Artist Blog

Expanding Environments

[jmorrisonart]

Examination of the relationship of human and nonhuman agencies.

A third and final alternative may be located in the relational aesthetics of contemporary art when it is extended to include nonhuman participants. As its proponent Nicolas Bourriaud argues, artworks that present open-ended social interstices can enable formal reflection on the interactions of their participants.5 While the precise results of these reflections are wholly anthropocentric and perhaps under-defined in Bourriaud’s writings, the recent collaboration of dancer Teoma Naccarato and interactive sound designers John MacCallum and Adrian Freed offers an intriguing case study of a relational interstice constructed at a point of contact between human and nonhuman agents. Their digital media performance piece X (2013) stages a vivid encounter between the human body and the strange, nonhuman intelligence of the Microsoft Kinect motion capture system. A duet composed equally of the movements of a dancer and the audio produced by the Kinect’s interpretation thereof, the piece takes its form through the parallel and mutually occluded means either participant has to apprehend the mechanisms of the other. Unlike technical or alien phenomenological attempts to account for the agency of nonhuman forms, the provocative but ultimately inadequate hermeneutics explored in the work seems to underscore the express impossibility of reconciling these conflicting phenomenological and subjective lifeworlds, refusing to privilege human intelligibility over nonhuman intelligence. This refusal creates a strikingly different form of relationality: one that brings forward a profound sense of alien presence and an ethical acknowledgement of difference that is lost in other approaches.

If, as Latour argues, it is increasingly important to include nonhuman agents in the political calculations of the West,6 then it is all the more necessary to acknowledge human epistemological limitations and develop modes of relating to material agents and assemblages that expressly recognize their reach and influence beyond our sensory world. In the rush to admit a multitude of nonhuman actors, actants, and agential becomings into the many disciplines touched by new materialisms, analyses of the nonhuman at times risk flattening the specificity of matter, bodies, and the phenomenological experiences that follow from these arrangements. Vitalist homogeneity is a hazard that scholars face when they venture into the vast nonhuman expanse. It is perhaps at this moment, as with countless others before it, that the feminist instance on bodily difference and situated knowledge comes to the fore with greater urgency.

[jmorrisonart]

[jmorrisonart]

getting ready for assessments. I’m going to be using this moss frame I’ve made over the last few days as a sort of grounding for the light cube, in hopes to reference the soft spongy feel of bellever forest. Something worth looking into as I Have always struggled placing my work within an urban context whilst also having it firmly place within the natural. perhaps not so much a reference to the ecological but more a small edition to developing ideas. more to come soon.

[jmorrisonart]

Simon Pope critique notes

Links and interests with the concepts of human relationships with non human, with some great references to graham harman and Bruno latour.

Modes of sociality within the context of walking...

Jamie larmer? to research ideas within more than human group.

Peter ackroyds writing into light and sound.

Need to think of the context of light. As well as artistic license of using such mediums in areas that could possibly be frowned upon. Is that a point to make within the work? Who is the work for in that sense is it for a participatory work where the viewer is experiencing a journey, or is it actually a work for the non humans within that context. the colour of light will be an important factor in that decision.

Bees being attracted to purples and other insects to more orange hues can be used to draw in a wealth of different life into that space.

the possibility of having the lights interacting with each other, to create the journey was really interesting and could be used to draw people toward a clearing that is completely void of light to which stargazing and night life are aloud to thrive...

[jmorrisonart]

some experiments late night in the studio! Looking forward to getting it outside!

[jmorrisonart]

Finished the first part of the set up. still needs a bit of work!

[jmorrisonart]

Working an upgrade for the cubes! Although this as a setup is proving difficult and fiddly. And uses a lot of strip light...

[jmorrisonart]

Bruno Latour, Politics of nature. 

[jmorrisonart]

a quick diagram, Working through ideas for my first essay on MCAP, 

from Plato’s cace to Pierre Huyghe via the writings of Bruno Labour. 

[jmorrisonart]

Spiritual connections.

The realities explored in science and spirituality are often assumed to be unrelated to one another. both find their basis in a spirit of inquiry. Modern science is objective analysis, while spirituality is subjective understanding. Science explores the outer world with a series of questions beginning with basic query, What is this? What is this world all about? While spirituality begins with the question, who am I? 

In the ancient world these two forms of knowledge were not in conflict but were understood to have a deep and subtle connection. Mans knowledge of himself complemented his understanding of the universe and formed the basis for a strong and healthy relationship to the creation in which he lived. 

Ancient wisdom describes human beings as having five layers of experience:the environment, the physical body, the mind, the intuition and our self of spirit. 

Our connection with the environment is out first level of experience, and one of the most important. if our environment is clean and positive, is has a positive impact on all the other layers of our existence. As a result, they come into balance and we experience a greater sense of peace and connection within ourselves and with others around us. 

[jmorrisonart]

The moment you stand still, you have a kind of non-bodily relationship with the place; you can't really feel how big the space is. you lock down the perspective. But if you start to walk, then you bring scale into the space. And at the same time you get scale in under your skin. What activates the contract between the landscape and you is your motion.

Minik Thorleif Rosing. 

[jmorrisonart]

Minik Thorleif Rosing. 

[jmorrisonart]

research on a few key artists. 

Robert Irwin

Olafur Eliasson

Pierre Huyghe

[jmorrisonart]

ARTIST - Richard Long. 

Nature has always been recorded by artists, from prehistoric cave paintings to twentieth-century landscape photography. I too wanted to make nature the subject of my work, but in new ways. I started working outside using natural materials like grass and water, and this evolved into the idea of making a sculpture by walking … My first work made by walking, in 1967, was a straight line in a grass field, which was also my own path, going ‘nowhere’. In the subsequent early map works, recording very simple but precise walks on Exmoor and Dartmoor, my intention was to make a new art which was also a new way of walking: walking as art. (Tufnell 2007, p.39.)

[jmorrisonart]

ARTIST - Magdalena Jetelová 

this particular work has been playing on my mind for a while now. 

relating to how a journey can be documented and displayed through the medium light. 

so easy to sense a journey here. 

[jmorrisonart]

how light guides us

In this very moment, light is guiding your eyes to these words, illuminating

meaning and creating a connection between you and this

book. That connection is called presence. Without light you would

not be able to see these words. They simply would not appear to

your eyes. Light literally brings the words to you, creating a sense

of inseparability between perception and meaning. The light that

brings you the words you read also brings “to light” the people, situations,

and opportunities required to spur your evolution. It takes

you by the hand and leads you where you need to be and when you

need to be there. And light’s guidance has no side effects. However,

we must remember how to recognize it.

It is the same with everything we see. Light — from the sun,

from lamps, from fire — reflects off objects and interacts with our

eyes, releasing energy and information about those objects, which

are then magically transformed into an image that appears full of

light. But, it is not actually light. It is just a mental interpretation that

we experience as brightness.

Many people think of the eyes as two cameras mounted on the

face, but in reality they are elaborate and complex extensions of the

brain, and each of these extensions is designed to both absorb and

emit light. Each eye contains 126 million photoreceptors. Approximately

95 percent of these receptors (called rods) are distributed

spaciously throughout the retina. The other 5 percent (called cones)

are primarily compacted into a tiny area called the macula. Rods are

extremely sensitive, functioning under low-level light conditions

and responding to motion. Cones are less sensitive, adapted to color

perception and high-resolution vision.

Based on their design, rods seem to be able to sense things before

our conscious mind registers their form. In fact, researchers from

Rockefeller University and the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology

in Austria recently demonstrated that the human eye can

detect a single photon of light. Since a photon is the smallest undividable

unit of energy, this discovery clearly confirms that our eyes

are designed to operate at the quantum level of reality, and our vision

has been honed by evolution to function at its maximum potential.

Yet photons are technically invisible. They do not create an

image that the brain can see, yet this minute amount of light still

“calls” the eye, giving new meaning to eighteenth-century essayist

Jonathan Swift’s statement, “Real vision is the ability to see the

invisible.” In response to this infinitesimally subtle invitation, the

eye reflexively moves toward that which is calling it, and it does this

without our conscious awareness. According to Alipasha Vaziri, the

study’s lead researcher, “The most amazing thing is that it’s not like

seeing light. It’s almost a feeling, at the threshold of imagination.”

Cones inspect things carefully when the situation demands it but

require significantly brighter light to do so. So when your optometrist

asks you which is better, number one or number two, your cones

allow you to know the difference. As you can see, vision is primarily

a global process that continuously aligns us with the greater whole

and zeros in on details only when necessary. Our life experiences are

primarily the result of the ongoing interaction that links our eyes

with light.

The process of vision — our response to what we see — begins

within a few quadrillionths of a second after light enters the eye, enabling

the information encoded in light to be transmitted to, and interpreted

by, the brain and all systems connected to it at light speed.

We might think, “Look at that car.” In reality, light bounced off

the car, attracted our eye, entered our brain, and sent signals down

various nerve endings long before the thought “Look at that” surfaced.

Hence the wisdom behind the expression “It caught my eye.”

Yet rarely do we ask what the “it” is to which we are referring. My

sense is that this “it” is the same light the Bible refers to as “God,”

and quantum physicists describe as the formless bedrock of consciousness

guiding every step of our lives — the intelligence of life.

[jmorrisonart]

Feedback. QR VR R...

This first group critique after a few small tutorials was amazingly beneficial. 

first time I have felt excited about a particular piece of work for a long time. 

the feedback was heavily referenced with hyper reality and the matrix. with also a touch of portal the game... 

viewers were excited about playing with the vr - google cardboard, even though I hadn't managed to create my own work within that technology it was a great example as how far the current basic versions of that technology could go. 

I showcased the LightCube photographs via some QR codes which helped viewers open up the debate of using technology surrounding artworks. 

it was still very apparent that viewers should be experiencing this space physically. and although my initial thoughts about this work was to have my own private view via VR this way of showing the work quickly became about how to get people outside and viewing this space physically... 

and surprisingly much more about games and checkpoints which then resonated with journey and spirituality of light and space. 

there are some incredible things VR can do at this current time and perhaps something worth exploring down the road. 

at the moment my focus should be on creating an existing body of work. to date my work only exists via the internet and select physical copies of documentation. something I have always struggled with in the past. how does the documentation become more of a reference rather than the work itself. 

there are also some confusing elements within my initial statement. 

where does light and ecology overlap and how does this particular experience reference that framing I was initially after in the beginning. 

it is slowly moving away from out and out ecology. although light does has possibly a small part in the creation of all of those aspects the work doesn't actually reside within that bracket just yet. 

it is however raising an interesting thought about spirituality and journeys through the landscape. perhaps even developing into what I initially wanted but a different direction to that get there... 

it will be key in the next few weeks ahead to create some polished fabrications with better lights and more craftsmanship within the works. 

I have always been very quick with my work and it will be an incredibly poor choice to continue. 

once I have a few of these structures in place maybe the latter can be applied. for now concentrating on the initial fabrication and aesthetics will be key in applying the conceptual.