I just started the research for my "Meisterschueler" Project at the UDK (University of the Arts Berlin). My Thesis is circling around the Term of Simulation, and what shift happened lately in the field of visual representation. A Friend of mine Christopher Warnow is using the Term "Post-Simulation". Peter Weibel described it in a Lecture last week at Isea2010 in Dortmund as a shift from "simulation of our sensory Perception to a Synthesis of our sensory Perception". What is important for me is the transformation of just looking at a Screen turning into a more tactile reception of visual impressions.
From now on I start to use this section as a kind of diary, writing down all my thoughts I discover during my readings.
Lets start to think about Sensory Perception. What we perceive as we follow Heinz von Foerster a Simulation of our Brain interprets different impulses of our Sensory organs. So from the beginning there is an interface - between our brain and the real world, simulating a world (our subjective world) that we call real. But if our perception is a simulation of the world surrounding us, it can't be real, its only real before the brain starts to manipulate, reinterpret and interpolate the chaos our Senses perceive. Empedokles' "Porentheorie" describes this context without an interface, the different Sences are connected with the matching impulses through the right size of their pores. This Connection is mutual meeting half way. There is no interface needed, the connections are established if the right senses and impulses are clashing. What if we, with the new tecnologies, can, in an abstract way, differ the size of our pores to perceive the impulses meant to be for a specific Sence with a ubiquitous recorder and convert the signal for every sense we want. The perception would be much more real in a common Sense, because the recorder would be software callibrated and in conclusion not subjective. (29.11.2010)
During my research today I read a book by Siegfried Zielinski (“Archälogie der Medien” - engl. “The Deep Time of Media”) and made a significant discovery for my project. Two german Scientists in the late 19th century collected Data of the Human gait with an specific construction. Christian Wilhelm Braune and Otto Fischer took Photos from two different perspectives of a person connected to (we would say today) sensors - Lights that flash at a constant rate. The Result was a picture with graphical data of the Human walking cycle like the ones we know from Marey or Muybridge, yet in a more abstract way. But what is really interesting for me is the fact that they converted the Data of Movement and Time back to a sculpture in real space, to be perceived in another way than is typical for visual Data.
“Das intreresse Braunes und Fischer erschoepfte sich nicht in der zweidimensionalen Rekonstruktion der Bewegungen eines gehenden Mannes. Sie wussten, dass Bewegung nicht nur zeitliche sondern auch raeumliche Dimensionen hat. Aus den graphischen Daten zweier Ansichten ein und derselben Bewegung aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven machten sie Entwuerfe fuer dreidimensionale Figuren. um diese aus den physiologischen Daten gewonnenen Skulpturen sollte man regelrecht herumgehen und so den Koerper in Bewegung genaustens Studieren koennen. (Braune/Fischer 1895)” - Zielinski S. 285
(30.11.2010)
They used data of Photos and convert them back in the real world as a 3d Sculpture to make movement and time perceivable in a way a common Pictures wouldn’t allow. The Translation of the Data opens new ways in representation and in conclusion perception. They left the Interface - the sample rate in which our brain records the surrounding world (about 100Hz) and consequently our Sense of Time - behind. Braune and Fischer collected data from the “real” world that our eyes cant see in the short frame of perception and thus fixed a process of time in single Moment.
With the Theorie of Empedokles in mind one can say Mediatechnics are used to resize the pores of Movement and Time to make them perceivable for other Sences.
(01.12.2010)
