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https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVPlqrWGU=/?share_link_id=390957592

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVPnHzgHY=/?share_link_id=466978575290

Second 1-1 with Sarah today. We talked about my proposal, updated ideas/aspects I want to incorporate in my thesis, and a little sketch I made. Sarah offered a ton of great theoretical materials, technical resources, and relevant art references. 

We also talked about things in my proposal that needed clarification and elaboration. Feeling good about completing the final(for now) version. 

Links:

Hayles_N_Katherine_How_We_Became_Posthuman_Virtual_Bodies_in_Cybernetics_Literature_and_Informatics.pdf (monoskop.org)

Immortal Plastics / Necrocracy :: IDEAS CITY (newmuseum.org)

Works – Studio Drift

WORK_Ziyang Wu

Skawennati

https://matt-romein.com/info

I had my third one on one meeting with Sarah today! It went really well!I began by going over my powerpoint and proposal and then began talking about prototyping, as well as audience! 🙂

Sarah shared a lot of wonderful brainstorming ideas along with images of other artists, and posed questions and suggestions for me to think about which is great!

Excited and ready to create!

Until next time! 🙂

https://www.notion.so/c28b335fef5b45018541f372768ff0e1?v=8ee6d3d4e08e47edbf9ba1bda501c3c4&pvs=4

Things I want | Things I don’t want | Things I’m okay with: 

My goal is to bring more awareness on what salsa really is about, by highlighting an artist who was a political activist and who fought really hard to also bring his music to the mainstream world. I do not want it to entail just a story without any interaction, and just for pure entertainment. I am okay with not everyone completely understanding it.

Things my thesis does for the world | Things my thesis does for me | Things my thesis does for [x audience/community] 

I hope my thesis will bring into the world more awareness to what salsa is, and allow for more seriousness to be taken around it as an art. It allows me to explore this art and activity that I have completely fulfilled my life with since I was a child. My thesis might also allow for my community to feel seen, as long as my activity is respectful and accurate.

A list of goals and what they look like totally fulfilled, somewhat fulfilled, and not fulfilled at all. For example: 

• Goal: to create more awareness and seriousness into what salsa is 
• totally fulfilled: my project is able to inspire people to get into salsa, and my community recognizes it as a serious and accurate story 

• somewhat fulfilled: some people are inspired, no one really gets into salsa though 

• not fulfilled at all : No one is inspired and understands the point of the story, they just see it as a random homage to a salsa artist but that’s it.

I met with Sarah today at noon, again, very helpful! I told her what stage I’m currently on, what my plan is regarding next steps and where I’m a bit stuck on. We also went through my starter bibliography and my proposal draft – Sarah left constructive comments on my doc. The key words are: BE SPECIFIC! Particularly with audience, physical context, specific use, the content of the work, the form of the work, problem to address, and hoped for outcome. I should try asking myself: what kind of elders? (eg. age group, ability) focused on health and safety instead of joy? perhaps a connected device to sort of track their health conditions?

Sarah suggested me to talk with some peers and to swap proposal for feedback, since their thesis are similar to mine, in some way. We could be inspired by each other! Because I’m not so knowledgable of AR/VR but Sarah is, she shared with me that VR is great as 1. a creative tool (ex. 3D modeling) 2. training simulators & educational (maybe training simulators for elderly?) Currently, my research area is quite broad with different segments of information, therefore, there can be many different approaches to my central question, so as the ultimate form. Sarah thought of a more user-research focused approach: gaining expertise by taking these emerging technologies to elderly (existing apps – AR, VR, Game), gather their perspectives, and modify/improve on one of the apps. I will definitely think through it.

A VERY engaging zoom meeting (most stressful, intense, interesting one I’ve ever been on) because of the level of attention and accountability asked of each of us. Very effective model, each person being put on the spot with no notice. Shockingly effective.

I met with Sarah earlier in the day (I had somehow deleted the group meeting notification or didn’t put it in when I was in Berlin last month) so having two meetings in one day didn’t leave much processing time on ideas, so some of this is post 1-1 processing.

I see a potential path of a series of related or sequential questions:

• What is specific to the EEG that is special, using it as a tool, using brainwaves as a medium? What can an EEG do that a that an EKG or EMG or motion sensor can’t do in terms of making art? What are the affordances specific to this device and this organ (the brain) for making art?
• When using the EEG, what is controllable by the user? Can experienced users control more features, or is everything accessible to a new user? What is not controllable, and is that data useful? Can emergent or subconscious activity be revealed with an EEG, and to what use? If it’s not controllable, what is the user experience of that? Would that be any different than a randomized generator choosing values?
  • Think of Penijean Gracefire’s description of what the brain does:
    • Is there a pattern?
    • Does it have to do with me?
    • Can I control it?
• What aesthetics are the most effective at giving the user a sense of control, or producing the most phenomenal biofeedback experiences?
• How would I describe the phenomenon I’ve experienced with EEG biofeedback?
  • Comments from Bryce Willem on this:
    • “‘Shifts in Awareness’ and going on to define this as a category of phenomena could good route into this territory. The tricky bit is that phenomena is a broad terms that can encompass anything that can be perceived in consciousness. This includes changing content – like colors in the world, musical relationships, but also moods and mental states that you become aware of. From how I’ve understood these experiences you’ve described and from the list you just gave, it’s more about changes in the state or quality of conscious awareness. A patterns between all these is that you are aware of them as states, whereas default consciousness is not typically aware of its state or quality, but rather just focused on an object with one’s attention. This is a change in the bandwidth of attention to both perceive the content change but also perceive the change in conscious awareness itself.”
• Can I replicate these experiences in myself? Can I replicate this experience for others? What conditions produce X results?

Second meeting with Sarah. I had lost my group meeting notification for tonight somehow (glad I saw it in today’s email) which is probably why I had made my second meeting with her this late in this month’s window.

Discussed what I’ve been researching (early EEG artists, dub aesthetic), and dug more into what my questions could be. It moved around, trying to find what would be something new (since I’ve been doing EEG work for a few years).

I feel pushed in a positive way, in a way I don’t typically get because most of the time people say “oh that’s cool!” and don’t push harder.

Had a meeting with Marina, who is only in the office hours system for a few more weeks. We started our conversation talking about cyborgs (Rebis) then pivoted to Rafale, Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Topology piece. I mentioned my EEG / PPG soundbath this Thursday as well as the Synchrony experiment from Connections Lab. I talked about my climate activism and policy work, and an idea that came up in Berlin of doing an installation where people’s movement in a room causes it to go from pleasant to hellish, and they are incentivized to move more slowly, together.

How do we use art and performance to create impact? People are primed for different experiences, like they are open to different things whether they walk into an exhibit, a protest, a show, a policy meeting. Marina suggested Ways of Being which I added as an audio book on my phone (the only way I have time to read things).

We also discussed moments of epiphany vs sustained daily change, and what has more impact. She mentioned the tool she made with Sarah, the 2×2 grid, and charting projects on that grid, using epiphany and practice, and high and low impact (or some other metric).

Also had a sidebar about naps, nap ministry, the nap room at Moma, Shi Lea Chaeng, and political resistance via napping (I’m a pro napper and big fan of this idea). I attended a nap event in Berlin in 2018 or so.

Meeting notes:

https://jasonjsnell.notion.site/Marina-Zurkow-d12e350c69e54127bfcc5d10a4882af2