Lesley Flanigan ITP

Sleep is a space between our conscious and unconscious states of being. In sleep, we are ghosts.


Still image from "In Sleep"

Using a camera programmed to capture only moments of change (movement), I documented a night of sleep, amounting to roughly 5,000 photographs over the course of 7 hours. In sequential order, these photographs reveal a body shifting in and out of visibility, between active and deep sleep.

Side by side in both their original and inverted states, the sequence of pictures reference language and/or code. Viewers move back and forth, in and out to decipher the story behind a night in sleep.


"In Sleep"


"In Sleep" at ITP Winter Show

"I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!" - Alice in Wonderland

Close up of "In Sleep"

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http://www.seseyann.com/headphonespace/

HEADPHONE SPACE

Modified headphones explore a sensory relationship between private and public space mediated by an object.

Headphone Mediation
Mediating technologies play a unique role in the space between our conscious and unconscious activities, affecting the information we may or may not perceive, process, and interpret in our daily lives.

More than simply observe or bridge context, these technologies filter context, skewing our sensory relationship with the physical world. Headphones, for example, skew sound.

Listening to music through headphones, we cancel out the sounds of the people talking and traffic whistling, choosing to exist in a silent cinematic world narrated only by our selected, personal soundscape.

We are challenged not only with new ways of hearing, but new ways of interpreting sound. New meanings emerge from the hyper-real contexts these mediating technologies manifest.

Headphone Recorder:
Headphones that allow the user to record the external sounds missed while listening to internal music.



Headphone Mixer:
Headphones that allow the user to mix volume levels of the external and internal sounds to create a sonic blend of private/public auditory space.



Headphone Heterotopia:
Two headphones that invert and displace the spatial relationships of two users by capturing the external sound space of their environment and amplifying it as the internal sound space of the other.

Headphones are built by discreetly modifying the circuitry of pre-existing, commercial headphones.

Current developments include Multiuser Headphones, Phonehead Headphones, I Need You Headphones, Performance Headphones, and Poetry Headphones.

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SPACE BETWEEN

When I analyze objects, art, ideas, and people, I find understanding through the context of relationships. I am exploring "spaces between." I am interested in the space between conscious and unconscious activity in regards to information we may or may not perceive, process, and interpret in our daily operations, and the role certain technologies play in affecting this relational space. Such technologies may be referred to as mediating technologies.

Mediating technologies have a unique role in informing meaning. These technologies do more than passively observe or bridge context, they filter it. In doing so, they change our perception. They skew distance: a telephone mediates conversation over oceans of distance, but yet the voice speaks little beyond the distance of one's own ear to the receiver. They skew speed: the automobile moves us at a speed of 75 mph on the freeway, while we sit effortlessly behind a wheel. They skew vision: the television shows us a world of night snow in the mountains, framed by a rectangle and contained in the dimensions of a small box, while we sit effortlessly in the warmth of our summer afternoon indoors. They skew sound: listening to music through headphones, we cancel out the sounds of the people talking and traffic whistling, to exist in a silent film world narrated only by our selected, personal soundtrack. When our perception of physical reality, or natural context, is reshaped and packaged in an "up is down" and "in is out" way, we are challenged not only with new ways of seeing, but new ways of interpreting. New meanings emerge from the hyper-real contexts mediating technologies manifest.

Key Concepts:
-relational space (spaces between people and objects)
-mediating technology (how technology skews these spaces)
-interpretation of space (how we understand our world as a result of these spaces)

HEADPHONES

Headphones are objects that mediate public vs private space.

Headphones let us customize public space with controllable, private sound. The visuals in a public environment remain the same, but with the introduction of a personal soundtrack, the context of the shared images change.

While headphones isolate us, they simultaneously open the world in new interpretive ways. A schizophrenic experience is created as the user occupies two spaces at once, building an entirely new psychological environment composed of the private and public space.

Headphones are visible and physical objects. They delineate a clear line of private space within the public space. The user of the headphones is socially excused from listening regardless of whether or not they can hear what is happening outside of the headphone space.

Key Concepts:
-perception of distance
-concepts of intimacy
-sense of control, customization, personalization

ILLUSTRATIVE OBJECTS:

1. Headphone Recorder
A modified set of headphones that allow the user to record external sounds while simultaneously listening to internal music, capturing the information we miss.

2. Headphone Mixer
The user may mix the levels of the external and internal sounds to create a sonic blend of private/public auditory space, creating a personalized cinematic "Foley Effect"

3. Headphone Heterotopia
Heterotopia, the "other place", with its real and imagined possibilities (a mix of "utopian" escapism and turning virtual possibilities into reality). Explores a simultaneously shared and isolated relationship between two users with headphones, each amplifying the public space of one user and turning it into the private space for the other.

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"I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!" - Alice in Wonderland

Between the our unconscious and conscious states of being, exists the subconscious.

Subconscious
1.existing or operating in the mind beneath or beyond consciousness: the subconscious self.
2.imperfectly or not wholly conscious: subconscious motivations.
3.the totality of mental processes of which the individual is not aware; unreportable mental activities.

Our subconscious is always active, but perhaps it's most active time is during times of sleep. Sleeping is a physical space between our conscious and unconscious states of being.

While sleeping, we disappear.

Using a camera programmed to capture moments of change over time (movement), I documented a night of sleep, taking 12 pictures per minute over the course of roughly 7hrs, amounting to about 5,000 photographs. Displaying these photographs in order visualizes a line of time that reveals a visible person when the body is awake and an invisible person when the body is in deep sleep. A ghost-like presence is captured in this space of non-rest, indecision, and between states of being.

Video (720x486)

Stills (3 panels, each 11"x82"):



Close up of each panel:





Close up of 3 sequential frames:

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Headphones are objects that mediate public vs private space. To explore the mediated relationship between these two spaces, I modified an existing set of headphones to allow a user to record external sounds while simultaneously listening to internal music.

Data Mining:

When I listened to my first headphone recording, I was generally disinterested. The external auditory information I missed while listening to music on my headphones was the predictable sounds of cars, phones, people talking, wind, church bells, etc. This is not information I am unconscious of. Quite the opposite, I am very aware of the general city soundscape and my conscious of choice to block it out when I listen to my headphones. But I gave myself time really study the recorded information and dig further -- data mining. The interesting information is not the content of sound, but the rhythms. When we move through public space, we receive a wash of sound at varying frequencies. Each frequency range is dotted with peak points, mapping a rhythm/tempo. I found that wind primarily occupies and upper frequency range, people and cars dominate a mid range frequency, and my walking pace (heard in the sound of air passing up and down next to my headphones) remained consistently in a lower frequency range. When I analyzed the numbers of these frequencies closer, I was able to roughly map three tempos. Granted, these tempos do not always follow a obvious pattern, but there is certainly a rhythmic sensibility. Conscious or not, we move in, around and with these natural rhythms. When we listen to our headphones, we are more than just blocking out noise, we are modifying natural rhythms: the rhythm of the city, the rhythm of our body.

Tactus:

One detail I found particularly curious was that regardless what songs (and their varying tempos) I listened to, the pace of my walking never really varied. This observation led me to research the concept of internal rhythm. When we move in, around and with the rhythms of the external world, is our walking pace a metronome of our own internal rhythm? Therefore, could it be said that the rhythm of music, a human art, is based on a shared human clock? These questions can be explored through the concept of tactus, the steady pulse created by Renaissance composers to achieve an orderly, rhythmic music-system. Roughly the rate of the human heartbeat, and approximately equal to the pulse of a man breathing normally (between 60 and 70 times per minute), tactus is a term that has been used to denote a person's expressive internal timekeeper. In The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures, David Temperley states, "A metrical structure does not just consist of several levels of equal strength and importance...there is generally one level, the tactus, which corresponds to the main "beat" of the music. There is psychological evidence that the tactus level serves a special cognitive function. In performance, there is less variance of beat intervals in the tactus level than in other levels, suggesting that the tactus serves as the internal "timekeeper" from which other levels are generated. For a metrical model, then, it is important not only to identify all the levels of the metrical structure, but to identify the correct level as the tactus." (52) If we believe that the tempo of all songs are fundamentally based on an internal human clock, then listening to any music through our headphones is choosing to amplify our natural, internal rhythm within the context of the external world. Indeed, more than blocking out noise or modifying the natural rhythms of the external world, we are literally amplifying our private space -- our internal soundscape.

Mapping Circles:

Musical rhythm usually operates within a recursive temporal framework such as a (periodic) beat or a (metered) measure. Therefore, it makes sense to visualize tactus-based rhythm as a cyclical concept. Using Max/msp Jitter, I developed a patch that graphs peak values of specified frequency ranges in the animated visual of a hand drawn circle. The current graph consists of three circles: the outer circle displaying low frequency range, center circle displaying mid frequency range, and inner circle displaying high frequency range. drawing circles.mov

Further Development:

As I work on this project further, more attention will be placed in the following areas:

1. The headphones. Currently, only a recorder with an internal preamp can be used to record the audio signal from the condenser mics in the headphones. I would like to build a preamp for the mics so that any recorder can be used. I would also like to build a small mixer so the user of the headphones can monitor/adjust the internal/external sounds being received.

2. The research. There are many different variations (locations, levels, activities, etc.) that can be recorded and analyzed to explore conceptual ideas of headphone mediated space.

3. The mapping. The basic structure of the patch is pretty defined, but I need to continue working on the frequency analyzation in Max/msp Jitter. I also need to input higher quality visuals for a better graphic result.

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(Thoughts inspired by an interview with interaction designer Bill Verplank, conducted by Gideon D’Arcangelo, June 2006 )

There is a large discussion revolving around interactivity and computers. What works, works best, and feels natural...in other words, how do we make systems that are intuitive? More interesting to me lately is not so much the question of how a system can be intuitive, but how a system becomes intuitive. When does an "unnatural" design teach us how to naturally interact with its "counter intuitive" logic? For example, typing on a keyboard is not a natural activity. I remember my first computer class in 7th grade and being given a test for typing. I hated it. My brain struggled with the odd ordering of the letters on the keyboard and I fought to use more than just my index finger and thumb. Of course, over time and through my dependence on computer technology, I learned. Now, typing is intuitive. But beyond it simply being a skill I have acquired, typing has also changed the way I think. It has effected my "natural" way of being. Typing is how I speak through email, IM-ing, and even text messaging by phone. Beyond the simple content of words, I play with characters to express emotion, make funny faces, and reveal extraneous, contextual information. It is natural for me to quickly type a colon with a parenthesis the moment I feel a smile :) or a frown :(. The typing action and my mood become intertwined, naturally.

This "naturality" does not exactly address the topic of intuitiveness emerging from design. We think of intuitiveness as a state of being connected to our actions in a way that we do not have to think. Intuition is usually a good thing. It infers we are in tune with the world around us and making complex decisions with the deepest core of our experience and knowledge. It may be natural for us to smile when we are happy, but it is intuitive for us to know what will make our friend smile. The best moments of creativity come from an intuitive place. For musicians, this is a sonic intuitiveness. Knowing how and when certain sounds unite to create rhythms and melodies that make people dance, cry, and laugh. The intuitive process of music making consists of playing, listening, finding, and repeating. Traditionally, this process emerges from a group of musicians playing their instruments live, starting with improvisation and narrowing down the options as certain parts (melodies and rhythms) become realized. But what happens when the intuitive process of making music is mediated by a computer? For one thing, the group can be eliminated. A computer allows for one person to play all instruments, hence, being only one decision maker in the process. Secondly, the existence of virtual instruments (instruments that only exist inside the computer and are manipulated either through an external controller or display settings on the computer screen) invites instruments you can see, but cannot touch. And finally, software for audio recoding is visual. One does not have to rely so much on their ear since sound waves are drawn on the screen and compositions are visually mapped out in linear blocks of color. We "see" our music as it sounds through the graphic displays of our computer software. The notion that only one person is needed for a band, instruments can be played while not being touched, and that a sonic composition can be built by a process of "cutting and pasting" blocks of colors in a line across a screen is completely counter intuitive to our common sensibility of what it means to make music. However, I would argue that it is not counter-intuitive. In fact, what I see is simply a new kind of intuition being built around the new tools a computer offers. If making music is touching an instrument (playing), hearing its sound (listening), deciding whether on the sounds you want to hear (finding), and playing what you want to hear based on what was decided (repeating), then the core process remains the same. Only now with a computer, our intuition is evolving to accommodate new intersections of our sensibilities. Rhythms are drawn that could never be played, but these rhythms are no less intuitive. They are just new.

Computer music may be considered unnatural, but it is not made without intuition. Perhaps music is not all about sound. In the same way a deaf musician like Beethoven can feel piano keys and hear the melody in his mind, so too can a computer musician see a drum sequence in an editing window and hear the cadence of its rhythm in his mind. Such adjustments in our perception of how we relate to sound change our intuition, but does not eliminate it. And these changes in our intuition invite new forms of expressions that grow to become no less natural that the beating of a wooden drum.

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HAPPINESS IN EVERYDAY LIFE: THE USES OF EXPERIENCE SAMPLING

In general, a state of flow embodies:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).
2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time - one's subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. When in the flow state, people become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975. p.72).

The idea of overcoming duality of self and object is a key theme of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig (1974). "When you're not dominated by feelings of separateness from what you're working on, then you can be said to 'care' about what you're doing. That is what caring really is: 'a feeling of identification with what one's doing.' When one has this feeling then you also see the inverse side of caring, quality itself." (page 290)

What is happiness? Happiness is such a subjective and elusive term, yet we all manage to agree on the what it feels like to be "happy." Happiness is a state of bliss. When happy, the world seems manageable, dreams are possible, and we function with a keen sense of intuitiveness. We feel connected. Perhaps happiness can be best be described as feeling the simple state of balance among much complexity.

If we believe that happiness goes hand in hand with a loss of "self consciousness" and our contemporary capitalist society is built firmly upon the notions of self identity, expression, and awareness through material desire and possession, it makes sense that "...excessive concern with consumer goods and material possessions is inversely related with positive developmental outcomes" and therefore why "...teenagers from working-class, and even impoverished backgrounds [are] happier than upper-middle-class teenagers living in exclusive suburban communities." With the material possessions within their financial grasp, upper-middle-class teenagers struggle with the issues of ownership or lack of ownership of prescribed materialistic self identities. This struggle is inherently shallow, narcissistic, and devoid of meaning. Also inherent in this struggle is the endless race of materiality, in that one object is never enough because there is always something newer and better guaranteed around the corner. Goals are transient, needs are superficial, and value is monetary.

(slightly tangential, this all makes me think of "Century of the Self" -- where once the political process was about engaging people's rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a society, the documentary shows how by employing the tactics of psychoanalysis, politicians appeal to irrational, primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumer population. He cites a Wall Street banker as saying "We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. [...] Man's desires must overshadow his needs.")

There is no secret code for happiness. However, I do value the process of analyzing states of happiness, as the results can be combined with other humanistic studies to give us insight into how and why we should build the systems we do. When we impose social, economic, and physical structures upon society, it is far better for us to build towards positive effect, and be continually aware that nothing made exists without effect, intentional or not.

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You can never predict what a person will do, because it would require all the information that a person has and has had; but the person does not even have that himself, for most of a human's experiences and operations are nonconscious.- Tor Norrentranders, The User Illusion (367)

In general, when I analyze objects, art, ideas, and people, I find understanding through the context of relationships. I am exploring "spaces between." For this assignment, I am interested in the space between consciousness and unconsciousness in regards to information we may or may not perceive, process, and interpret in our daily operations. Traveling with an object(s) that is outwardly turned to the world, logging information without my attention, I will look at the corners of my world that do not get looked at, perhaps discovering measurements of myself in relation to the world around me.

I plan to build two systems:

1. "Eye in the back of my Head" is a tiny camera hidden in my pony tale to visually document the world behind me that I am always leaving.

2. "Headphone Recorder" is headset modified to record external sounds as I listen to my "internal" music.

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