In the development of my idea, I knew that i was going to do a digital project so I focused the development around digital media. I experimented with different digital mediums and left room for part of the end design to be unpredictable from unpredictable pulse data.
Development
http://kennyjsmith.com/history/webpulse2.mov
Final Composition
http://kennyjsmith.com/history/pulsefinalweb.mov
Everything can be digitized and analyzed, this includes the human subconscious.
My research composition is based around the word STIMULATE and I am focusing on an experience between a users subconscious and a visualization.
The main idea behind the development of my visualization is the interpretation of analog waves generated by the body’s subconscious systems.
My original interface was going to use the data users brain waves however the brain waves were difficult to accurately display due to interference from electrical waves and the users heart beat. This is the link to the open source eeg project - http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/
After accidentally discovering how to display the heart beat, I then decided to synchronize the visualization with the users pulse. Early on I thought that it would be a more stimulating experience if the visualization was displayed as wave patterns at the same frequency as the users pulse wave and in turn hopefully trigger an intuitive response.
Looking into waves I found that Lissajous waves are visually interesting, have a wide range of patterns and have more unpredictability (more chance of a happy accident).
My final visualization has circles that pulsate with the heart, lines connect the circles and display the Lissajous waves and patterns. When the users heart beat are faster, the pattern is more erratic and when the heart beat is constant, the pattern is stationary. I also have a sound wave that changes with the heartbeat.
On experimenting with my composition, I have seen colours within the patterns even though it is black and white, this could be an optical illusion caused by waves in harmonic frequencies with colour. I also would like to experiment with using two people’s pulses and see if they adjust to be in-sync.
The art of computer animation in film was developed in the 1950’s with technology that is crude by todays standards but a feature film that utalized extensive computer graphics wasn’t made until Tron in 1982. Even then the concept of computer animation was seen as a radical risk to use in a film. This is because of the stigma that computers have, that come from being the descendant of the abacus. All aspects of computing are associated with logic, data and science, this is considered as being the polar opposite to the intuative art associated with film making.
Tron (Walt Disney Production, 1982)
John Whitney has an example of the confusion between and art “It’s a universal misunderstanding. At the Aspen Design Conference in 1967, a scientist was describing a problem scientifically, saying it could be done this way and that, and then he said if it couldn’t be done in such a rigorous way let’s do it anyway and that’ll be art. Scientists very frequently get excited about becoming involved in art. And the very first thing that comes to
their minds is just to chuck out the whole discipline that their entire career is based on. They think if it’s art, it’s free. Anything that goes with random numbers is art; and anything that has to be worked out carefully so that this goes here and this has got to go there, that’s not art, that’s science. But for my money it’s more important and difficult to get this here and that there in the area of art, because it involves much more than just counting numbers and making it mathematically sound: it’s got to be intensely and intuitively sound. That’s what I’m searching for. That’s what I mean by structure.”Gene Youngblood, “Expanded Cinema,” Dutton (1970), p. 44
Whitney already had a creative background in music, photography and film, When he began to experiment with computer controlled animation. He wanted to develop the new computer technology as a medium to express humanity instead of the aesthetics that were characteristic of a computer. Computer animation could be designed to stimulate emotion, in much the same way as a piece of music. The advantage of using computers is the relationship between the computer system and the human brain, the computer could be accurate at imitating the subconscious imagery of the brain.
The abstract forms and rhythms of Whitney’s films have an aesthetic that evokes the senses, connecting rational thoughts with non rational feelings. Whitney manages this by using the equipment not as a instrument but as an extension of himself, with a goal of stimulating the psyche.
A. M. Noll, a pioneer in three-dimensional computer films at Bell Telephone Laboratories, has some interesting thoughts on the subject: “…the artist’s emotional state might conceivably be determined by computer processing of physical and electrical signals from the artist (for example, pulse rate and electrical activity of the brain). Then, by changing the artist’s environment through such external stimuli as sound, color and visual patterns, the computer would seek to optimize the aesthetic effect of all these stimuli upon
the artist according to some specified criterion… the emotional reaction of the artist would continually change, and the computer would react accordingly either to stabilize the artist’s emotional state or to steer it through some pre-programmed course. One is strongly tempted to describe these ideas as a consciousness-expanding experience in association with a psychedelic computer… current technological and psychological investigations would seem to aim in such a direction.'’A. M. Noll, “The Digital Computer as a Creative Medium,” IEEE Spectrum (October,1967), p. 94
Lapis (John Whitney, 1966)
Whitney’s understanding of the human psyche can from an area of psychology called Analytical or Jungian Psychology, which explores the idea that reliable communication between the unconscious and conscious parts of the psyche is important for wholeness. It also explores the idea that we can experience the unconscious through symbols encountered in dreams, art, religion and the symbolic dramas we encounter in our relationships and life pursuits.
John Whitney talks about the influence of psychology on his films “When I was eighteen I was drawn deeply into Eastern
thought, Jungian psychology, the subconscious. When I think
about the time when I made that footage— trying to understand
what happened— I became merely an instrumentality in tune with a
force, a creative energy force which expressed itself. I was able to
make the films without thinking too much about what I was doing.
There was just this continuous flow of energy between me, the
machine, and the images. But the machine became transparent. I
don’t think I was conscious of any systematic manipulation or
exploration of a geometrical theme, though it is undeniably in the
film. I was able to be sort of comprehensive when I was making the
images, whereas when I made the machine I had to be a
mechanical engineer, an electronics engineer, and an optical
engineer.”Gene Youngblood, “Expanded Cinema,” Dutton (1970), p. 55
wearable technology, mobile media and telematics
Networks - Map of online communities
post modernity
Analog in, digital out : Brandan Dawes on interactive design. by Brandan Dawes
Berkeley, CA : New Riders, 2007
Taking Credit: Film title sequences, 1955-1965 / 5 Spiralling Aspirations: Vertigo, 1958. by Emily King. http://www.typotheque.com/site/article.php?id=93
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whitney_(animator)
http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/?p=1021
http://translab.burundi.sk/code/vzx/index.htm
http://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/profile/whitney/rdtd.html
My thesis is on the American animator and inventor John Whitney, who is considered to be one of the founders of computer animation. In my essay I ask ‘Did John Whitney’s films have more impact on the understanding of the human psyche or the advancement of digital media technology.
The time frame that I am concentrating on is when John Whitney is working with computerized animation from 1950 to 1995.
John Whitney’s films are now regarded as being important historically in the history of digital media but I argue that at the time they were more influential on the spiritual and psychedelic art world than the film community.
In my essay I will discuss the fact that John Whitney was not credited for his contributions to film including animation in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ and Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001 : a space odyssey’.
I will also discuss John Whitney’s films as using the new technology as a way to convey synaesthesia, stimulating senses that are not connected with the medium.
In summary, I will argue that at the time of his films, John Whitney progressed the field of psychological art more than the field of computer animation for film.
Modernism
History of computers
Motion Art