19th January 11pm version
19th January, 23.42h version
Introduction
Triadic Oculus is a creative collective investigating human uncertainty and decision-making processes in contemporary urban societies. The group, through its research and enquiries, will develop audio-visual site specific events fed by live input received from the cosmos above, the geology beneath and contemporary global and urban data processed in real time through its carefully constructed oracular system.
The performance installation proposed for this residency will be a new work that interacts with the physical environment and social strata of its locale to create a rich and shimmering tapestry construct of 3D sound and image. The work will be an artistic intervention in a researched natural or industrial location (e.g. cave, abandoned railway, deconsecrated church, incomplete architecture,) that uses its bespoke theatrical, electronic, software system to invite questions reflecting the current state of contemporary society and the relations between humans, free will, machines, tools and the Alterity. The creation of an oracular logic software system, used as a portal through which to invite answers from other dimensions, will be the central core to this approach.
Thematics
Triadic Oculus will look into the relationship between ancient and contemporary oracular activities across cultures in order to create a global understanding as to how and why they were used in the past and are used now in the present, so as to define their relevance today in relation to humanity and contemporary life. Simultaneously, they will research, gather and utilise located, modern, earth-bound and data-related extrasensory influences as potential sources for foretelling the future and reflecting on the present, in an attempt to engage with other dimensions.
Triadic Oculus takes this route in the belief that its explorations will also create new and inspiring art works at every location, touching a wide range of possibilities and audiences.
The final work presented in the chosen site in Paris will employ the oracular system created during the entire project fed with remote and local data and audiences, so presenting a sizzling feast of sound and image, revealing new and maybe unheard as yet languages. It will be a culmination of the public experiments made in specific locations during the three residencies which will address their essential research questions and test their developing hard and software systems.
Throughout, data gathering methods, sonifications, projections, the interaction of the public and developing oracular techniques will be vital ingredients to test, as well as the installation of the real and virtual systems, both digital and analogue. The use of time as a central and tangible conductor will also be vital ~ there could even be a vast clockwork time machine as central piece to the final show for example ~ not forgetting the overall visual design, which will include lighting and costuming of the three female artists and the telephonic interface to the oracle.
The data gathered to feed the work will be of three types; local, remote and physical. The local will include geological data, humidity, temperature, radio waves, on-air TV; the remote - satellites, the Internet, (data based, live streamed plus webcams), cable TV, GPS ; the physical - audio, seismic, vibrational, the architectural details of the site and light. The systems used to read/gather this material will include accelerometers, microphones, radios and cameras as well as computers and the internet. A logical, combinatory, input/output language will generate an original message from the given data.
The number three[3] from an algebraic point of view, and the circle from a geometric perspective, are central references to this research.
At this stage it is intended that the final performance location will be the abandoned railway line ‘La Petite Ceinture’ in Paris. It is envisaged that we could use a central arch or circular space as the main performance area which will be fed by 2 other spaces on the question mark shape that ‘La Petite Ceinture’ draws through the city. To be able to take a wagon of audience/materials/data even to and from these remote spots to the central performance point during the installation will also be investigated.
The system could be fed by star positioning information, numbers of humans using the subway train mapped against the sites' rock type to generate answers to specific questions. This system of input/output, question/answer, data/sound-visuals, will be based on open source software and open hardware electronic components. Audience/users will be the people asking the questions, and the illusion/miracle will be embodied by the machinic apparatus hosting and driving the system and synthesizing the answers.
The questions themselves will be asked through an old telephone close to the machine. The answer revealed could be sound, noise, still image, recomposed speech, light, loud music, text,colour, fast moving image , a collage of all. The content could be abstract, narrative driven, symbolic, time based, no sense, as well as nothing. The decision, choice, mix and blend of these varying ingredients will of course be the central creative task for the artists and its oracular system to tackle throughout.
The Artists (see attached biographies)
Triadic Oculus is a collaboration between London based Kaffe Matthews(UK), Eleonora Oreggia (IT/UK) a n d Larisa Blazic (SRB/UK). Intersecting different and similar languages these artists will exploit their diverse backgrounds to create an astonishing array of multi-channel experimental electronic music, noise, software, critical theory, net.art, video art, moving image in public space, audio-visual intersections with architecture, data sonification, hacker's prophecies and obscure DIY practices. Various martial arts such as Capoeira, Battodo Fudokan, and Chi Gung are also a background to this work.
Their collaboration will also create space for an exciting new hybrid work that will use a diverse collection of contemporary and new media art practices to engage with an edge cutting theoretical critic of the global world and its post-industrial psychological and technological syndromes and conditions.
Other important research questions.
What is happening to the human animal as it further removes itself from physical work with hands and the body? As we persist in filling all our time with brain consuming tasks, smart phones, messaging, screens, new information 24/7, fingers tap, brains think. Will this fast increasing obsessive activity ultimately cause the loss of any creative space as there is no cerebral pause time?
Urban society is becoming more detached from instinct, from original nature, human is developing an incapacity to connect, to detach, to release him/herself from desires created by the capitalism.
The global world is offering individuals the possibility to choose between a broader variety than in the past. People can decide their occupation, their residence, their gender; multinationals and supermarkets are providing the same products all over the world, homogenising reality and trying to shadow seasons and local productions. This claimed variety, the big choice, the wares diversity, is somewhat apparent. Slavery is still present, but in a different, merchandised form. Routes and options appear to be almost pre-described, while people's preferences, starting from the digital domain, are becoming a new form of goods. This reflection generates the following questions: is the lack of will a possible reaction to globalisation? Can it be considered, in this sense, a specific disease of post-industrial civilised urban territories? If avoiding decision making is a way to boycott the system and the self, reacting to instability and refusing any responsibility from the flow of life, is contemporary freeness only apparent and predetermined?
References
The oracle machine. http://theoraclemachine.net
Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle
Alan Turing's Oracle Machine and 'System of Logic based on Ordinals'.
The Psychogeophicis summit. http://psychogeophysics.org/
Tesla Coil
Jung
Notes
[1] Many examples through history show human anxiety over “what the future brings”. Native Americans, Mayans, ancient Greeks and Romans, Chinese, Africans, South Americans, Europeans all have examples of oracular methods they have developed to establish connections with higher powers asking for guidance as to how best live life. Seekers were ordinary, looking for answers to daily questions, as well as rich and powerful statesmen seeking guidance on the future of entire nations.
[2 ]Super-fast-forward to the current information age of data streams, remote sensing, CCTV sniffing, satellite broadcast overload, of urban living angst, of separateness, of nowness, of information anxiety, of petrified thought, of abandonment of authentic self. Does the human have any control over its life today? One would like to think so, yet, in the fast-consumer-driven-high-achieving daily grind, the human is trapped. Lost? Logic, rationality and the current UK government for example purports a belief that we can direct our lives freely; but capitalism induced advertising drives the feeble minded consumer and weakens individual creativity and potential.
[3] The tri-layered nature of our universe. The cosmos, the ether, the sky, the ether, heaven; the land, the humans, the data, the product of human societies; the earth, the rock, the soil, the molten core of the planet, hell. Father, son, holy ghost. The human experience makes a connection between these things. Question, can we also make a portal that harnesses these other energies? And use it locally?
Outcomes
"a DVD..?/audio downloads.
" Oracular software ? ?
" U s e r f e e d b a c k w o r k s h o p s
" A u d i o - v i s u a l p e r f o r m a n c e
" D o c u m e n t a t i o n o f t h e p r e - p r o d u c t i o n , d e v e l o p m e n t , p r o d u c t i o n p r o c e s s e s ( o n l i n e a n d o f f l i n e ) .
" radio broadcast: resonance FM, the Wire Magazine,
T e c h r e q u i r e m e n t s
1 x 3 2 c h a n n e l analogue m i x i n g d e s k
8 c h a n n e l s o u n d s y s t e m
2 x s u b w o o f e r s
12 x contact microphones
8 x condensor microphones
4 x vocal microphones
6 x accelerometers
4 x hydrophones
1 x MacBookPro laptop running LiSa, Max, PD, Super Collider.
3 x medium laptops on which we can run PD and stream audio and video
2 x 12 channel firewire interfaces
1 x Peavey midi controller
1 x OSC multi controller
1 x Kaleidoscope
1 x concave reflector
1 x telescope
1 x 8 foot wooden/metal/clockwork timepiece
3 x L C D p r o j e c t o r s
3 x webcams
Fast fat internet connection
Mains electricity
Cables and stands to connect.
Materials to install the equipment as invisibly as possible using found materials.
Lighting
No theatrical drapes
3 x Costumes
