Toward a digiplasty(why Toward a digiplasty?)
practice
what it means for the daily life, like McCullough’s book title, “The Practiced Digital Hand”. Doing is knowing.
What does it mean? And does it not mean something only to those who practice? When or how might this ever be meaningful as other then art? Is this possible, or important?
In an evolution from simple to complex. C1 was forcefully kept simple .
The more sophisticated the representation, the more complex of a “real” thing can manipulated at a greater level of abstraction. By using a simple abstraction, less ambition is used toward the subject and more attention is paid to the methods of assigning subject to object; that relationship by which things mean.
“…assigning subject to object” is dangerous, and not all together meaningful in light of the project. Subject, or the signified is made insufficient by dissolving the verbal base. In other words the objects are not signifiers, this is not about language, and so there is no sign.
“…that relationship by which things mean” yes.
C1 was dependant upon Nendo specifically. archaic practice or nostalgia: Was the project dependent on, or lent to Nendo? digital media old enough now to have “discarded representations”—they are precious like vinyl, “Vinyl rules!" vinyl is poison.
Leveraging a comparatively “ancient” representation, Winged-Edge data structure. Lends itself to particular toolset. Nendo filters tools to relevant actions. Generative choices (since no action yields an empty-set). no curves, line, only forms primarily a single body modeler makes objects not worlds (with the notable exception of going inside objects) since no drawing IN SPACE only drawing ON OBJECTS. Leads to object based communication.Here is an important, oddly inverted statement about the project. This is the why Nendo was chosen. For instance, object based communication, if that is even possible occurs through out the object, across the surface, and as we did discover through use of Nendo, though not necessarily exclusively because of Nendo in surface drawing as well. Use of Nendo is circumstantial.
The potential for object based communication rises right off of the spine of reality. Morphological similarity allows for tactile empathy which allows for the potential for object based communication.
how do we read? geometry or structure tactile implications…”tactile empathy” emotive visual reactions/associations references to world (i.e.—bilateral symmetry or “It looks like a _______.”) knowledge/trace of a process: looks like it has gone through s’thing (i.e.—a paper airplane LOOKS folded) why do we read? inference/drawing meaning from things is a way to extract usefulness from the objects around us how are digiplastic objects useful? since they are nothing “real” they fail to be useful. Therefore they do not do but only mean.
I think issues of usefulness are ultimately uninteresting and likely unimportant. The project is still far to interesting to begin speaking in terms of its usefulness.
And do they actually “mean”? What is of greatest importance may prove to be the activity that is encouraged, regardless of the objects or those objects suggested meanings.
“The vocabulary of the mathematical fiction inexorably becomes the vocabulary with which we describe the reality. This is the reason that a change from sequential equations to parallel matings and breedings is so seminal. It will literally change heaven and earth because it will change the way we conceive of them.” (Bailey 32) math has moved from place (astronomy–geometry) to pace (physics–calculus) to pattern (complexity–parallel-computing) Emergent phenomenon are not top-down, nor reducible. The mind must let go, cannot predict/control or explain. Changes the roll of will in creative process. Becomes a conversation between the will and a process. (? How do you figure?)
Not a Von Neumann machine: no separate I-space and D-space; no algorithm. The data contains the instructions and acts directly. At this point the process is emergent, that is a cooperative event between autonomous agents, but the tool itself is under direct control. Nendo maintains specific relationship of agent–mind to tool–action. This could represent an intermediate step or it could be an assertion that the sculptor’s will is paramount to a process. (I’m not sure here. The process of distributed/shared control is on the large-scale emergent, but the tools are not. One could use an emergent/complex tool alone to achieve a similar result, that of an unpredictable outcome. Or one could connect distributed agents employing emergent methods to produce, what…chaos?)This section has almost nothing to do with digiplasty. I went through this with Dan a little the other day. He has some Japanese programmers giving a work shop this weekend regarding their work with interactive evolutionary computation. While very interesting, this sort of activity is actually directly counter to digiplastic activity. For example, use an emergent/complex tool alone to achieve a similar result, that of an unpredictable outcome, while I can understand the desire to connect digipalsty in this way especially considering the idea of “unpredictable outcomes”, I see it as a miss understanding of what is potentially happening with digiplasty, and a miss understanding of these new emergent growth protocols, such as IEC. These are more akin to life processes on a scale more subtle, more pure if you will then human activities. Digipalsty is a human activity.
I can imagine my idea(s) of digiplasty completely leaving the computer behind. digiplasty in its original form is relient on computers, but what is most interesting about digiplasty is its rather self conscious push towards immateriality.