe. He’ll join for the Desk Crits on Thursday, Oct 27.

• Jill Chisnell, Integrated Media and Design Librarian, CMU Libraries. Jill serves as the librarian for IDeATe, the School of Design and HCII. She’s also teaching a new spring course for IDeATe on Digital Media Literacy. She’ll join for the End of Module Crit on Tuesday, Nov 1.

Looking out

Exploring Installations: Discover and report back on two distinctly different media installations that you haven’t seen before. Research and critially review them. Report on why you think they are interesting / exciting examples as well as the strategies they use to create hybrid environments with media! Read the full description.

Warm up Exercise

Tangible Translation: Choose a sound (song, sampled audio, loop) and give it a physical 3D embodiment/representation (in just 2 hours). Read the full description.

Creative Project

Material Installation: Create a site specific liminal installation for Hunt Library which incorporates a material constraint. You’ll be assigned one material it must use and you’ll work collaboratively. Document visitor experience with the installation and reflect on it’s success. Read the full brief.

Readings

Required

• Chapter 1, Interactive Art - Definitions and Origins; Katja Kwastek, Aesthetics of Interaction in Digital Art, MIT Press

Framing Questions

1. What is the concept of interactivity and how does it relate to media art?
2. What are the “twentieth-century artistic practices that are relevant to the field of interactive media art in one way or another”? Briefly describe the significance of each and list an example work.
3. “The discourse on media art has been accompanied since its inception by questions as to the relationship between art, technology, and society.” In what ways does interactive media art contribute to or extend this discourse, and why?

• Paul Dourish. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction, Chapter 4. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2004.

Framing Questions

1. What is embodiment and how does it relate to the interaction(s) between the real and digital worlds?
2. Why should technology become ‘ready-to-hand’? Explain Heidegger’s perspective on phenomonology and embodied experience and how it informed computing and media today?
3. What role does perception and the body play in embodied media? Hint see: Merleau-Ponty
4. An affordance “is a three-way relationship between the environment, the organism, and an activity.” What does this mean and why are affordances of physical objects important to how we design media for and with them?
5. The reading offers a persepctive grounded in embodied interaction with computing interfaces . How do these ideas apply to the creation of embodied artful media and non-interative digital media?

Also great:

• ART+COM: Media Spaces and Installations – November 16, 2011

• Lindsay MacDonald. 2014. For every action: interactive installations in liminal spaces. In Proceedings of the 2014 companion publication on Designing interactive systems (DIS Companion ‘14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 181-184. DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2598784.2598794

• Catherine Smith. Looking for Liminality in Architectural Space, Retrieved from: http://limen.mi2.hr/limen1-2001/catherine_smith.html

• Myron W. Krueger. 1977 Responsive Environments MIPS 46 Nutronal Computer Conference Proceeding. 413-33. N.J.: AFIPS Press, 1917

• RoseLee Goldburg. 1975. Space as Praxis

• Caroline A. Jones. 2006. Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology, and Contemporary Art, MIT Press. A copy of the first chapter can be found online.

Further reading:

• “The Myth of Interactivity” in Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (MIT Press, 2002)
• Screening Screens
• Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship by Claire Bishop. Verso Books, 2012.
• The Digital Turn in Architecture 1992-2012 by Mario Carpo. Wiley & Sons, 2013.
• The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick. Vintage Books, 2012.
• Ambient Commons: Attention in the Age of Embodied Information by Malcolm McCullough. MIT Press, 2013.
• Sentient City: Ubiquitous Computing, Architecture, and the Future of Urban Space by Mark Shepard. MIT Press, 2011.
• Architecture In Formation by Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa & Aaron Sprecher. Routledge, 2013.
• Digital Culture in Architecture: An Introduction for the Design Professions by Antoine Picon. Birkhauser, 2010.
• Mark Cabrinha. Life Size: Environmental Knowing Through Full-Scale Installations. Published in Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture National Conference Proceedings: Portland, Oregon, January 1, 2009, pages 236-245.

Screening

Olafur Eliasson: Space is Process Site

Synposis:

From the huge golden sun of The Weather Project at the Tate Modern until last year’s New York Waterfalls, Olafur Eliasson has managed to rattle audiences and art critics alike. Our film provides a unique insight into his mind and extraordinary creative talent. We follow the artist from Iceland to Manhattan and discover a world of visuality and sensuality where space indeed becomes process.

Also worth a watch…

Extra Credit

You can earn an extra 2.5% credit as part of this module by engaging in and documenting an art experience. To earn this credit:

Visit the Mattress Factory before Sunday October 30th.

While there you should look at the following:

• James Turrell’s ‘Danaë’, ‘Pleiades’ and ‘Catso, Red’ (2nd floor)
• Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Infinity Dots Mirrored Room’ and ‘Repetitive Vision’ (3rd floor)
• Sarah Oppenheimer’s ‘610-3356’ (access by request);
• and the current exhibition ‘Factory Installed’ featuring work by David Bowen, Kevin Clancy, Lauren Kalman, and Wendy Judge. In this installation the ‘artists created new room-sized installations that demonstrate a uniquely different approach to the creative process’.

Document your experience as a short 200 word write up. Include some ‘evidence’ you attended - a selfie in the gallery, a photo of your ticket, etc. Submit your experience report on Slack as a post as a DM (direct message) to the course instructors and TAs.

Notes:

• The Mattress Factory is free for Carnegie Mellon University undergraduate and graduate students. Just bring your student ID.
• If attending on the weekend James Turrell’s Pleiades is be ticketed. The Admissions Desk will provide you with a time slot during check-in. Times are provided on a first come, first serve basis, and cannot be reserved in advance.

Resources

As always this is not exhaustive… but here’s lots of stuff to look at.

People to know / look at

• James Turrell
• Robert Irwin - see also
• Olafur Eliasson
• Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
• Louise Bourgeois
• Nam June Paik
• Zimoun
• Ned Kahn
• Daniel Rozin
• Scott Snibbe
• Design I/O
• Loop.PH
• Future Cities Lab
• HyperSonic
• Kimchi and Chips
• Chris Milk
• Urban Screen
• ANTIVJ
• Art+Com Studios
• Daily Tous Le Jours
• Random International
• Jenny Holzer

Places to Look

Good starting places to find more examples are:

• Creative Applications
• Creators Project
• Pittsburgh Art Places

There are more examples included below. Also check the resources section for the warmup and creative project for this module.

Tutorials and Guides

• Survey of Alternative Displays - an incredible survey of approaches to media beyond the screen. Read it!

• Guide to Projectors for Interactive Installations

• Guide to Camera Types for Interactive Installations

• Travis Threlkel on Projection Mapping: How it works and how to use it

Talks worth watching

A lot of content from EyeO, Resonate and Inst-Int is really relevant. Check them out. Here are a handful of talks on media installations that I think you’ll get a lot from:

• A Conversation with Robert Irwin on Light and Space III

• Eyeo 2014 - Mimi Son and Elliot Woods - Drawing in the Air – Mimi Son and Elliot Woods talk about their ongoing wander between the realms of material and immaterial, creating speculative visual objects which poke at the unpredictable attributes of things when they are touched with technology. Without giving any fixed meaning to the act of ‘drawing’, they play with material, space and light, whilst developing new paradigms and theory for discussing emerging canvases. They study existing knowledge of drawing, material, space and motion, explore and investigate new technologies, and criticize the relationship between knowledge of reality and experience.

• INST-INT 2013 - Camille Utterback - Backup Plans – How do you deal with the unexpected when designing and installing media installations? More importantly, are there any best practices to anticipate and mitigate the negative effects of the unexpected? In Camille’s career as an installation / public artist, the unexpected has run the gamut from architectural constraints, to building codes, to construction delays, to difficult project managers, to aesthetic issues, to information access, to changing and obsolescing technology. She will discusses lesson learned, and lays out some helpful tips for proposals, contracts, budgets, maintenance, and back up plans of all sorts. At their best, creative back up plans ultimately allow for more risky work.

• INSTINT 2014 - Kyle McDonald - Space Filling – How to make big work on a small budget with a small group of people. Experiences with array aesthetics, computer vision and machine learning for understanding large spaces, the potential for sound and light to fill a room, and how to generally have a big impact with a simple gesture. What happens when you get together 50 speakers, mirror balls, or LCD screens? These aren’t facade-covering, atrium-filling pieces, but they’re experiments with space and collaboration at a scale somewhere between “personal project” and “massive architectural installation” with some of the features of both.

• INSTINT 2014 - Jen Lewin - Please Touch The Art – For the last 15 years Jen Lewin has been creating large, immersive, interactive art pieces for the public. From interactive sound and light sculptures that inspire people into play, to woven fiber video curtains that reflect movement, or giant, robotic, ethereal moths that dance based on human touch. Lewin’s ability to utilize technology as a medium is rare and unprecedented. She brings an organic, feminine quality to her electronic work that leaves viewers enchanted and surprised.

• INSTINT 2015 - Rachel Wingfield - “Experiments from a Spatial Laboratory” – Rachel is a designer, researcher, educator and co-founder of Loop.pH. She speculates on near and far future scenarios that explore emerging biological and technological futures by crafting space, technology and living materials into visionary experiences and environments. She’s interested in what motivates people to create and act in the world. She’s curious about how speculation leads to experimentation & action and how non-architects can transform the built environment.

• Eyeo 2013 - Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Antimodular – Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer presents his recent interactive installations that are at the intersection of architecture and performance art.

Projection + New Media Projects

• Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin: Listening Post, Real-Time Data Responsive Environment 2001
• http://architizer.com/blog/roomalive-instantly-transform-your-living-room-into-an-augmented-reality-video-game/
• http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/exclusive-video-the-making-of-box
• http://projection-mapping.org/the-most-awesome-sandbox-ever/
• http://www.27681.com/projection-mapped-sculpture-with-openframeworks-and-raspberry-pi.html
• Light, Space, Rhythm – A conversation with Florence To

omote / real-time face tracking & projection mapping

• http://joanielemercier.com/
• http://www.creativeapplications.net/news/momentum-interactive-framework-for-creating-visuals-from-body-movement/
• http://www.creativeapplications.net/featured/fluidic-sculpture-in-motion-by-whitevoid/
• http://www.wired.com/2014/12/high-tech-dance-performance-melds-human-bodies-code/?mbid=social_twitter
• http://www.newamericanpublicart.com/interactivepublicart/
• https://tinoschwanemann.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/projection/
• http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/01/a-bioluminescent-forest-created-with-digital-projection-mapping/
• http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/french-photographer-uses-projections-to-explore-link-between

Urban Intervention Projects

• http://www.openairphilly.net/
• http://designtaxi.com/news/361896/In-Paris-Interactive-Doors-Transport-Pedestrians-To-Other-European-Cities/?interstital_shown=1
• http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/12/traffic-light-that-lets-you-play-pong-with-person-on-the-other-side-officially-installed-in-germany/
• http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/09/musical-swings-on-the-streets-of-montreal/

Other (Non-Media) Installation Projects

• http://www.archdaily.com/558580/insects-and-humans-harmonize-in-a-symphony-of-architectural-sound-in-this-roman-installation/
• http://www.archdaily.com/561448/get-playful-on-the-streets-of-seattle-with-pop-up-street-furniture-from-lmn-architects/
• http://architizer.com/blog/see-the-berlin-wall-recreated-with-night-lights/
• http://www.archdaily.com/569709/
• http://architizer.com/blog/sustainable-hedonist-escape/

Just Something Beautiful

• https://haxiomic.github.io/GPU-Fluid-Experiments/html5/?q=High
• http://weavesilk.com/
• http://www.acnplwgl.com/#!/main

Useful Creative Computing Tools

• Processing
• Max MSP
• Millumin
• SoundScape Renderer