Category: Artistic Research

Artistic Research Projects developing questions on embodied cognition through the vision body relationship, screen and imaging technologies, to create a common ground in liquid societies.

Twilight Sheets

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

Keeping the flowers alive a little longer, my mom always used worn bed sheets to protect the plants around the house from frost. I sometimes felt the weight of the cotton would break the stems, but instead they knew how to bow to accommodate the weight of protection. Dappled in twilight dew, the sheets I had seen for decades gave me pause. Because I’ve had this impulse to hug what I see, and like the urge to cut a rose brings about the plants imminent death, I refrain. In pause, hanging in limbo, the sense of longing to touch, embrace, be protected, pushes me a few steps back to look. I gaze in a tearful gratitude at the sweetness of such a gesture. Studying the folds of sheet similarly to appreciating the lines formed through centuries in rocks. The patterns of the bedding mimicking the very plants they cover. Such sentiments are loathed in the artworld today, and so I hid these photos, as many others away. Occasionally tucking in projects, quietly on an internet that could power down any day, I remind myself to print these. Or draw them. Maybe paint, but why? The clinging to these ineffable moments illuminates this place behind my nose, and so it’s really the scent of these bed clothes and damp plants that delivers me the present. But I’d still like to look just a little longer. In looking, I forget about fights, I forget about hunger, I forget about anything other than the sort of illuminated pleasure looking at and performing caring gestures gives. These are invisible to the world, such gestures, saved for healthcare catalogues and tending crisis made by wars. I linger longer perhaps because I hope these plentiful actions of care become more in focus in our collective psyches. Because if the psyche really means spirit, who doesn’t feel caring and cared for, can’t really see any reason to change. It’s hard to light a protected and damp plant on fire. Perhaps putting out the fire in the minds of men would deliver the care people are crying for.

 

AWMAS 2020

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

AWMAS 2020 CONFERENCE

INTEGRATION: APPLYING ART AND SCIENCE

LOCATION: Corwin Pavilion, University of California, Santa Barabara

CONFERENCE DATES: Wed, February 05, 2020, 9:00 AM to Fri, February 07 2020, 10:00 PM [PST]

SCHEDULE: https://awmas2020.wixsite.com/home/program

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AWMAS 2020 – Art Gallery Exhibition
at the Corwin Pavilion, University of California, Santa Barbara

The UC Santa Barbara-based Alliance of Women in Media Arts and Sciences (AWMAS) will hold its third annual conference this week Feb. 5-7 at the Corwin Pavilion. With the goal of celebrating and promoting innovation by women in the burgeoning transdisciplinary space between science and media arts, the conference this year will focus on the theme of “Integration.”

“Integration” is based on academic research and artistic works by women through transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary connections between the technical sciences and other applied sciences that influence new media art. The main goal behind this conference is to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas and experiences emerging from the intersection of science and applied art. Emphasis is placed on the various aspects of the mutual benefits of the integration and interaction between science and media arts.

Attracting leading female engineers, artists, scientists and educators from all over the world, the conference has become a thriving hub for the exchange of ideas, philosophy, research, and art. The conference is led by AWMAS founder Lena Mathew, a doctoral student in UCSB’s Media Arts & Technology graduate program, along with a team of curators from UCSB, and other institutions.

As part of AWMAS 2020, an exhibition of audiovisual art installations will be presented in the Corwin Pavilion, with guided tours by the artists at 5 pm on the first day (Feb. 5th), and self-guided tours on the following days. This will serve as the backdrop for an exciting series of lectures, paper and poster presentations, and a workshop on programming for the creation of experimental computer music. The conference will culminate in a free multimedia concert on the evening of the final day.

Artists
Sam Bourgault and Emma Forgues, Stejara Dinulescu, Maru Garcia, Elizabeth Hambleton, Riley Henningsen, Nana, Klith Hougaard, Xindy Kang, Christina McPhee, Rodney & Elizabeth, Sophie Nebeker, Lauren Ruiz, Sahar Sajadieh, Tiffany Trenda, Rachel Wolfe, Yin Yu, Weidi Zhang

Curatorial Team
Sam Bourgault, Rodney DuPlessis, Kio Griffith, Elizabeth Hambleton, Gustavo Rincon, Sahar Sajadieh

Contact: awmas.exhibition@gmail.com

Special Thanks: Media Arts and Technology Program (MAT), Music Department, The Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE), transLab, & Experimental Visualization Lab

 

AFJORDANCE 2019

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

 

 

AFJORDANCE, 2019, single channel video, soundtrack composed by the digital armature joint movements referencing an open source audio library of wind. The video looks at the new complexities emerging in Artificial Intelligence, the ways humans create mirrored structures, and affordances in the notions of Intelligence itself. Exhibited in California, Norway, and Italy.

 

February 2020, Corwin Pavilion, University of California Santa Barbara for AWMAS Conference.

March 2020, Arteriet, Kvinnekroppen Utstillingen, Kristiansand, Norway.

October-November 2020, LoosenArt at Millepiani, Rome, Italy.

June 2021, New York Tri-State Film Festival.

 
Norwegian: AFJORDANCE, 2019, er i enkeltkanals video, med lydspor komponert av de digitale armaturleddbevegelsene som refererer til et lydbibliotek med åpen kildekode for vind. Videoen ser på de nye kompleksitetene som dukker opp i kunstig intelligens, måtene mennesker lager speilvendte strukturer og overkommelige i forestillingene om intelligens i seg selv. )
 

Performance & Edit, Rachel Wolfe www.rachelwolfe.com

Affordance Technologist, Harald de Bondt www.movingmaking.com

Videography, Børge Indergaard www.indergaard.net

 

 

FULL TEXT

AFJORDANCE, 2019, Approximate run time 13:50 minutes, single channel video (with audio).

Affordance is what the environment offers the individual, and refers to all action possibilities depending on users’ physical capabilities. For example, a chair “affords” being “sat on,” “thrown,” “stood on,” and a continuing use of probabilities. James J. Gibson, coined the term “affordance.” The video portrays a dance at the fjord as movement research for technology lab-work.The project developed from the Solfège Souche video performance. The relationship between the human body and the natural world remains full of misunderstandings and spaces for insight. As Artificial Intelligence becomes part of human life, and human relations are increasingly dependent on technological screens and interfaces, the question of what is knowing and the way Intelligence is understood comes into question in the video. The wind sound in Afjordance are from open source libraries. The composition is made by refercing the joints in the wire frame armature. This armature positioned antagonistically opposed to the fully covered body. The body becomes a form without much identity other than it shows the proportions of a female body. The wire frame of the body becomes the composer, making a track of wind sounds as an echo of the movements of the body. The feminine as a figure of the earth or “mother nature” in certain instances is faced with the exorcised image of itself which can scarcely mirror the motions from the limited human body. The video is intended to be projected with sound, to create an immersive experience for viewers to consider the themes of technology, the body, nature elements. The experience provides a multi-sensory meditation on the possible meanings and implications of the emergent technology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ARTISTIC RESEARCH: DRAFT FOR JOURNAL

 

 

 

MAGNETICS IN-MATERIAL

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

Intellectual Property Statement: The contents of this page are protected by Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights. Images and Ideas contained or attached to this page cannot be used by individuals or organisations without direct written permission, license, or agreement given by Rachel Wolfe.

 

 

MAGNETICS IN-MATERIAL

Objective

Magnetics In-Material weaves resonant movements into a tactile material to gain understanding of invisible, magnetic emanations from the earth. The textiles create an earth-based narrative from a geological perspective of time and can be used for iterative study of the way influences from the earth inform human behavior. Similar to the ways invisible but real phenomena of bacteria and viruses struggled to form into the knowledge hygiene promotes wellbeing, the Magnetics In-Material Artistic Research projects looks at the ways invisible but real phenomena of places make people. Applying reason to the formation of cultural behaviours, witnessed in the rise and fall of civilisations, the Magnetics In-Material Artistic Research project aims to be repeated, studied over and over throughout the coming decades.

 

Demarcated by textures and colours woven based on recordings from magnetic/sonic measures between the sun and earth, the sensible and invisible forces become Visual, Sensual (tactile), and Actual (woven). Textiles visualise specific sites in a repeatable process. The artistic research process and production uses anthropology, geology, and scientific methods to weave data, imaging technology, analysis and creative practices in traditional textiles. These textiles can be used for wall hangings, installations, scenography and performances.

 

To understand human relationships with nature and present iterative opportunities to make textile(s) of the magnetic records at several sites. Potential themes in the start of location choice could be, but not limited to, sites of cultural and historical significance such as shrines, pilgrimage routes, or political and humanitarian organisations such as NATO and UNESCO. 

 

Field of Artistic Research

Magnetics In-Material is a cross disciplinary artistic research project encompassing art and craft work, performance, technology, anthropology, embodied cognition, imaging structures, textiles, and geologic sciences for epistemic investigations. The artistic research aims to look at the way images are both felt and understood, from a bottom-up approach. 

 


Summary

The challenging hypothesis – the ways places make people, will develop the proposed, specific methodology under PhD supervision. The methodology contains carefully selected uses a qualitative, blended research studies. Purely quantitative analysis from an empirical point of view can be problematic. Collected data in tables or graphs can be misleading. The current plan is to use data, geological and magnetic resonance measures, to create tactile objects, for viewing, exhibition, and use in performances. The aim is to establish a tactile way to connect with the things we cannot see, and study through blended social implementation and data comparison. Focusing on creating “maps,” the woven images, create pictures to relate with. Necessity of this purpose for blended research information is to create a common ground for meaningful relating in a continually evolving, multicultural, and global paradigm.

 

Research Question(s) 

How do places make people? Further questions here and expanded later on in Project Summary Goals: 

  • Can creating a sense of place be a viable concept for geographic empathy?
  • Ways touch and subjective experience contribute to quests for objectivity.
  • Creating sites for understanding, intuition, and subjectivity in technocratic culture and climate changes. 
  • Usefulness of statistical data models in evaluating Intelligence.
  • Responsibilities of data science and influences images have on social policy.
  • Art as supporting diversity in cultural rituals and identities. 
  • To what extent can culture support the disintegration of identity politics in favour of earth-based perspectives in the history of human behaviour, environmental fluctuations, social formations.
  • Can materials and production afford reliable alternatives to present-day socio-economic models.

 

Background, Research Context, Goals, Methods

Magnetics In-Material (Mi-M) developed from 6-years Pattern Recognition project. The project looks at the idea of A.I., landscape photography, and 1970’s American Land Art movement. With the orientation of working-with and not over emerges a biologically, ontological question: what creates a body? and the Mi-M question: how do places make people? The project and process looks at ways of working in relationship with nature, instead of seeing/viewing and using nature as pure resource. 

Gathered rocks from meditative hikes were numbered, archived, and drawn. Rock faces were made into drawings, drawings into choreography, and the feeling of the movements into the template for the visual textile project, Magnetics In-Material. By connecting my background with photography, image making and installation, dance and performance with my interests in geology and dating, the project realises several goals:

  • Giving people a sense of understanding through experience
  • Reprieve from alienation through creating belonging by connecting with nature
  • Temporal and sensorial reminders of wholeness and warmth in relations with nature
  • Realise the impossible act of hugging the visual field 
  • The body becoming in relationship with a place
  • Sharp textures into soft experiences
  • Absolute and brutal beauty of weather patterns into physically engaging comfort materials

Magnetics In-Material weaves sensorial experience, repairing alienation by making the imaginary tactile. Woven fibres serve as temporal warmth. In creating a cultural way to connect with movements deep within the earth through touch, Magnetics In-Material weaves together traditions in art, technology, and social psychology.

 

Process & Reflexive Documentation

Utilise remnant magnetic data from organisations such as Norge’s Geologiske Undersøkelse and International Geoscience Organsiations, sourcing data to create dimensional textiles, such as jacquards with TC2 Loom technology, to show the top and inside, as interrelated surfaces. 

The process of the artistic research project based on the theory of how places making people, and study of pre-existing natural, magnetic phenomena. Magnetics are related to knowledge production in physics, the ontological question of existence whether or not humans observe the phenomenon. The process therefore involves ideas on documentation to bring human understanding with greater sensitivity with the nature. The fields have become politicised, and so the process and documentation will remain diligent to cite and source facts from peer-reviewed organisations. By exposing observations and facts alongside the project, the research already being done can come into public awareness alongside the textiles, creating site specific visual reference via Magnetics In-Material textiles.

Photographs/images, videos, writing as documentation of the process, as well as the formation of a visual database. The project can serve as a grounds for establishing a company that can bridge science and art. Organisation and design of the textiles, production, quality control and compiling the artworks to exhibitions and performances.

   

Project Outline

Organisation and design of the textiles, production, quality control and compiling the artworks to an exhibition. One of the goals is to eventually have designs created by hand at Gobelin.

    • Gather and Organise Geographic Data
    • Establish Structure for Project Elements and Publishing
    • Generate a Database of Texts, Sounds, and Visual Translations
    • Converting Geologic Frequencies into Sounds and Colour Spectrums in a Unique Aesthetic Database
    • Experimentation with Textiles for Conductivity, Sound, and Luminance Materials
    • Programming for Machine Output and Materialisation
    • Finalised Textile Production Through Machine Weaving
    • Publishing of Project Elements and Results
    • Public Exhibition and Performance

 

Provisional Time Table and Work Plan

Year One 

    • Gather and Organise Geographic Data 
    • Establish Structure for reflexive project archive in an archive, web and print 
    • Converting Geologic Frequencies into Sounds and Colour
      Spectrums creating a Unique Database 
    • Weave Textile Designs from this Database 
    • Experiment with Materials for Conductivity, Sound,
      Luminance 
    • Produce Digitally Woven Samples 

Year Two 

    • Finalised Textile Production via Digital/Hand Machine
      Weaving 
    • Publishing of Project Elements, Reflexive Documentation
      (including video) and Results 
    • Choreography for the final exhibition 
    • Public Exhibition and Performance 
    • Finalisation & Publishing 
    • Process for therapeutic or social integration

Year Three And Beyond

    • Finalised Textile Production Through Machine Weaving
    • Publishing of Project Elements and Results 
    • Public Exhibition and Performance 
    • Finalisation & Publishing of Pedagogical Methodology (Possible Therapeutic or Social Integration Uses)

Year Four +Beyond

    • After first publication of dissertation and exhibition, repeat the process and production for more sites for exhibition and performance.

 


Budget

Potential Project Related Expenses

    • Workspace for production, shipping, or textile storage
    • Labor (personal or assistants), use of weaving machine: https://www.digitalweaving.no/product/ 
    • Sourcing yarns, fibres, and experimental materials (ex. copper or fibre optics)
    • Scholarships, Embassy Support, private donors, teaching fellowship, public workshops
    • Norge’s Geologiske Undersøkelse data is openly available for use
    • Travel for conferences, exhibitions, professional presentations, necessary networking 

 


Texts, Books, Journals, Research

Remnant Magnetism, https://www.britannica.com/science/remanent-magnetism
Norske Geologiske Undersøkelse, https://www.ngu.no 

Remanent magnetism (Paleomagnetism) or the permanent magnetism in rocks, resulting from the orientation of the Earth’s magnetic field at the time of rock formation in a past geological age is the source of information for the paleomagnetic studies of polar wandering and continental drift. Remanent magnetism can derive from several natural processes. This arises when magnetic minerals forming in igneous rocks cool through the Curie point and when the magnetic domains within the individual minerals align themselves with the Earth’s magnetic field, thus making a permanent record of its orientation. 

A second mechanism operates when small grains of magnetic minerals settle into a sedimentary matrix, producing detrital remanent magnetism. It is hypothesised that the tiny grains orient themselves in the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field during deposition and before the final consolidation of the rock. The magnetism thus introduced appears to persist through later alteration and compaction of the rock. 

Rocks may acquire remanent magnetism in at least two other ways: (1) rocks made up of nonmagnetic minerals chemically altered to yield magnetic minerals, and these newly formed minerals acquire remanent magnetism in the presence of the Earth’s magnetic field; and (2) igneous rocks already cooled may acquire remanent magnetism by a process called viscous magnetization. The difference between these types of remanent magnetism can be determined; magnetic history of a particular rock can therefore be interpreted via 6 basic types of magnetisation: (1) diamagnetism, (2) paramagnetism, (3) ferromagnetism, (4) antiferromagnetism, (5) ferrimagnetism, (6) superparamagnetism. 

 

Bibliography

Batchelor, David, Chromophobia, Reaktion Press, 2000.

Batchelor, David, The Luminous and the Gray, Reaktion Press, 2014.

Dragesund, Tove, and Alice Kvåle. “Study protocol for Norwegian Psychomotor Physiotherapy versus Cognitive Patient Education in combination with active individualized physiotherapy in patients with long-lasting musculoskeletal pain – a randomized controlled trial.” BMC musculoskeletal disorders vol. 17 325. 5 Aug. 2016, doi:10.1186/s12891-016-1159-8, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4974790/

Eco, Umberto, The Open Work, Harvard Univerity Press, 1989.

Eco, Umberto, Travels in Hyper Reality, Gruppo Editoriale, 1983

Eco, Umberto, Chronicles of a Liquid Society, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

Ghezzo, Marta Arkossy, Solfege, Ear Training, Rhythm, Dictation, and Music Theory: A Comprehensive Course 3rd Edition, University Alabama Press, June 2005.

Haugeland, John, Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea, A Bradford Book, 1985.

Johnson, Don, The Protean Body, Harpercollins, 1977.

Klempe, Sven Hroar, Cultural Psychology of Musical Experience, Information Age Publishing, 2016.

Mansoor, Asma, De-Anthropologising the Human and its Impact on Racism: A Third World Perspective Proceedings of A Body of Knowledge, Embodied Cognition and the Arts Conference CTSA UCI, 8-10 Dec 2016, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1ds0r585

Mate, Gabor, When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection. Wiley, January 2011.

Mate, Gabor, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Close Encounters with Addiction, North Atlantic Books, 2008.

Noë, Alva, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, Hill and Wang, September 2015. Noë, Alva, Varieties of Presence, Harvard University
Press, 2009.

Noë, Alva, Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness, Hill and Wang, February 2009.

Sapowlsky, Robert, (neuroendocrinologist, author, professor of biology, neurology and neurological sciences) Stanford Lectures, published by Stanford University on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA

Scarry, Elaine, The Body in Pain, Oxford University Press, 1984.

Scarry, Elaine, On Beauty and Being Just, Princeton University Press, 1999.

Scarry, Elaine, Thinking In An Emergency, W.W. Norton & Company, March 2014.

Scarry, Elaine, Resisting Representation, Oxford University Press, 1994.

Scwhenk, Theodore, Sensitive Chaos, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1965.

Van Der Kolk, Bessel A. M.D., The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Penguin Random House, September 2014.

 

Artists

Ingrid Aarset’s work with textiles and technology.

Lygia Pape and Lygia Clarke, for their contributions to performances using textiles and groups of human bodies.

Pedro Gomez-Egaña for the spiritual in the technological age.

Amanda Steggel’s, Mind the Gap, work with synthesia and for mapping the way sounds relate to colors and energy centres of the body.

Dorothea Tanning’s surrealism to make the invisible but felt senses of lived experience tactile, formal, pictorial and spacial. 

Live Bugge’s, The Other Wild, for investigations on the boundaries on behavior and transgressions. 

Katrine Koster Holst’s work on the landscape changing over time.

Geir Harald Semuelsen’s work with light. 

Francesca Capone’s direct, literal, blocks discerning patterns.

 

Ethical Considerations 

Privacy, GDPR, internet laws and regulations to access and storage of data, legal consent, public information, and privacy of individual contributions will be considered.

Translating data must be understood from the perspective of artistic choices, underlined by the effort to maintain elemental integrity. Considering subjectivity in processes borrowed from scientific methodology, actual realised results cannot be considered wholly objective. This shall be acknowledged, questioned, written, and shared in presentations, publications, and future developments from the Magnetics In-Material project.

The research methodologies to be considered as critical or negotiable features for future research methodologies and with the possibility for other institutional use, pedagogical developments in the realm of private or government institutions, or public domain.

The research and pedagogical approach developed during the project are free to be used for running workshops and courses alongside the project. These courses can be used for enriching local cultural exchange, as an educational resource and site for additional funding of the project.

Resourcing local production to minimise international shipping or travel expenses.

Insurance for the artwork, machines, materials, and data, to be purchased and maintained throughout the duration of the research and productions thereafter.

Language, writing and documentation will be reviewed for facts and technical accuracy. The number of unforeseeable ethical considerations will be consulted through the advisory team, faculty, and staff, considering international copyright and intellectual property laws.

 

 

SOLFEGE SOUCHE 2018

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

SOLFEGE SOUCHE, 2018, single-channel video, sound composition and arrangement.

A Solfège Souche is by definition the root of a forgotten connection with nature. In times of rapidly increased use of technology, humans face increased stimulation and variables on age old questions in ethics and morality. In an effort to portray a dynamic relationship with nature, instead of dominance over nature, the Butoh movements recreate ways lifeforms cut down in the forest continually find ways to reach towards light. This space framed in the video presents a body moving amongst an autumnal forest, merging and emerging from light and shadows. The body draws lines through movement; binaural beats compose the soundtrack. The pitches register at markers in time, reminiscent of ear trauma or tinnitus. The Solfège Souche video is situated at the intersection of dance, performance, video art, projection, embodied cognition research, and resonance study. The artistic research and pedagogical development around the project asks the questions: Are our cultural and bodily movements dangerous if we do not understand what we stand to lose? In what ways do sounds move and change forms from within the body and around? 

 

“Ut queant laxīs resonāre fībrīs; Mīra gestōrum famulī tuōrum; Solve pollūtī labiī reātum, Sancte Iōhannēs.”

 

The term, Solfège, refers to the music education method developed to teach sight-singing and pitch accuracy. Originating in 11th century, music theorist Guido of Arezzo assigned six syllables: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, now recognized as the major scale. Much later, the “ut” was changed to the open syllable “do”. “Sol” changed to “so”. “Si” later became “ti”, was added for the seventh scale-note, giving rise to the modern solfège. Souche has several meanings; as a stump (of a tree), the Latin word meaning root, simultaneously referring to genealogy. Souche was also a name of an unknown virus claiming the lives of at least twenty people  (une souche virale inédite a fait au minimum vingt morts).

The changes and understandings in musical notation, are related to posture and movement. These bodily performances considered intuitive or based on vision, relating Gregorian and Orthodox histories with traditions found in native and pagan rites of passage. Therefore the things themselves, present and projected become the shared ground. The next record in this artistic research is the Afjordance video projection and data based, algorithmic generated sounds based on the term Affordance. 

Affordance is what the environment offers the individual, and refers to all action possibilities depending on users’ physical capabilities. For example, a chair not only “affords” being “sat on,” but also “thrown,” “stood on,” and so on. James J. Gibson, coined the term “affordance.”

 

“I love the way the figure is emerges then blends back into its surroundings, it is how I feel in the wild parts of Skye as if I am the landscape. The light is beautiful. It isn’t like Bill Viola’s work, but it has the same emotional effect on me.” -Joan Foye, UK

 

February 2019, Palazzo Michiel, Strada Nova, 4391, 30121 Campo Santi Apostoli, Venezia, Italy

June 2019, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA Museum), Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

October 2020, “The Performer”, LoosenArt, Millipiani, Rome, Italy

June 2020, Semi-Finalist, Dumbo Film Festival, New York.

June 2021, Finalist in Best Experimental Film Category, Beyond The Curve Film Festival, Paris, France.

June 2021, New York Tri-State Film Festival.

 
   

 

 
NORSK: Solfege Souche, 2018, enkelt kanel med lyd, filmet i Maridalen, Oslo, Norway

En Solfège Souche er per definisjon roten til en glemt forbindelse med naturen. I tider med raskt økt bruk av teknologi, møter mennesker økt stimulering og variabler på eldgamle spørsmål innen etikk og moral. I et forsøk på å skildre et dynamisk forhold til naturen, i stedet for dominans over naturen, gjenskaper Butoh-bevegelsene måter livsformer kuttet ned i skogen kontinuerlig finner måter å nå mot lys. Dette rommet innrammet i videoen presenterer en kropp som beveger seg mellom en høstlig skog, smelter sammen og kommer ut fra lys og skygger. Kroppen trekker linjer gjennom bevegelse; binaural beats komponerer lydsporet. Plassene registreres ved markører i tide, og minner om øre traumer eller tinnitus.

Solfège Souche-videoen ligger i skjæringspunktet mellom dans, performance, videokunst, projeksjon, forskning og studier. Den kunstneriske forskningen og den pedagogiske utviklingen stiller spørsmålene: Er våre kulturelle og kroppslige bevegelser farlige hvis vi ikke forstår hva vi taper? På hvilke måter beveger lyd og endrer form fra kroppen og rundt?

Ut queant laxīs resonāre fībrīs; Mīra gestōrum famulī tuōrum; Løs pollūtī labiī reātum, Sancte Iōhannēs.
 
Begrepet, Solfège, refererer til musikkopplæringsmetoden som er utviklet for å undervise i synge og tonehøyde. Opprinnelsen fra det 11. århundre tildelte musikteoretikeren Guido fra Arezzo seks stavelser: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, nå anerkjent som hovedskala. Mye senere ble “ut” endret til den åpne stavelsen “do”. “Sol” endret til “så”. “Si” ble senere “ti”, ble lagt til for den syvende skala-noten, noe som ga opphav til den moderne solfège. Souche har flere betydninger; som en stubbe (av et tre), det latinske ordet som betyr rot, og refererer samtidig til slektsforskning. Souche var også et navn på et ukjent virus som krevde livet til minst tjue mennesker (une souche virale inédite a fait au minimum vingt morts).

Endringene og forståelsene i musikalsk notasjon, er relatert til holdning og bevegelse. Disse kroppslige forestillingene ble ansett som intuitive eller basert på visjon, og relaterte gregorianske og ortodokse historier med tradisjoner som finnes i innfødte og hedenske overgangsritualer. Derfor blir tingene i seg selv, nåværende og projiserte, den delte bakken. Den neste posten i denne kunstneriske forskningen er Afjordance videoprojeksjon og databaserte, algoritmisk genererte lyder basert på begrepet Affordance.

Overlegenhet er hva miljøet tilbyr individet, og refererer til alle handlingsmuligheter avhengig av brukernes fysiske evner. For eksempel gir en stol ikke bare “å sitte på”, men også “kastet”, “sto på” og så videre. James J. Gibson, laget begrepet “overkommelighet”.

 
 

PATTERN RECOGNITION

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

PATTERN RECOGNITION METHOD, teaching, artistic process, healing generational lineages with meditation, drawing/visual art, movement, writing, video. This method began developing from 2014 through 2021, and is protected by intellectual property rights; for interest, permissions of usage, contact: rachel@rachelwolfe.com

The program is founded in methods of kinaesthetic learning and working with memory. The multisegment process was formed for the basis of: art making, teaching, and counsel. Pattern Recognition was built alongside artistic research projects Solfége Souche, Afjordance, and Magnetics In-Material. Pattern Recognition Projects are involved with the field of Embodied Cognition. Applying principles in John Haugeland’s book on Artificial Intelligence and pedagogical writings on Locus of Control, in methods of learning through doing. Designed to develop critical thinking skills while forming healthy relationships and understandings with terrains and temporality, the methods serve as means for new connections and realisations within the practitioners. Meditation, drawing, and physical movement create visual results within individuals and group dynamics. The Pattern Recognition projects work dynamically with memory, behavior, lineage, choices, and agency with individuals through the Vision and Body Relationship, including coordination and motor skill development. There are presently seven segments with room for performance, sound and technology collaborations. 

 

 

 

 

SEGMENT ONE

The first step is to experience a sensitised exploration of the environment, such as the practice of Forest Bathing. City environments can also be used. Through meditation and movement to go into contact with intuition. The intuition guides the gathering of materials from the environment.

 

 

SEGMENT TWO

The second step is to draw materials from the environment. Following an axial rotation similar to the scientifically reported rotation of the earth, the faces (planes) of the dimensional materials are drawn. In this example, drawings were made, the tracings make the under-layers visible on the new top layers of tracings. The concept is to make the impressions of the dynamic modes of axial rotation visible. The practice brings awareness to the memory and sensory ways a visible detail can fade in visibility but remain within under-layers.

 

 

 

SEGMENT THREE

The third step is involves Visual and Somatic Memory. The lines drawn in the previous exercise are performed as body movements. Exercises are practiced independently, leaving room for personal interpretation. A group environment affords the opportunity to coordinate independent movements into a group arrangement of movements. Records of these practices are used for reflection and to witness development of reflexive awareness over time.

 

 

SEGMENT FOUR

To experience nature, and nurture concepts of impression and transference, two transferrable materials are used with water and pigment. Other materials can be useful. For the sake of providing an example, gouache paintings with two pieces of paper follow 2 different impulse. 1 impulse to paint from memory. The 2nd impulse to paint from a photo.

To look at the difference between making something look like something else or using memory (embodied sense of experience) – the gouache painting exercise was carried out by making compositions based on memories of witnessing detailed areas of water flow, and composing paintings based on looking at a photograph. Viewers could immediately see the difference of reference from memory or image.

The gouache paintings were done on the “wrong side” of Japanese Washi paper, to transfer the pigments onto acid-free, black papers. The pigments left traces similar to the way a memory becomes a trace of lived experience or ways communication of forms become transferred onto what is underneath or nearby.

In addition to discerning difference in how forms are made by hand from referencing external or internal referents, is also considering the process of transfer. As the original can become a symbol for reading-as reading a book or remembering a book, the paint transferred to the surface under becomes the information absorbed.

 

 

 

 

SEGMENT FIVE

A mirroring exercise, completed with language and/or illustration. By writing a letter in reverse, to see how it appears through a material and in a mirror. The practice is based on the mechanics of a single-reflex camera and the way the eye perceives reality directly which is then flipped in the brain. This practice develops understanding of communication and the two-way nature of the way read symbols are transmitted and interpreted.

 

 

SEGMENT SIX

A relational exercise, completed with vision, drawing, space and relating. Participants have each a drawing tool and paper. They interlock arms and being to simultaneously draw a portrait of the other. While drawing the awareness of space, cooperation, coordination, patience and additional soft qualities are activated. After the process is complete, a portrait reveal and discussion follows the activity. This practice develops understanding of the dynamic relating skills people engage with their vision and experience of reality. 

 

 

SEGMENT SEVEN

 

The method builds a process to be performed. The activity can be performed as a solo, duo, or in a group organisation. There is no limit to the number of participants, only that the processes are done a priori to the perfuming of the lines and learnings with the body. The next two segments can be one or the other, or both of them. The performance is to be recorded. The performance can be done in private or to an audience.

 

 

POST: PERFORMATIVE SEGMENTS

Based on the recorded performances, there can be used intersections of A.I. research, algorithmic sound composition, witness/viewer feedback. Through the performances the memories of the performer are recorded and reflected. The aim is to not procure an echo chamber or simply encouragement of future performance, but to engage in a process of understanding lines between fiction and reality. With regards to intelligent technologies, subjects of agency, lineage, and space for all stories and perspectives is aimed for the realm of tolerance and expansion. This questions the validity of violence, even subtle violence, as a form of ignorance, while also engaging in the questions about integrity and vulnerability such that an individual does not lose their personal agency or embodies other people’s ideas- but rather is allowed to have their own.

The following documentation highlights the use of technology for feedback review.

 

SOLFEGE SOUCHE

 

 

AFJORDANCE 

 

 

 

 

TEXTILE SEGMENTS

 

Based on visual records of geological data from magnetic resonances created by rocks in places of the earth and radiation, the data is used to create textiles. These textiles are used for tapestries, scenography, costumes. The working title for the Textile Segments are: Magnetics In-Material and are intended to engage in material and resources research.

This segment weaves aesthetic movements from the perspective of earth’s history. A history informed by geological time and now amalgamated from technological sensors. This history has the potential to be conflated as human history but remains also problematic as the machine sensor differs so widely from the bodied sensors.

Magnetic emanations from the earth are woven to form visual representations. The textiles create an earth-based narrative from a geological perspective of time. Demarcated by textures and colours woven based on the recordings from the earth, the invisible forces from within the earth become Visual, Sensual (tactile), and Actual (woven). The textiles reveal understandings in human relationships with nature and present iterative opportunities to make textile(s) of the magnetic records at a variety of sites. Potential themes could be, but not limited to, locations of cultural and historical significance such as shrines, pilgrimage routes, or political and humanitarian organisations such as NATO and UNESCO.

 

 

 

MAKING SENSE

https://rachelwolfe.com/making-sense/

The foundation of this research is based on the graduate research project for MFA at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California (2015). Making Sense dealt with the way memory, temporality, liminal space are navigated by the body, and the various ways senses and affect can alter reality to create fantasy or be used as a tool to bring about clarity.  The research took up obscured stories from WWII history in the development of imaging technologies. The apparatus and history of photography proved to be a ripe area with often looked over nuances useful for agency and understanding.