»Turbulence, Interactive Museum of Unnatural History« 
Light Box
Light Box
; Jon McCormack
Keywords
Information
Technology
Hardware
- Hi-quality video projector for component PAL video projection. - Projection screen (for video projector if used).
- Macintosh computer with at least 128 Mb of RAM, at least 200 Mb free disk space and a CD-ROM drive. System 8.6 or 9.2 of MacOS is required (Does not work with OS X).
- 14 inch Touch screen (640 x 480 resolution) for Macintosh and appropriate touch screen software. (either MicroTouch or Elo TouchSystems) and connection cables OR the MIKO plynth (preferred).
- 1 High quality Stereo amplifier (e.g. Yamaha P2700 (350W per ch.) or Yamaha PC2602 (260 Watts per ch.)
- 1 pair of Hi-Fi quality speakers (front) (e.g. Yamaha S300, or JBL-Control 4)
- 1 Sub-woofer speaker and amplifier
- 1 31 band Stereo Equaliser (e.g. Yamaha Q2031A)Plinth to hold touch-screen+. (Not required with the MIKO touchscreen).
- Laserdisc player, either a Pioneer LD-V4300D (PAL or NTSC) or LD-V8000 (for NTSC presentations only)
- For component quality PAL presentations: Pioneer VDR-V1000P or Sony LVA-4500P / LVA-8000P. Note that the Sony LDP-3600D is not suitable for screening Turbulence.
Descriptions & Essays
What would life be like if it were made from computer algorithms rather than flesh and blood? Artificial Life is the name given to the simulation of natural forms and processes using materials other than those found in nature. It is not so much a general method of investigation, but perhaps a type of philosophy that supposes that life can be defined in general terms by its mechanisms, not in any particular materialisation. It questions definitions: what is life? Is there anything particularly unique about the life we know? Could life be a more general property - a logical essence of the universe we inhabit, the planet we live on, the computers we make?
TURBULENCE is an interactive work that travels deep into the computer space of Artificial Life, in both it's method of production and the poetic ideas presented in the interactive.
A video laserdisc contains over 30 minutes of computer animation - a menagerie of synthesised forms - created using software written specifically for the work. By abstracting processes used in natural evolution, the computer becomes the world within which virtual chimeras are created, through simple algorithmic rules (the Artificial Life equivalent of DNA). Artificial forms are evolved within the machine and made discernible by computer visualisation. The evolutionary process permits "survival of the most beautiful or aesthetically interesting" as opposed to "survival of the fittest" as in evolution on Earth. The goal of this process was to explore the potential of "life-as-it-could-be". Conceivably, the virtual organisms evolved in the computer are mere shadows of life: phantasms and simulacra grown from mindless instructions, executed rigorously and exactly, without purpose or question, by a digital computing machine.
Users interact with the work using a touch screen. By pressing on words and symbols different sections of the videodisc are projected on a large screen in front of the viewer. The work is a poetic interpretation drawing on the dualist debate and the philosophical implications of evolutionary theory. As an interactive, it is a collection of abstract thoughts, simulations, ideas, information and poetry, all a multiplex of links into an interactive web of spectacular computer synthesised imagery. It is a passionate, individual vision that is directed towards examining representations of ourselves through our use of machines. TURBULENCE is a genuine example of the way in which the computer medium offers a new and different perspective on nature and our relationship to it.
In many ways the work is a type of futuristic natural history museum made visible through the synergetic combination of mind and machine - a document of a type of life that exists only within the abstract pluriverse of computational space. A place that never was in a time that has never been.
The installation operates within an enclosed circular space and is decorated to resemble a strange natural history museum. Projected animation from a video laserdisc covers an entire wall within the space and is controlled via a small touch screen interface, using a Macintosh computer.
Viewers of the installation enter an enclosed, darkened space, via two circular concentric walls. Along the walls are specimen jars that contain preserved examples of biological life - flowers, insects, organs, photographs, the components of living organisms. Many of these objects relate in some way to the video sequences on the disc. The jars are dimly illuminated internally.
The middle of the space contains a small plinth facing the projection screen. The plinth contains a touch screen, which controls the playing of video segments from a laserdisc. What is seen by the person interacting with the work depends upon selections made on the touch screen.
Words and images float and spiral on the touch screen. Touching on a word usually results in a section of animation been played from the laserdisc (onto the projection screen). Collections of animated segments are grouped both thematically and by imaginary `species', with linkage by their genetic relatives. It is important to remember that all the organisms are fictions, evolved by a software program during production of the project.
There is no start or end to the work, but as the user progresses with the interaction the software `learns' about which areas the user is exploring and responds with inter-related options (i.e. the work tries to adapt to the personality and whims of the user). The nature of the interactivity allows different users to begin and end at any point within the work and quickly establish where they are within its structure. The interactive structure is based around four themes and one place, all of which are interrelated:
% SIGNALS - communication and information transfer on a biological and metaphysical level.
% FLOW - the progression of change within a medium. The new water chases out the old, but the patterns remain the same.
% SPACES - algorithmic spaces, with their own dynamics, complexity formed through the repeated sum of simple operations unique visualisations of mathematical spaces and their relationship to natural space.
% ORGANISMS - shapes and forms `evolved' via aesthetic selection, a synergetic combination of mind and machine. A synthesis unique to the computer.
% METAROOM - a metaphysical place of memory, purpose, destiny and meaning.
Apart from the conceptual and thematic ideas explored by the work the presentation style is highly theatrical in nature and works best with the largest possible projection size and high quality audio reproduction.
Literature
Exhibitions & Events