#practice-based research

[introspectiveresearchdiary]

Anni Albers on How to Be an Artist

Anni Albers revered experimentation. Here, we share advice from the innovative, endlessly curious 20th-century artist’s theories.

[introspectiveresearchdiary]

The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think

Douglas Hofstadter, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, thinks we've lost sight of what artificial intelligence really means. His stubborn quest to replicate the human mind.

Above, I am sharing an engaging article on Douglas Hofstadter’s approach to designing software as consciousness. As much as I am fascinated by his work and by the advancements in this field of research, I feel unease that is important for me to voice. 

The concept of designing machines to be more human brings out a burning issue from the outset from my point of view. On the very first page of her paper 'Figuring the Human in AI and Robotics' (2007) Lucy Suchman mentions 'cultural imaginaries' which are effectively constructs based on scientific data mingling with assumptions on human-ness. Suchman touches on the duality of these imaginaries that are both infused with the ideas of sameness and difference between human, animal, non-organic matter, technology, etc.. 

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? 

Could this entity be a more fitting model for creating technologies? 

[anushramlearning]

PhD Research Proposal Writing in India — Anushram

Fashion Design and Textile PhD proposals must connect a real research gap with a feasible design/research method—materials, processes, user studies, or sustainability metrics. This Anushram article explains how to shape a clear problem statement, define objectives, select methodology (practice-based, qualitative, experimental), plan data collection, and present expected outcomes—so your proposal reads academic, structured, and approval-ready.

[pineisland-dolls]

Sometimes I remember this blog exists.

Anyway, I wrote ~500 words about creating a doll character through posing and repetition across photos and it's not not grad school work because I am studying emotional relationships with inanimate objects and imaginary companions.

There's recommended reading at the bottom.

[fanhackers]

Meet the Volunteer: Else/Xun

Hi! *waves* I’m Else/Xun (they/it), a new Fanhackers mod writing from London. I use the names, Else and 旬, interchangeably and at times together. I speak Mandarin, English and a hybrid of both, as well as a little bit of Hokkien, which I have been trying to learn.

I became aware of fandom when I was 11 and heartbroken over Madoka Magica. From there I had engaged in fan practice in several ways by drawing, doujinshi-making as gifts for friends, cosplaying, and attempting to write fanfic (never successful), but most of the time I found joy in looking at works created by other fans. At the moment my fannish attention is on Genshin Impact, Good Omens, 将进酒, and Mob Psycho 100.

I’m an artist and researcher studying for a Masters in Arts and Humanities. My current research interest is in the derivative practice in knowledge production that fan practice is a part of, and in interrogating the pursuit of autonomous authorship and the over-familiarisation of support. The research is guided by an art practice that is, to some extent, fannish, that involves working with what is already there: gathering, sharing, recycling, translating, making visible, in the forms of moving image, lists, and writings, to name a few.

With Fanhackers, I hope to share my learning process with you, which will involve the knowledge produced by many others, and the relations and connections between them. If there is anything that you want to read, please let me know.

Looking forward to reading, thinking and learning with you :)︎

[introspectiveresearchdiary]

Hypervisibility

Computational Arts Research Week 16

There are some interesting avenues of thought regarding the concept of hypervisibility, some of which are relevant to my final project. Since I will be working on exposing the invisible, it is important to acknowledge the reasons for its invisibility. It is imperative to understand that invisibility is caused by distance in a much wider sense than only in regards to geography. This distance I talk about becomes anything that is not easily accessible, in Mattia’s words, it is ‘something that is already packaged in an existing narrative that prevents us from seeing what is there’. This is hypervisibility, an instance in which one story is spoken so loudly that the other stories become invisible. Initial research into the subject revealed strong links of hypervisibility to racial issues, a possible entry point to developing investigative frameworks that could function just as well in the socio-ecological domain. 

[introspectiveresearchdiary]

Unfinished Worlds

Computational Arts Research Week 15

What produces presence or a sense of presence?

Unfinished worlds: What would happen if the worlds we construct don't present a totalitarian idea of what a world is?

These worlds are speculative places, spaces for research and interpretations. 

This week’s lecture and discussion with Rachel Falconer brought some unexpectedly interesting ideas. Unexpected because I am fairly skeptical about the concept of extended reality. This is possibly partly due to my lack of knowledge of the field and its particular interests explored through various creative lenses. My practice was always “analogue” - deeply rooted in embodiment and physical presence, in ‘being here’ - experiencing worlds first hand. But perhaps I was not thinking far enough when thinking about extended realities. 

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. 

[introspectiveresearchdiary]

Touching Visions: Back to Merleau-Ponty

Computational Arts Research Week 14

"The body is our general medium for having a world.” Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Studying works of some of the artists I admire, I always found it fascinating to observe the circular nature of their practice. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, yet my feeling is that more often than not, the fabric with which they weave their stories and artworks stays the same. As an artist in the making, for a very long time, I found it difficult to pick one particular direction. I was worried that making the choice, I am giving up all the other possibilities. It took me another few years to realise that choosing a particular direction doesn’t mean giving up anything. It only means that there is always going to be a common thread between the works, but the artistry would be in distinguishing between them by looking at the same problem through a different lens, shaping it into a different form, twisting it and turning it upside down, re-purposing it and its parts. 

And so Maurice Merleau-Ponty found his way back into my practice after years of seemingly being absent. Merleau-Ponty, through the sound art lens of Salome Voegelin, was at the epicentre of my bachelor dissertation exploring possibilities of listening to the inner movements of the body. This deep-sensing practice, made possible through proprioception and sensory modality, would reappear in different form. While the sensing still happens in the body - through the bodily sensations created by emotions - what is being sensed is not physically present but rather exposed as existing in geographically remote locations. I am aware that this concept seems fairly abstract but it is my aim to develop its particulars in the upcoming research project. I will be researching and using data about food waste, exploring the various aspects of the problem and working towards creating an artwork reflecting these findings in such a way that it clearly and concisely outlines it and - most importantly - makes it emotionally impactful - touching.