Louise Poissant - Daniel Sauter

The Passage from
Material to Interface
Louise Poissant

Henri Focillon “Now the artist develops, under our eyes,
the very technique of the mind; he gives us a kind of
mold or cast which we can both see and touch.“
Suggests the creation of cartography of classical art history (including drift - past, present, future)

Declared carriers of social and genetic determinism, as
noted at the beginning of the twentieth century, modern
human beings put themselves to the test by assuming their
future and thus investing in a program for change.

Poles of art:
1) artistsʼ commitment became one of representing their vision of the
world, their emotions, offering a picture of reality, exalting a spiritual,
political value, etc.
2) Work on the material of an artwork can also reveal changes in the
distribution of diverse roles, in which the artists feel invested as:
visionary, creator, denunciator, consciousness-raiser, absorber of an
eraʼs sensibility, partner in a process, etc.
3) And finally, the new materials point to the reorganization of the
relationship between artists and spectators aiming, for over a
century, for an increased empowerment of the spectator, one who is
now called upon to intervene in a determining way in the process of
the creation of the artwork, as it has become the case in interactive
artworks.

The message is the not only the medium but modality
References:
Frank Hopper
“the decline of the object”
Isabelle Rieusset-Lemarié
“The technique is an interactive mirror”
Marshall McLuhan
“We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us
The message shapes the messenger

all point pen first disposable object

the russians used a pencil

The intellectual climate
Material to medium to interface
Wittgenstein “meaning is use”

J.L. Austin came to the conclusion that every utterance has a performative
dimension, and he proposed five categories: verdictives, exercitives,
commissives, behabitives, expositives.
Charles Morris “the pragmatic dimension of language by emphasizing the
relation between signs and interpreters.”
Implicity = the interaction between partners in a communicational exchange.

Francoise Armengeaud
• The concept of the act: to speak is not only to represent,
it is also to act upon others. Thus the notion of interaction,
of transaction.
• The concept of context: the concrete situation where
words are uttered (the place, the time, the interlocutorʼs
identity) and can influence the exchange
• The concept of performance, that is, the accomplishment
of an act in a context, which allows the actualization of
competences.

Umberto Eco “interpretative process”
represents
and “individual
and tacit
form of execution of the artwork”
Marc Lebot “Art communicates nothing to me”
pragmatism emphasizes the creation of meaning through
the single act of an exchange with the other,
renouncing the disclosure of privileged meaning
which the artists would have instilled into their artwork.

Interactivity in new media art
Also a few considerations are essential to the determinant
notion of interactivity in new media art. Interactivity in arts,
can be traced back to the 1960ʼs -- though not in French
until 1980. It is now banal and outdated.
Computer to human computing = anterior
Agents of connection are needed for the
passage from material to interface

The forerunners of art
1909 Futurists Bruno Corra and Arnaldo Ginna stage=designed a
projection
1920 Scriabin production of Prometheus
These experiences deserve attention because therein one finds the
seed of many elements to be later developed in new media arts.
1959 Allan Kaprow initiated a series of happenings
Augusto Boal, first to coin the term spect-actor
1963 Nam Jun Paik - participation tv
Video environments of Lee Levine, Bruce Nauman, and Peter
Campus
1967 Raduz Cincera interactive video projections

Signed the 11 September 1916 from Marinetti, Brown Run, Arnaldo Gins, Giacomo Dances, Remus
Chiti and Emilio Settimelli, the obvious one The futuristic Cinematography greeted, after initial
perplexity aside of Boccioni, the expressive novelty means that, if "futuristicly" interpreted, came seen
like "cheerful deformation dell' universe [..] the better school for the boys: school of delight, of
speed, of force, of recklessness and of heroism". After the proposals of revival of the theater, the
cinema, "theater without words", expressive means modern (but until then "traditionalist", rhetorical
in the performance, traditional in the stages and in the customs), autonomous, capable of to
accelerate or to slow down the motion, to blend times and places being at a distance, intervening sull'
objective appearance of the things, became so "the most suitable means of expression to the
plurisensibilità of a futuristic artist". L' suction to an entire separation of the cinema from the reality,
to become "antigrazioso, deformatore, impressionist, synthetic, dynamic, parolibero", it is translated in
the practice, still before the publication of the obvious one, in irreverent solutions and news (film that
exclude the human body telling a story across the shots of the only feet, I use of mirrors distorting...

Martha Argerich plays Scriabin's "Prométhée,
le poème du feu" Op. 60 (Symphony No. 5),
with Claudio Abbado, Berliner Philharmoniker
and Berliner Singakademie
Berlin - May 23/25, 1992

Allan Kaprow, Maneuvers (1976/2007), Version by Sybill Häus

Installation view of Peter
Campus's Interface at
Kolnischer Kunstverein
(1972)
Copyright the artist

Kino-Automat
Raduz Cincera, 1967
Links
http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu
Speaking with the Artist
http://www.naimark.net
Billed as "the world's first interactive movie," Kino-Automat was shown in a specially-built theater in the Czech Pavillion at Expo '67 in Montreal. Each of the 127 seats in the theater had a pushbutton panel with one
red and one green button. Five times during the movie, the show stops and a live performer appears on stage and asks the audience to vote on which of two possible scenes should play next. Everyone's vote is
visible around the perimeter of the film screen. As if by magic, the voted scene is played.
It's not magic but clever design: rather than creating an exponential branching structure requiring many possible scenes, Cincera wrote the script such that each scene ends back at the same next option,
regardless of which was chosen.In fact, the "magic" was really a projectionist switching the lens cap between two sychronized projectors based on the voting results.
It's important to note that there is no "new media" technology used for Kino-Automat. Yet it's one of the first known examples of "interactive media" of any kind and is therefore relevant.
Cincera made Kino-Automat as a politically-inspired joke. The opening scene is of Mr. Novak, the main character, in front of a burn-down apartment building saying "it wasn't my fault, really. Let me tell you my
story." Thus the initial set-up is that the story is a flashback with a pre-determined ending. After some of the choices, Mr. Novak appears onscreen again and say to the audience "That's an excellent choice. I'm glad
you made that choice, and I don't say this often!" Cincera, a Czech during the Cold War, wanted to make a commentary on the illusion of control of voting.
Kino-Automat inspired me, largely because it demontrates that in the end, the difference between actual control and apparent control, is zero.
Submitted by
Michael Naimark
http://stage.itp.nyu.edu/history/timeline/kinoautomat.html

If these works only allowed a limited role, for
example cranking a handle or finding oneself
included in the artwork against oneʼs will, one
understands these to be the very first steps toward
a more complex interactivity, inviting more creative
interaction.
interaction is slowly shifting toward a more refined
notion of “alteraction”
puts emphasis on not only the action but also on the
encounter with the other. Reynald Drouhin
many incorporate it into their work without naming it.

levels of interactivity exist - we arrive at the instrument
that allows by means of feedback, to measure reality -
foreseen by Gilbert Simondon
we are now entering the era of the interface. allowing
users or spectators to feel part of the process.
is it the democratization of the number of spectators
that can actively participate in interface
New media arts create environments where it is
allowed to surpass instrumentality and to explore other
behaviors and ways of connecting with each other.

The Interfaces: Shifters
In the context of new media arts where it is the intention to convert the
spectators into actors, one understands that a goo part of the operation must
be made through interfaces, devices that link humans to machines.
interface becomes conductor that participates in the production of an artwork
oneʼs interest in questioning interfaces inscribes itself in the fact that they
condense themselves to the state of knowledge, know-how, and creativity at
play; the degree of openness with regard to chance (this is a position john
cage advocated) to the others and to the environment; to methods of control.

Six principle categories of conductor
interfaces in new media arts:
1) sensors: microphones, datagloves, photovoltaic
sheets, ultrasound detectors (perception)
2) recorders: photo camera, mechanical phonograph,
digital memory (sample of reality)
3) actuators: pneumatic, hydraulic, electric devices in
robotics (movement)
4) transmitters: telegraph, internet, performances by
telepresence (abolition of distance)
5) diffusers: magic lantern, interactive hd tv, barrel organ,
digital acoustics (a/v broadcasting)
6) integrators: automation, cyborgs (reproduce the living)

Each of these interfaces allows the
articulation of a particular form of
interactivity and the investing of the
receptors as partners... Some of them join
or contribute to an aesthetic and cultural
paradigm shift.

Five Functions
extendible, revealing, rehabilitating, filtering, or the agent of
synthesthetic integration
not exclusive and frequently fulfilling more than one. their
essential role consists in carrying out smooth mediations
between thought and matter, thought and sensibility.

Conclusion
disappointing experiments = over promise/under
deliver
danger of maintaining the illusion of advancing
art was meant to be thought about and not felt, or
to be felt through the many detours of
intellectualization

Class thoughts
Arunan talks about - the subtleties of natural interactivity - possibly rethinking
impressionism through the lens of new media arts
Joe talks about - it just becoming a dialog looped through a machine and
brought back to the viewer - erasure of the artist
Julio talks about - participation does not only come from interaction.
Jesus had two questions - In the context of using art as communication is
our aim simply to establish the best communication possible by abstracting
to the point where the participants in the communique end up one in the
same The viewers become an extension of ourselves potentially as a
perfect feedback system
Alejandro quotes Poissant with questions embedded “In interface
experiences that put interactivity into play the complicity (really) of the
alteractor (what) is required by the dialogical artwork (what is a dialogical
artwork) to take place.”

Class thoughts
J.D. talks about - (image to the right) As
early as the 15th century, artists and
inventors began experimenting with this
level of interactivity—have we come
much farther in our conceptual thinking
Chaz talks about - you find individual
moments and phrases that are
beautifully and insightfully turned, yet
they donʼt add to a more concise or
specific thesis. Everything keeps going
back to a grand and general theme.
Brittany talks about - The examination of
the interfaces used in these instances
must take into account the ergonomic
complex including the users (in my
personal case insects or animals), their
degree of sensibility (do they even have
a degree of sensibility), and the context
of the use as well as its functionality (to
communicate their behavior to humans)

Questions
What do you think of Poissant saying art was meant to
be thought about and not felt, or to be felt through the
many detours of intellectualization
How does this relate to your study in 508
How does it relate to one of your classmates work