Alternity in "Bodies in Space"

From Bodies in Space

“When I first entered into the shadowy room, I found my senses assaulted and then seduced, compelled to want more, see more, feel more. I wedged myself between the shafts of nearly imperceptible webbing that formed arcs, shards and meshes of light, hoping to track something unusual, possibly a moment of haunting, indescribable beauty to turn ripe!” (Notes to Self)

In this first of what will be a monthly blog column dedicated to probing the insights of artists and scientists studying “the body in space,” I am pleased to feature the research and the researcher who produced “Ambient Alternity,” a new mediascape installation installed at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. As a project conceived and developed by the up and coming architect/mediascape designer, f|Myles (aka F. Myles Sciotto), the work not only caught my attention but that of the SCI-ARC graduate committee which awarded the young designer with the “best thesis” award for Summer 2009. Given my interest in all things neuro and new, I was particularly moved to find the designer had used neurotech/biofeedback equipment to data collect!


Statement:

Ambient Alternity:
Through the Projected Perception of Spatial Harmonics

“I am not
interested in
the stable core
of the known,
but in the
turbulent edge
of the barely
conceivable ”
…Marcos Novak

Blurring the threshold of both spatial and temporal constructions, Ambient Alternity is an
experiment in architecture’s capacity to produce alternative forms of experience. It asks how our current understanding of how we experience our surroundings is going to be affected by the digital networks and persuasive computing beginning to be embedded within the physical
environment.

All around us we have created stuff. Stimuli, candy for the modern imagination, stimulation for the conglomeration. We are amidst a trans-connected threshold, whereby everything is networked, plugged in, online, and in real time. Computer chips now outnumber humans and questions of embodiment through architecture need to be questioned. These emerging new paradigms require new developments in the formation of our future.

Alternity employs informed dimensions of space and time. Superseding virtuality by attempting to avoid symbolism, existing between the physical and metaphysical, material and immaterial, real and unreal, it exists within this current blurred threshold. Society is beginning to get comfortable with this threshold and Architecture needs to become involved.

These images explore the concept and practice of world making by designing an environment that allows for the experimentation of spatial and temporal harmonic possibilities using information asmaterial. Geometry (numbers in space), sound (numbers in time), and sense (coherence of numbers) are constructs containing forces and velocities which are translated by their inherent relationship to frequency, and periodicity, thus creating potential harmonies. This feedback loop through projection, both spatial (geometric) and temporal (sonic) are informed by mapping perception (EEG data).

This allows a unique relationship to be reprogrammed, and is experienced through the
TranSection; an evolved threshold paradigm, projecting space by perceiving our sense of it. It
becomes an experiment in the evolution and transformation of the visceral, infinite space of
possibilities.

In the installation (pictured herein), a feedback loop containing two programmatic models,
perception and projection, are established. Upon entering the environment, the user is connected to a wireless EEG transmitter which senses the neural activity of the brain and sends it to a computer. A program then translates this data and maps it through different parameters,
scanning and sending the coherent patterns found in real-time. These coherencies are then
rendered in a virtual environment and sent to the projection paradigm.

What I Am For
New ideas and discoveries
Architects designing trans-active spaces programmed and able to be adaptive by a system of
parameters. There is no beginning and end to anything, the world is continually evolving and so the methodology is not where one thing ends and another starts, but rather transition between what has been, is, and will be. This threshold is not a defining moment, but when broken down only consists of a system of tolerances and capacities at which everything exists. This ideology of spatial and temporal thresholds needs to be acknowledged and examined, the designing of dynamic potentialities.

What I Am Challenging
Narrow views and outlooks
I am theoretically challenging the notion of an “architect” deciphering space as static forms to be occupied and experienced by others, based with the notion that we live in an active world where things grow, adapt and evolve to their surroundings. The idiosyncratic dilemmas, historical events and personal preferences of the users offer the program to develop systems of dynamic spaces creating new paradigms of environment and embodied experience. I believe this will become more relevant and prevalent as the technological & information revolution continues and ultimately leads to a new understanding of space, environment and realization of the singularity.

Why Is It Important
This is the future, our future
As the understanding of spatial and temporal constructs begins to evolve, architects should be
the vanguard of conceptualization, experimentation, and generation. These new realms and
dimensions of spaces require new tools, techniques and theories in the construction of our
future.

To learn more about the research of F. Myles Sciotto, go to his website:
www.soCinematic.com

More HERE

Tue, Sep 21, 2010  Permanent link
Categories: installations, sciarc, socinematic, f.myles sciotto, bodies in space

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