Design Seminar 2

i was lucky enough last night to find a bit of processing code on an open wetware site ‘out there’ after hours + hours of research into latent + emotive telepathic communication using the arduino … a bit more difficult to find than some of the open source code that so many gracious folks share out on sites like instructables + dorkbots, but still well-worth the challenge

after really digging into the code a bit, hooking my arduino up to the MacBook Pro, uploading the program to the nifty little microprocessor that could + quick insertion of the psychotronic implants using carefully sterilized common sewing needles, Carol + i were able to transfer thoughts + feelings back + forth from across the room in relative real-time … pretty amazing stuff … we gave each other some simple commands, making each other reach up or down, turn around, wink … anything to quickly + visually confirm to each other that our digitally implemented experiment in clairvoyance was actually working

at a certain point i left the house + took a drive down to the local Friendly’s … walking up to the ice cream take-out counter, i tried tuning into Carol’s mind frequencies + quite confidently placed our order, waited the 15 to 20 minutes or so, + made the drive back home … at this point i can report back that our testing resulted in a bit of a miss due to the distance when applied to our synthetic telepathy … i got the entire order almost right, i just forgot to order the extra nuts + chocolate jimmies on Carol’s Jim Dandy … a minor faux pas, i know … but still enough to get me delving back into what code snippets i can further research online

last semester one of my projects brought me to a very strange place … The Harvard Coop … in response to reading Pablo Neruda’s poem ‘Ode to Things’ i visited perhaps the very epicenter of deep academic thought + all things high + flighty + found myself walking the aisles of The Harvard Coop, wanderwatching for all things Neruda, no knowing exactly what the end-resulting confrontation would be in this land of scarlet intellectuality, in this place of the newly regentrified + corporatized faux-avante

not knowing exactly what i would do, but also knowing that i did not enjoy the poem { i actually found it quite trite + predictable to be totally honest with you … what else would he say about ‘things’ in his ode? seriously … how else would the formula turn out? give the people what they want i guess … nothing too, too challenging } … confronting a tome of biography + a well-stocked shelf of his poetics + deciding that this end result, this rather mass marketed approach to object might even distastefully represent the sorts of things Neruda pontificated upon in his piece, the very handmade + loving items described in his poem + here was the exact opposite … a machine-crafted artifact of his writings … a rather coldly assembled + manufactured number of perhaps millions made to churn some cashflow through the pearly gates of all good + Harvardness, the very biggest business machine in academic capital bullsh!t

so i threw it away

i walked the aisles w/ Neruda in my gripse + literally threw book after book after book into the trash receptacles provided by this special white-label brand of a Barnes + Noble that replaced what was once an independent + truly university-affiliated establishment … this act was not a true theft of Nerudaness … no, no … this was a different kind of act … for certain, if the fine booksellers of Barnes + Noble, Harvard did not find these disposed editions in trashcans around the store there would be no trace in the system of their sale + the established auto-ordering mechanisms would not know to order another copy of the biography or the collected poems of + so on, etcetera … Neruda’s presence, the ability to purchase Neruda at this particular location would diminish by a book title or 2 … certainly not an attack or a substantial statement at all against the man + his works … but for some reason i felt compelled to react this way to his ‘Ode to Things’

a month or 2 following this event, this performative + visual response to Neruda’s ‘Ode to Things’ i bumped across an interesting passage from the book ‘What is Surrealism?’ … the section was about Surrealism as an international movement … in the few paragraphs devoted to Surrealism in South America came the following :

The Chilean comrades conducted an exuberant agitation, achieving among other things the disruption of an official homage to the pseudo-poet Pablo Neruda. This was the notorious Stalinist to whom Gomez-Correa referrred when, several years later he advised young poets: ‘Keep yourselves pure, free from all commitment, free from all contaminations. Search for the unknown, penetrate mystery. Run away from contests, literary prizes, leprosy and Neruda.’

i was a bit startled to find this direct evidence of anti-Nerudian sentiment expressed from the first wave of Surrealists International, although, i guess, i shouldn’t be … my instincts drove me to auto-disposal of something so syrupy, sentimental, formulaic + manufactured … he is apparently beloved by millions … marketed to the masses as this gentle, poetic soul … i’m sure that Oprah would have him on the show

but i think in some cosmological way i channeled from the spirit of the original Surrealists … a target to them, to ride against, to show through aggression yet another aspect of the Surrealist aesthetic … the Surrealist anti-aesthetic … no need to pull the blanket over the eyes, my friends … we’ll strip the bed bare + show you exactly what you’ve been avoiding the last few months … the world is a scary place + its time we all just admitted the truth + ripped away all pretense … that bleeding ball of flesh in the corner, the one riddled with scars, dripping phlegm + puss + excrement … the cries of pain, the deep need for assistance from the utterly helpless left to fend for themselves under incredibly impossible circumstances, that’s the poetry our systems hand down to us … congratulations oh grand civilization, we repeat the horrors of history over + over + over + over + over + over again … ‘Ode to Things’ my ass

so, i think it only fair now to say that anyone + everything is unfair + potential target to this continuation of the Surrealist International Movement brought forward + now futuristically embedded in our mediaSphere, in our thinking of the perils + polite happy successes of our technological progress, of our continued evolution from man to cyborgic symbiosis of whatever future being we slowly push ourselves to become … The Singularity is Near … yes, yes, this is certain … our fate is something far more surreal than the wonderfully rendered Ernst machines … little did we know that the tools we devise not only shape our behavior but they actually mold the very futureShape of our biological beings … we quite literally become our technology … we become our things

new targets up for consideration for the cyberSurreal Internationale

• continued pursuit of Neruda … break him, bend him, push him down … no mercy, no love for Neruda
• where Surrealism split into factions of Communism + Fascism … cyberSurrealism is also a revolutionary movement, but one perhaps more akin to Anarchy or to more personal + individualistic pursuit … more honest than Democracy, cyberSurrealism takes Capitalism to a new heightened level + blends elements of Darwinism with Rand … let’s just stop pretending its ‘for the people, by the people’ … that ended long, long ago, right? … we are back to the animalState now … survival of the fittest + nothing more or less than that … we’ve been living with this set of systems for long enough now, so let’s encapsulate what the real new state of the state is + ride against the vast artificiality, the sentimentality of freedom + justice … all a joke, all a disappointment
• any means to disprove Euclidian Geometry + the divine spirituality behind numbers + the KKK of Mathematics means another small victory for cyberSurrealism … show me one person that uses ROI in daily conversation that is innovative or revolutionary in any way + i’ll sell you some valuable new social web property near the shore of sanity that will benefit us all + change the way we think of existence, the way we relate to the human condition … most math, being based on assumptions, depends on theoretical implications so inextricably bound to a pure state of physicality that it can only all end in further assumptions + progress that all whittles down to one tiny, nearly imperceptible weakness in the system
• all things financiatic + corporate need to be questioned … any tax loopholes that benefit company over individual need to be ratified + corrected as soon as possible to once again bring power back to the individual, back to the average citizen … brand new economies must be created that revolve around something other than printed monies of established governments … wherever possible individuals must figure out individual means that reside outside of big banking + the large corporation to live + thrive + support each other + survive beyond the fall of the latest world empiric attempts
• the hallucinations of mass media, television, movies, internet + other official blue mediatypes need to also be emancipated + given over to the individual … user-generated capabilities expand + grow + allow for new forms of previous cultural artifacts to be developed … these new artifacts need not be Mac-approved or brought to us by Google … go, create, multiply … whatever, however, whenever, make these future artifacts through the disposable technologies that are available to you … seek out dishonest IT professionals to get you the latest means of digital creation + drain the elephantine repositories of bastion uncreativity to drive to the new epoch of freedom + chaos … ‘by any means necessary’ may be too kind a sentiment for the oppressors have had their thumbs upon us for far too long, for far too wide … delve + dive + reach out, left, right, up, down + sideways to find each + every new area of extension, each new augmentation … our collective mind expands exponentially + needs to expand faster + further + thinner than ever before … the means to push through all existing limitations are there … think evil … get it done … just do it … we need this immediate era to move through to the next before it is all too late

take these ideas seriously or not … it is up to you … these are my automatic writings at this moment … at this juncture of thought, research, reading + play … forgive me if these thoughts aggress … if the demand, if the command is to take arms … i do not believe my ideas to simply be those of just art + poetry … of some furtherance of an aesthetic only … this is revolution … but not in that bullsh!t corporate way we return to revolution in slogans + taglines every 5 years, no, no … this is a new lifestyle for those with guts … for those that want to build the future from small electronic components in their garages, basements, kitchens + foyers … on the subway, commuter rail, in the elevator at work or school … we each have a responsibility to contribute to this future … this is more about democratic action than our current implementation of democracy seems to command … stand up, defend design, defend your future as a contributing citizen of the world … think beyond boundaries, think beyond the stultifying end-results of your cultural upbringings + act now … create … build … participate

participate or die

Photo from videoCapture by Josh Dolby

just took a look at some of the videoCapture footage Josh Dolby took of American Cheese: an introspection out at The Patricia Doran Gallery at MassArt … a one day event + opening … the original intent was to invite SIM + other MFA candidates working toward their graduate degree in art or design to participate in a quick-hit collective + themed show … the time was tight + despite the fast-paced nature of the what needed to get done i feel extremely proud of the work we put together + the turn out we got for the event … a lot of noise, a lot of nice work from the dynamic, conceptual + performative media domains + a fantastic crowd with much fun, laughs + interaction with the exhibit

i’m posting here as a sort of post-analysis of the content i produced for the show as a means to make connections back to both cyberSurreality + Total eXperience Design

the first prototype for what Josh called ‘The StandUp Machine’ worked well … standing as a makeshift semi-octagonal hanging structure of red theatrical curtains … centerStage in these rather cramped quarters, a stool, a small bottle of spring water, microphoneStand + microphone + a bright, hot spotlight … surrounding ’standUP simul8′ were 3 boomboxes on various pedestals, each playing a slight variation on what i assembled for a pre-recording for laughStream 2.0 … real + found laugh samples, a variety of similarly non-verbal expressions from men, women, children + animals, as well as random soundScape accoutrements … basic audio backdrop to set the mood, but not quite ‘dynamic’ yet … + believe me, the piece needed some form of deeper connection back to the user … interesting as a first experiment, ’standUP simul8′ definitely needed that sense of reaction + play, a greater notion that the microStage is a living, breathing organism that you stand in to receive automatic laughter … David Tamés immediately wondered if the microphone received signals, not only triggering the laughter, but also perhaps capturing everything each person said … very interesting from a user experience practitioner’s point of view … i very much seem to want to test the audience | viewer | participant with the pieces i am passionately involved with lately … + so, the next order of business then : create ’standUP simul9′ or whichever version release follows this initial attempt to actually build the pieces i envision

‘cheese procession’ starts to get a bit messier than our rather tidy laughCell experiment … i had bigger plans for this one { semi-interesting story behind the scenes, perhaps to be rebuilt at a later date for future foot fun + testing }, but this little walk of shame for the viewer | user | participant added an interesting element of both the edible + the grotesque … the scent of the piece as some of my DMI colleagues + i built out the actual cheese walkway quite literally stank, worse than any potential walker’s foot could have possibly smelled … besides my own personal walk on the trail of hundreds + hundreds of american cheese slices, 2 other participants made the journey … inspired by a quote from Steve Martin, the idea of ‘cheese procession’ is quite literally to make the participant ‘feel funny’ … + i don’t think i realized just how funny one might feel taking off shoes + socks in front of strangers + friends in a public place to then walk down a sidewalk of cheesy goodness

Cheesewalk from josh dolby on Vimeo.

the first participant expressed how unexpected the temperature of the cheese was on his feet … he expected the slices to still feel refrigerated, but the warmth of the room temperature walkway made for a more pleasant experience … more shocking was the ceremonial footbath at the end of the procession … the water, sudsy + warm, was equally unexpected for both participants, + the act of having the artist wash their feet in front of the small crowd seemed embarassing yet far more comfortable than bending over to wash on their own

‘cheese procession’ was another test for the participant … a bit more about social dynamics perhaps + how people might interact with a large mass of cheese as both potential participants + general gallerygoers … very interesting to see how comfortable people were talking over the procession, almost like people talking over the grave of a friend or from across a small, shallow stream …

+ perhaps the main reason for me to blog + think through these pieces leads us to a quick mention of ‘new crown’ … made from a myriad of found, textural objects, new crown is my first experiment using real biological matter in a piece of artwork … leaves, pinecones, christmas lights, a wreath of twigs, seaShells, a large black container + 3 lobsters worked together to create a really vague + messy found object installation piece … my intention was to incorporate actual live lobsters in the piece, but unfortunately the little creatures died on the trip from supermarket to gallerySpace … on first examination i am quite certain this amalgamation of disparate, natural elements seemed nonSensical + purposeless, but i think i am still trying to work out a certain metaphor or an issue i have with technology … all last semester my pieces in Design as Experience seemed to explore the boundaries between nature + machine … i wanted to intersect the 2 domains in an almost cartoonish manner, exploring Kurzweil’s notion of The Singularity, a time in the near future when man + machine will merge … looking at photographs of ‘new crown’, of the quirky details of leaves + twigs + lights + various hardshelled surfaces exposes to me a dire need to explore this area even deeper … to try to actualize some sense of true biotechnic computing, or at least construct some sense of beautiful lie, some amazing story that verges on that sense of magic technology can sometimes bring to adults, a sense of magic we all seem to have as children + that we tend to let evaporate away as we conch ourselves up into our adulthoods

i recently bumped across an article about the sculptor Nemo Gould here on the Scavenging blog … Gould makes kinetic, robot-like sculpture from bits and pieces of objects he finds ‘out there’ within the daily stream of his real life … it kind of reminds me of where i left off in undergraduate school …

back when i had a studioSpace to create in, i would grab this or that roadSide debris and pop it in the back of my white stationWagon … road-flattened car parts, an old tire, furniture, streetsigns … anything on my ride into UMass Lowell from my parents’ house in Watertown was a silent and wiling victim for my commuter object collectivity

unlike Gould, i didn’t exactly know what i was going to make … i might stick an old shoe in a painting with polymer emulsion or the post of a stopSign would end up being a sculptural element within a full-room installation piece … i was scattered … it was exciting and ‘real’ work for me

i posted the following comment to the Scavenging blogPost as a way for me to perhaps archeologically understand some of my own found-object processes, looking through the lens of time, both backward and forward

brings a new spin to the phrase ‘collective consciousness’

interesting that the sculptor’s incorporation of found material brings a certain timelessness to his forward-looking vision

i particularly like the way Gould takes both the mechanical and natural, the metalbound and the more organic elements and melds them together … antlers, a violin, a saw handle … the collection of objects and their intersection in the form of these found kinetic sculptural compositions helps realize a semi-conscious dreamstate, an anthropromorphization through object-oriented prosthesisSystem … parts of us are what we find, i guess … we are the objects we encounter on our journey through life … or do the objects we encounter in life guide us on our path? alter our default internal and cosmic destiny as programmed at birth? did the apple alter our ‘course for adventure’ on this giant love boat of life through the decisions of Adam and Eve? or was it the PC?

i am reading Harry Frankfurt’s book ‘On Bullshit’

fascinating + humorous

i am drawn to the works of Sasha Baron Cohen ( Borat, Bruno ), Andy Kaufman ( his ‘foreign man’ character in its original inception + Tony Clifton ), Chuck Barris ( his gritty + puzzling faux-memoir ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’ ) and others that seem to use performance, and particularly semi-deceptive performance, as a major part of their work

these are 2 comedians + a gameshow producer

their work delves into humor, acting, perception, performance, manipulation of an audience

more recently, in my professional life, i have witnessed the concept of theatre being used to completely baffle + bullshit a company ( not my current company, but definitely a famous brand ) … i consider the performance to be somewhat brilliant, but unfortunate for so many people that were victimized along the way … i am trying to keep this as vague as possible, while simultaneously revealing some truth that, yes, in our own lives, we can implement the concepts of theatricality, we can play a role, and in doing so we can buck the system and turn the tables ‘our way’, every step of the way, by living a beautiful lie

well, i propose that my thesis now takes another twist, another turn … i am looking at dynamic media through the lens of cyberSurrealism … my proposal, my latest turn, was that i consider life itself to be a found, living prototype … i am a usability practitioner that ‘test’s these found systems … and i am looking for the unintended use-case scenarios { uucs }, areas that can be exploited to perpetrate some sort of poetic justice in the world … sounds a lot grander than its turning out so far, at least in my thesis explorations to date … but i am basically trying to find any tiny evidences in the world that poetic potential still exists

we all have poetry in our hearts

but the big picture that we’ve created as a dominating species on this planet seems to echo otherwise

and this is a shame, a disappointment to me

and so, i want to play with these found systems, to create my own characters, to build new stories, other realities … cyberSurrealities, in fact … realities, little beautiful lies, that get planted + sown online, that grow into physical artifacts + events, and that eventually blossom + unfurl into wonderful, impossible little stories … episodes of truly incredible things … i long for the re-invention of that magic we experience as children wondering about the universe … i want to lose my shadow + fly … + i want millions upon millions of other people to re-establish their own belief systems in the impossible, to believe once again that the impossible, the unexplainable, can happen

This is a bit of a rePosting … the original post is here on AllTop, but also included here below …

Just days after birth, babies are much too young to control their vocal cords or the muscles that shape the mouth to make specific sounds. But that doesn’t stop them from communicating in their mother tongue, new research suggests.

The study monitored thirty French and German newborns, and noted distinct differences between the cries of the two tiny groups. The wails mimicked the patterns, rhythms and intensity of their native language. Scientists believe fetuses start to learn the melody of ambient language during the third trimester in the womb. By imitating what they hear, they endear themselves to their mothers.

Plenty more on babies.

And as part of my running commentary and observations about translation and interpretation … I added in the following bloggish commentarium :

i also believe that laughter is something that can reveal mother tongue … we can modify our behaviors, study the specific dialect of varied regions of the word, but when we laugh, when we cry, when we express some intense emotion ( such as anger or grief ) we return to an area of honesty … we are brought back to the place where we grew up, to that area where we first learned our own voice + the voice of our own people

are there other expressions of human emotion that help bring us back to our ‘real’ selves?

for me, its laughter

my laughter, as much as i might try to disguise it, comes with the original accent of my mother tongue … North Shore, Massachusetts ( well, actually i’m originally from Watertown )

i also notice that i am almost good at correctly pronouncing all of my Rs … that is, until i get totally wound up in some sort of anger about something … mostly on the road, perhaps … but i completely lose my Rs and return from whence i came ( language-skills-wise, that is ) when i am totally frustrated and wanna knock somebody’s lights out

not that i speak The Queen’s proper English by any means

but i am keenly aware of what Revere sounds like, what Cambridge tries to sound like, that horrible stigma we have of either sounding like we’re The Jordan’s guys or a Kennedy ( bad actors study the Kennedys to master their New England accent … very bad idea … only the Kennedys talk like that … super annoying to hear top notch talent butchering our accent, just completely missing the bus altogether )

where are you from? is your accent different than you hear it from your childhood days? what aurally returns your voice to that voice of origin? how can we map voice? the delta in voice? inflection? dialect? accent? etcetera?

i took a trip out to New York City this past weekend to attend 2 seminars offered through Steve Hoftstetter’s Comedy Soapbox … both courses focused on helping comedians get serious about their work from both the business and web aspects of the industry …

a lot of fantastic advice about brand and behavior … good professional advice that anyone ‘out there’ could use for any profession … i don’t want to reveal too much here or get down into the dirt of what us comedians need to go through to make an honest living and get ahead ( laugh ), but i do need to describe an amazing event that i got to witness immediately following the 4 hours of expert insight and suggestions coming from the comedic and business mind of Hoftstetter

after we all learned the deep dark secrets Steve had to share with us … we exchanged kind salutations, business cards and shared an elevator ride descent of 16 flights back down to the New York City streets … some banter and goodbyes and then, standing still and looking up and down the sidewalk i watched the comedians, large and small, men and women each with their own demographically diverse backgrounds, heritage, life experiences and sense of funny fashion … i got to see the comedians walk off into the afternoon armed with this newfound knowledge to help better their careers and help bring joy and laughter to people all around the world ( but mostly in the United States )

it was an inspiring vision … an incredible feeling to think of our afternoon union in the sky … to get the lowdown from a selfless professional in the industry … we drank in his knowledge and advice and now we all bring this insight out into the world as we aim to kill audiences far and wide … i felt a joy, a certain powerful sense of a dispersed community, a pride and happiness … and i laughed a little to myself as i headed off into the slight drizzle and crisp air

related links
http://comedysoapbox.com/
http://stevehofstetter.com/

okay … i am starting up day 2 of The Rod Serling Conference ( the third annual to be more precise and accurate ) out at Ithaca College in upState New York … fantastic presentations … amazing reflections on this, the 50th anniversary celebration of The Twilight Zone … and although the main focus of this year’s conference in honor of Serling focuses on his most famous television project, it is well worth noting that the voice of Rod Serling, the writings and the performance of his teleplays and theatrical works, his voice is one we should all tune into and carry with us … in our heads, in our hearts, in our minds and in our daily lives

i won’t get too distracted here and weave off onto some loutangential diversionarial tactics here as i normally do ( gotta get me some breakfast soon ;] ) … but one concept, one thing that was asked at last night’s keynote by the writer and personality extraordinaire George Clayton Johnson ( Johnson wrote several episodes of The Twilight Zone, Star Trek and Alfred Hitchcock Presents … and also famous for co-authoring the book Logan’s Run … a genius storyteller and a phenomenal and eclectic keynote speech last nite … hilarious and honest and full of voice and humanity ), one question that George asked the audience as an aside was this ‘What would Rod do with the medium of the internet?’

An intersting question

And one that I hope to make part of my thesis research, prototyping and writing.

But with a slight twist.

What would Rod Serling do with dynamic media?

Perhaps nothing … maybe Rod’s contributions, the power of his voice and work, benefit most through the medium of words, of writing, of acting and filming.

But then again … these ‘new media’ possiblities open up entirely new avenues of storytelling. New ways to ask questions to the world. New statements. New ideas. New concerns for new brunette ( no, no, no … there is only 1 brunette for me … ;] … just thinking of a Billy Bragg song … but I digress, now … back to the program ).

I am hoping to answer George’s question with my work at The Dynamic Media Institute. I want to ask the world some of the strange ‘what if?’ questions that Rod asked the world through The Twilight Zone, through The Loner, and through a myriad of other amazing teleplays ( including Carol for Another Christmas ) … not all of my questions ( and not all of Serling’s ) will be war-specific. But I have a lot of questions to ask our citizens of the United States. I have a lot of questions to ask our citizens of the world. And I have a lot of question to ask to technology and humanity and literature.

This conference is pretty amazing. To be in the same room w/ so many fans. With the Serling family. To hear the Serling family talk about Rod and his contributions to society, to the world, as a writer, television producer, husband, father and great intellect … well, it just makes me realize how much we still need Rod’s voice and his amazing ability to ask questions through ‘magical storytelling’ or through ‘magical realism’ as George Clayton Johnson re-coined it.

I think we need some magic to get through all of this. Some alchemical storytelling. And we need to believe in the right stories. Because we become what we believe in. And we all need to start believing in magic again.

what’s the big idea

as part of my studies in communication design and dynamic media at The Dynamic Media institute at MassArt in Boston i spent the best part of the first year in the program exploring and rediscovering a lot of subject matter i am particularly passionate about … the second semester included a continuation of The DMI’s ‘Design Seminar’ … and in this course my classmates and i got to use mindmapping, automatic writing and other techniques to delve into the realms we might consider as the focus for our eventual thesis work in design

the program is utterly amazing … and i highly recommend anyone that is truly interested in current trends in technology, communication, expressive arts and creativity and the future of humanity come to the program and at least audit a course … i’m sure that if you stop in you will witness something that you may not find anywhere else in the world … an international and interdisciplinary union of personality and expertise all brought together for the sole purpose of contributing to the future … contributing to the future of design thought and media experience

of course, this hubPage is not an advertisement for the program … i am just excited about the coursework and it is only through my own participation that i bumped across this theory … the theory that serves as the primary focus of this hubPage | blog | what have you

and that focus, my friends, is the concept of Total eXperience Design

so, for now … more digression and background on my studies … only a slight delay ( be patient ), i promise

back to Design Seminar 2 … as part of the coursework w/ DS2 the entire class participated in a community blog to explore areas of interest and help each of us discover our passions in this space … w/ each new blogPost, students were then expected to make comments on each other’s writings … and the funny thing that came out of that particular part of the exercise, at least for me, was each comment i posted, each attempt i made to give my own perspective to someone else’s perspective … each comment seemed to help both parties involved … commenting helped me deepen and clarify my own thoughts as well as offer up some valuable thought and consideration for my classmate … a truly valuable and unique exercise in community, thinking and sharing

the results of my second semester … well, i developed a preliminary thesis proposal … or i almost developed a preliminary thesis proposal … i think that my final ( or nearFinal ) presentation just put a LOT of ideas ‘out there’ … i was concerned about the loss of texture as we move from media in realSpace into increasingly more virtual expressive spaces …

i also seemed very curious about the areas between each artform or each realm of design communication ( some might call these channels ) and i called this betweenSpace …

translation, as somewhat related to the loss of texture through virtualization, but more importantly, literal translation and the gigantic and ofttimes humorous, disservice word-to-word machine-like translation can do for language, this was also important to me and my thesis … you cannot truly translate a poem, right? something gets lost … either the rhythm, the nonsense, some of the meaning, i mean … there are good translations of a poem on the page, i’m sure … but no matter what it seems we lose something along the way ( and that might be poetic texture ) … i would advocate for interpretation over translation any day a the week …watching the TED Talk by Evelyn Glennie ‘How to listen to music with your whole body’ incredibly demonstrates, at one point, the important human difference between translation and interpretation … i hope to promote interpretation and to ridicule mere, robotic translation through some of my work

and i also knew that i was interested in doing unusual things with technology … that i wanted to create experiences that would make people question things or wonder if the experience they just had could even have been real

in some of my last slides … the last points of my final presentation summarized the key points in my areas of interest … and in the mix was the term ‘cyberSurreal’ … the professor leading the class ( and the program ) Jan Kubasiewicz asked if the term cyberSurreal was my own invention, and frankly, i am not sure where it came from ( i had, in fact, just invented this term as i frequently mash words together w/ a little camelCasing due to my exposure and practice with code ), but as soon as he began to ask everything seemed to make sense

i think i needed to give myself permission … it took me a year to unwind from the kind of corporate containership my professional existence shackled to me for years … i have had to live as a man in pieces for more than a decade … someone that needed to, for survival in an office ( of all places ) setting, someone that needed to sequester huge chunks of important stuff away because the establishment, the cSuite, whatever you want to call it, finds the real me ( the entire bag of thought ) a little too scary for the workplace … i don’t know, it could be my own doing really … i could be assuming that the whole package is ‘too much’ for the workplace … but i don’t think i imposed these silos upon myself … this siloing …

so it took me a year to admit to myself i was interested in cyberSurrealism … the extension of the original movement of Surrealism and all of its predecessing and postdecessing movements back and forth, into and out of the virutal and actual systems we all must live with, in, around … with at least part of cyberSurrealism i want to explore life as a living prototype … a sort of found prototype … as a performer ( and as a world citizen that needs to live in this world we were given … this hand-me-down world ) i will become a sort of usability practitioner of the world and its many systems as a found, living prototype … and from here on in it is my job to test the system and find ways to improve it

a more grand way of saying this is … through the international movement of cyberSurrealism i will act as a usability practitioner to test the world as a found, living prototype and then find areas of potential improvement and suggest ways to change the world … i hope to suggest unusual ways of solving huge problems by looking at things from a slightly different angle ( as influenced by our ‘Murray’ project in Design Studio 2 with Joseph Quackenbush,see the New Yorker article ‘Million Dollar Murray’ by Malcolm ‘Tipping Point’ Gladwell ) or by using the betweenSpace as a place of leverage … and, from a more Surreal standpoint and one that may be more literary or poetic, i am seeking poetic justice in the world through my research, prototyping and exploration of these concepts … i hope to live my life as much like a poem personified as Billy Barnum does … to seek those moments of poetry that cannot be merely translated or explained but can only be appreciated through living, through witnessing, through direct experience of that poetic moment

and that lead us to Total eXperience Design

i have many theories brewing about this topic of Total eXperience Design … i heard an excellent recent talk about multi-channel marketing campaigns, which seems to potentially be one flavor of what i am proposing to the world … but TXD is a bit different, especially when looked at through the lens of cyberSurrealism

based on Wagner’s concepts of gesamtkunstwerk or ‘The Total Artwork’ … Total eXperience Design would take a user-centered set of considerations ( maybe even a UCD approach, but it might depend on the piece ) to design everything … the entire experience … to take all sense into consideration … to take the temporal nature of the particular piece into consideration … to think about the impression the piece leaves w/ the listener | viewer | participant … the TXD aftertaste, if you will … and to think about the artifacts or take-aways that both the user and the world will have following the existence of the TXD piece in question or on display

how many times … how many times have i been to a performance, seen incredible work, live sound and theatricality … event-based experience … and then, in the end, the piece unintentionally ( without TXD consideration ) lives on only in the mind ( and conversation ) of the audience … in other words, adequate and important documentation and deliverables were never considered … the focus is so much on getting up on stage, using this or that technology, wearing this or that article of clothing, and yet there is no video or audio capture of the event to help the people of the future ( or even of the present ) understand or see the vision you created

if this were intentionally part of the plan, cool … not a big deal to document a rock show, perhaps … and that is fine … we can’t have a screenCapture of every single moment in lifenow, can we?

but we should at least, as artists and designers, consider the afterlife of a project or event … is there an item we would want to give the viewer | participant to help them better understand the intended meaning of the piece? to understand it after the show, after the opening? or to maybe read a year from now and in deeper yet delayed reflection suddenly understand the work in a different light?

or maybe it is what it is and that’s that … that would be fine as well … just be considerate … consider the audience, the participant, the viewer, the user, the audience … and think about what you would want them to say, how you want them to talk about your work, how you hope they understand and speak about the content from a variety of levels

but we can think about TXD as gesamtkunstwerk augmented by the latest art and technology movements

TXD = g+DM ( gesamtkunstwerk + dynamic media )

these are my preliminary ideas about Total eXperience Design

strangely enough … as the days march on … i am finding artifacts from my previous lifetimes that all seem to scream at me, ‘Of course, cyberSurrealism! Of course!’ … the voice of Jan then standing right nextdoor to the rediscovered talking artifacts, arms crossed about chest w/ dressCoat on ‘this is what you must do’ and a whisper from an unknown source says, ‘this is your destiny’

sometimes i wonder if Joe and Jan and Brian might have known from the day of the interview that Spring preceding my acceptance into the program … that my discussion with them about user-centered design methodology, performance art, poetry, installation work … maybe at that point they might have guessed there was already something there that at least pointed to Surrealism

i have casually studied Surrealism for years

did Surrealism succeed as a movement? as a literary movement? as an art or visual movement? as a performative force in the world? as a lifeStyle or as a political movement? and if it succeeded or failed, what does that mean for cyberSurrealism? how would i need to position ( or rePosition ) cS to insure its success? at least, in some ways, as a thesis project?

i will NOT be satisfied if this idea of cyberSurrealism succeeds and stops with my own personal passions and academia … i truly want this to be a politicalkunstaftêndreisel … a poOMft! … bang, tick, crooOOONschtarken! … i want this to be as notorious in documented format as Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, Fluxus and multiChannel Marketing … this is NOT just for sh!ts and giggles … i mean, there will be plenty of preRecorded laughs to be captured + released, this is for certain + sure … but cSi ( cyberSurreal international ), this is soMe serious sh!t!

sometimes, i’ve found, if you pretend enough … if you walk around a certain way, if you ‘talk it up’ as they say … well, sometimes pretense then becomes reality … i am hoping that pretense will not only become reality but that my efforts transcend and extend the notions of Surreality into this new and powerful zone of cyberSurreality we have all already been experiencing now for at least a decade, if not longer

people throw sheep at each other on Facebook

friend is a verb

netiquette, tweetiquette, connectiquette … new terms rise and fall everyday … this sh!t changes our language daily and infiltrates our own mindSpace + conceptions of what is real + what is pretend, fake or phoney … or at least ‘not real’ …

at any moment, on any given Sunday, you could receive personal or professional communication simultaneously from :

• a person in a face-to-face conversation ( increasingly rare)
• a phoneCall via landline or mobile technologies
• SMS or text message on yer celly
• an email either thru email client or webmail service … &/or … on your computer or on a pda | mobile platform
• instant message from 1 of 20 or more IM services | clients
• Skype … or other new hybrid experiences that combine text, audio and video
• web meeting technologies
• snailmail
• messages directly sent to you through the new telepathic technology protocols ( ttp ) and direct extraterrestrial messaging ( dem )

how cyberSurreal + overwhelming is that, right?

well, anyhow … to bring things to an eventual point in this post, let me explain this

i have strange ideas

i always have had them

in a professional officeLike environment where you + i typically need to survive + make a living, these ideas are too strange to even express without completely altering my own professional brand @ the officePlace

i mean

people just look atchya like wtf?

so i’ve always had this conflict of interest

and i think most creatives ( + i kind of hate that word ) experience this dichotomy

there’s what you do for money … and then … there’s whatchya do for love

or whatever ya call it

what you do because you just need to do it

you can’t even explain why you think up the stuff or what its for, but if you don’t do it you typically fall into a depression + feel a LOT less alive + like yerself

it sncks if you don’t pursue these ideas, the ones that aren’t for profit or for the corporate marching mediaStream you get paid to participate in at yer dayGig

so, now …

at a certain point, some of me slipped away

creative continuum helped me realize that i should embrace the looser, creative side of my personality

a side of me that was getting washed away by the day

dynamic media institute is rescuing a huge part of my soul that’s been drifting into a prePended afterlife

i need to embrace madness

society will pull that classic trick on ya, right? like in Catcher in the Rye

Holden Caufield, in the end, well … he’s put away, right? even though we see the world through Holden’s eyes throughout the novel, even though we can clearly see that there is a LOT wrong with the world, well … its that whole rubber an’ glue thing now, ain’t it? Holden points, and in the end it bounces back and gives him the crazy face, puts him in a place that will protect society from ‘deviant thought’ patterns … and unacceptable thinking …

happens to McMurphy too, right? in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest … of course, McMurphy escapes at the end a that one though, right? ;] or at least that’s the legend that he and The Chief decide to tell through their euthenasiactivities ( hope i didn’t ruin the flick fer ya, but if you haven’t seen it yet you deserve it )

people are told they suffer from a disorder or syndrome each + every day of our lives

and why?

to sell expensive pharmaceuticals, to keep society safe, to preserve our ‘civilization’, and the list goes on

well, er, ehm, screw that

society is the one w/ the disorder

look at this place

take a quicktour of the automated application we’ve created

preemptive attacks to get them thar weapons of mass destruction

nationBuilding, that’s my favourite ;]

and the forced + spoonfed spread of democracy

now ain’t that America?

we’ll build our little pink houses overseas to keep a watch on the profits ta that there pipeline

we’ll profit off of our own obliteration by sending over the BWContractors, yeah, we’ll help ya out ( but first, bombs away! and them thar bombs cost a bit a dough now, don’t they? )

anyhow

life is already surreal

life is already even cyberSurreal

i’m just going to point out and magnify things a bit an’ help define the new psychopoeticyberpolitical revolution

more to come

cyberSurreallyyours

. ls .