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The Active-Stimulation Feedback Platform |
| April 24 - June 11, 2005 | |
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 24, 9 - 11 p.m. |
Summary:
The Active-Stimulation Feedback Platform is about networks and flows, consent and resistance, desire and aversion. It is a global simulation, extruded from the computer onto a physical interactive platform, a circle 16 feet in diameter, densely covered with arcade-style push buttons. Viewer / participants will interact with the simulation by walking, crawling and rolling across these buttons. Their movement's trigger and bias playback of audio samples ("yes" or "no") recorded from 2000 people worldwide.
Description:
Physically, The Active-Stimulation Feedback Platform is a 16 foot, white circular platform approximately 2 feet high. Mounted on the surface of the entire platform are 2000 red arcade-game buttons, spaced about 2 inches apart. 4 conical speakers hang above the platform. Electronics, described later, reside underneath the platform. Each button is mapped to a different world city. This mapping will be achieved by taking an existing map of the world (figure 1), then treating each land-mass as a separate graphic object. Then I will create a simple computer program that makes the land masses "attract" one another (each land mass can move/rotate one pixel per program cycle trying to maximize its proximity to other land masses) (figure 2). The land masses tend to form a nearly circular "pangaea" continent. Lastly, the 2000 cities will be mapped to buttons on the circular platform, roughly corresponding to their location in the new global continent
2000 volunteers living in (or recently emmigrated from) each of these cities is recorded saying two simple words "Yes" and "No", in their native language, and the individual files (2 from each person) are stored as sound files in the computer and associated with the 2000 buttons. Each button, when pushed plays either a "yes" or a "no". The computer biases each button (whether it will say "yes" or "no") according to varied simulations. These simulations are based upon cold war war-game scenarios stemming from US military think-tanks, and more recent economic forecasting stemming from economic think tanks. For instance, the recent invasion of Iraq could be seen as biases of "yes" emanating from US cities, while most European buttons would be biased for "no". Similarly, global justice movements could be modeled. The simulation--extruded into real space on the ASFP--would be dynamic. That is, that depending on the regions of the globe that were activated (by pressing their buttons), they could influence neighboring regions. Users interact with the system by first borrowing a tyvec unitard from an attendant. Up to 4 participants may fit onto the platform at any one time. They experience the system by sitting, walking, crawling or preferably rolling around on the platform. Rolling is especially stimulating as feeling and hearing the spring-loaded buttons click beneath one's body weight is similar to the experience of rolling across bubble-wrap--triggering a polyphony of "yes" and/or "no" responses. Participants will be told the social content of the simulation that they are entering into. Their movements could be either intentionally attempting to influence the simulation, or merely trying to survey the global state of the system
Artist's Statement:
My work explores peculiar intersections of "big-science" and popular culture. It addresses complex issues raised by varied new technologies through these very technologies. My artworks include data collection devices that examine polling and categorization, genetic experiments that undermine scientific constructions of identity, and temporary organizations that performatively critique institutionalization and corporatization. These "Operational Fictions" are hybrid entities--simultaneously functional machines and fanciful representations--intended to resonate in the equally hyper-real context of the contemporary landscape
Bio:
Paul Vanouse has been working in emerging technological forms since 1990. Interdisciplinarity and impassioned amateurism guide his art practice. His electronic cinema, performances and interactive installations have been exhibited in 18 countries and widely across the US. Vanouse is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University at Buffalo, NY and a Research Fellow at the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. He lives in Buffalo, NY. His most recent solo work "The Relative Velocity Inscription Device" is a live scientific experiment, in the form of an automated electronic installation, in which he literally races skin color genes from his Jamaican-American family against one another
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