Air Traffic Worldwide 24HR from kouko a on Vimeo.
Had a good talk with Anna Gonzales last night. We talked about our various disciplines---architecture for her, computing science for me---as kind of structuring devices that help with the art-making, storytelling, and community organizing that we do. They impose the rigor that we need in our work.
Both intellectual and disciplinal rigor need to be developed in a lot of the younger (and not-so-young) artists that produce work at Green Papaya. There's a local term that gets thrown about at independent art events I've seen: wasak, which Lourd de Veyra somewhat formalized in Green Papaya's latest publication. The term has great explanatory power and it's useful if viewed as a phase in the evolution of a creative community, but it has the potential of becoming a mere excuse for self-indulgence.
Anna reminds me how people will interact and interpret the creative space a work carves (a building in her case, a digital landscape in mine) differently. When I showed her Hello Manila, she brings up the subject of Zen. "If you take a step back [from the visualization] the distance between any two extremes becomes insignificant, and the manic back-and-forthing resolves into a kind of stillness. It helps to have a perspective about how small we really are." I changed a few variables in the Processing code and revised the visualization to show if I interpreted her idea correctly, which was a useful exercise because I was able to confirm that, in fact, I didn't!
"Movement is important. You die when you don't move," Anna reminds me. "The more you move, the stiller it gets."
I think Hello Manila can evolve into a storytelling tool based on the many conversations I've had over the course of this residency.
I show her the book Siteless, since I am completely in love with the book. She flips through it nonchalantly. "I'm cynical about shapes." (That was my phrase of the day.) I suppose I could be, too.
~
I got an email from mathematician Fidel Nemenzo this morning. He's been very helpful linking me up with May Lim, a physicist at UP who is interested statistical visualizations, but who also did some research on global pattern formation and ethnic violence. I've put her paper on the list of work I need to read.
VISIT THE INVISIBLE, VISIBLE WEBSITE FOR THE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS AND FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS RESIDENCY
3 comments:
Hi Diego! It was great seeing what you're up to and talking to you.
You really got my "cynical about shapes" vibe. Well, let me add what I also said that night - since I have to work with shapes that have to stand I've become less interested in shapes that seem to have no hope of being fulfilled in real life, esp if I have to work with people who have no faith in the unthinkable!
On the other hand, I have to say that I wss happy to see that book "Siteless" because it eroded my cynicism somewhat. I'm a little girl again, and I want to play with shapes. :) Thank you again.
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