#computational theory

As much as such divisions are useful for creating human-like technology, they become controversial precisely because of having to use human as the ultimate ideal for computation. It is not a fault to get inspired by our own computational abilities, but did we at all consider what we could learn from the perceived 'other' in this equation, or better still, from the relationships that exist between us and the world that we are part of to include everything and everyone? Surely, this is no easy task because choices must be made and there is always the question of who makes those choices, but it is clear that focusing purely on human as a lone example and the model for such technologies is problematic and narrow-minded. 

This is not a critique on Suchman, who takes an approach of diversity, if only across the human realm. In fact, her approach and her references to Donna Harraway are opening up a debate which aim to challenge the normative approach to Euro-American focus when it comes to conjuring up an image of human-ness. Exposing and criticising this normative post-colonial white-male centered ideal of human is a vital first move from what has been so strongly normalised and wired into our everyday realities. An attack on this greyscale vision of our human-ness can hopefully lead to asking further questions.

What does human have in common with their world and its inhabitants? 

What does solidarity feel like and what kind of entity does it produce? 

There were two particular artworks Rachel showed during her lecture which made a powerful impact on my perception of this creative technological field. The first of the two was a performative multi-player VR installation SYMBIOSIS by the Dutch experience design collective POLYMORF. The multi-sensory / multi-media nature of the work, its conceptual framework and the way this in fittingly translated into the final experience makes for a wholesome speculative tour-de-force in post-Anthropocentric world-making. 

The second work that left its mark was Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s VR piece AQUAPHOBIA which explores the speculative - yet possibly inevitable - transformations of landscapes as a product of climate change. The visually arresting digital reconstruction of Louis Valentino Jr. Park and Pier in Redhook, Brooklyn is created by combining “past and future geological periods” and accompanied by a dystopian narrative recited by a “morphing aquatic entity” following the user as they explore this dark, fascinating, part-inviting, part-hostile world of tomorrow. 

Both of these projects have a very specific quality that I was sceptical exists within the current field of extended realities. Symbiosis and Aquaphobia are touching, sensual, visceral, feral - they both extended towards the non-human and imagine possibilities. Both are proud of their speculative uncanniness, even the unease that emerges as their (by-)product. 

Perhaps precisely this unease plays an important role in invoking a more acute awareness of the problem in question. Rather than rational knowing, the knowledge becomes felt - knowing by feeling. In fact, Steensen’s Aquaphobia directly uses the fear of water “as an entry point to transform perceptions of our relationship to future water levels and climates”.

As a little side note, I would also like to post this video of Resurrection Lands, a playable virtual experience exploring trans blackness and its specters by  Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. I am only including this work marginally as it doesn’t directly concern my practice but I still find it fascinating and very important. 

This week’s lecture and discussions brought to light some incredibly engaging concepts that are directly tied to my research interests and are potentially crucial for forming an outline of my second term practice-based research project. Chiefly, these are the philosopher’s A. N. Whitehead’s notion of reality as “any description of the unity [requiring] the many actualities; and any description of the many [requiring] the notion of the unity from which importance and purpose is derived” and the idea of the undesirable consequences of technologies as starting points of creating artworks.  

I already mentioned the speculative nature of my practice in one of the previous entries and it is reassuring to see it come up as a recognised conceptual framework when it comes to computational arts. While two weeks prior I mentioned it in connection to a multi-media installation piece I am already working on, this time it sparks inspiration for a completely new speculative work.