(please read at your own discretion. i wrote it with mine, taking a subjective, reductionist position. I'd like to state that I am very aware of my context in a technological research institute and that the course for which this project was produced is working within the nexus of such technological innovations that I speak about. I am in not intending the following words to be aggressive, but hope they present a mild dialectical approach to the situation that technology produces on a larger scale.)
A STATEMENT ATTEMPTING TO REVEAL THE MOTIVATION BEHIND THIS PROJECT.
Technology is evolving more rapidly than the human body. Progress, as demonstrated in obscure or useless applications of technology, seems to be motivated by an urgency of competition. Each advancement eclipses the last, fueled by the anxiety of accelerated culture.
These advancements, designed to prove competency of the creator among particular, elite circles, are eventually reconfigured for marketability and are filtered into the general population. Specialized technology is made available to the public through menial ameliorative accessories, advertised with the intention of “making life easier.” These specialized devices proliferate and become standard, eventually necessary, increasing global reliance upon corporate products.
Subjected to this aggressive pace of networked and systematized culture, the individual conforms and adapts to its protocol. The employment of instinctual thought and sensory faculties is reduced, obsolete. Conscious and deliberate thought cannot compete with the instantaneous processing mechanisms of industry.
Captured within the conduits of a complex, regulated labyrinth, the human body exercises automation. Bland, boring, blind. Disabled by the violent momentum of homogenized culture, our senses struggle to recognize and communicate their desperate message that something is lost.
CONFESSION I have a shameless romance with my apple laptop. i couldn't live without a telephone. and i'll admit that i frequently indulge in hand-crafted lattes. Of course, I too am a victim of technology. And for the most part, try to remain conscious of my first-hand interactions with it. But adding some friction, I'd like to take a critical perspective on the implications of technology and explain how i had conceived of this project.: as a visualization of a digitized society, individuals operating as machines, devoid of sensory input and lacking in social interaction. (despite the enhanced connectivity that the internet and other networks propose.)
SENSORY Thinking about senses, I've been curious about what it means to see or hear or smell...and the interchangeability between these definitions as one or more senses is disabled. I've been told many times, and witnessed family members with sight loss, that blind people have heightened sensitivity in other observational faculties. But what if all of the major input detectors are deactivated? Being extremely extreme....What if the relationship an individual has with the world is channeled only through isolated and systematized script transmitted through a complex network of machines? Being extremely exaggerated and extreme: If technology can suffice all of our physical and emotional needs, beyond immediate and perfunctory application of the senses, mainly touch resulting from interaction with these mentioned inanimate objects, what use do they hold?
So when it comes down to it, I wanted to create a situation in which humans are severed from their senses through obvious (and poetic) accessories, taking place in a particular vacant environment, presented as a performance of sorts.
SITUATION A sterile white room, blank and brightly lit. Composed of 4 walls and a floor, each one a perfect square, creating a symmetrical cube. No roof. With the exception of the 4 performers contained inside it, the room is entirely absent of visual information.
AUDIENCE Standing on a raised platform on the outer circumference of the constructed room, peering from above into the room at the 4 performers. Reminiscent of a clinical observation.
VOCABULARY precision, perfection, accuracy, silent, rigid, automated, calculated, void (of senses), clean, cyclical, discipline, sterile, institutional, (not) human, routine, perfunctory.
PERFORMERS 4 performers, evenly distributed between the sexes, blindfolded and minimally dressed in baggy socks and underwear, all white and matching.
at the arrival of the audience, the 4 performers will already be enacting their routine: walking on a grid, each at their own pace, following a precise rhythm. The directions will appear to be random, however each one will have a specific looped path they take. At the beginning of each walking cycle, a task is performed. Halfway through the cycle, the task is completed. (Transporting an item.) Upon successfully delivering their objective, the performer completes the loop of his/her grid and begins the procedure again. This will continue indefinitely.
To be realized in a number of iterations, "instructions for getting lost" speaks primarily to the conflicting concepts of automation vs. human behavior. For this particular manifestation of the project, I was hoping to create a similar situation as described above, but in the dark, with a technical device that used light to track the movement of each individual on the grid. Rather than an audience/performer situation, it would be more of an experiential piece, in which people take turns observing the action and then participating in the creation of it.
A piece of headgear, connected to the user's footwear, would light up as each step is taken. It seems that a footstep is generally done in two parts (heel to toe), so for each of the four moments of floor contact in a pair of steps, a different light on the headgear would be activated through a switch in the heel and near the ball of the foot.
I created a simple circuit for the headgear in which each of the four lights was separately connected to a different switch in the footwear.
I was very excited when I realized that it worked. For the foot wear to be wired to the headband, I wanted a soft sock that could be easily pulled on over a shoe, and decided spats were functionally similar. The foot slips in through the top and the heel is seated in the hole on the right, the front of the foot peeping out from the left.
If you look at the image on the right, you can see the foot pad where the open switch sits, waiting for a step to be taken, closing the switch and temporarily activating a light on the headband. But how does the switch close if there is a gap?
There is a grid. Upon which each of the performers would walk, made of conductive fabric strips. If moving on the conductive strip, the special footwear would make contact and close the switch.
But why, you might ask, wouldn't I just put a pressure sensor on the footwear, so I don't have to deal with a grid? Well, because initially, I wanted incorrect steps to be noticed by both the audience and performer.
If the performer were to wander off the grid, no lights would be activated, and they would step onto a second floor piece that operated as an isolated pressure switch. In making this mistake, the performer would then be alerted by a red light activated on the floor and a simultaneously vibrating motor; hopefully these alarms would signal to the performer to get back on the grid and do it right.
I did not actually fabricate the grid for this presentation. But as I have all of the devices prepared, I plan to schedule a performance and will have to complete the grid in order for it to function properly. Back to what was actually produced...
After I celebrated the success of the prototype, I began to make multiples of the headgear and footwear (which are supposed to be worn like spats, or stirrup socks).
Because the hand-cut iron-on zelt patches in the prototype looked a little unprofessional and didn't satisfy an aesthetic goal, I used lasercut discs, which helped to make visible the "start and stop" points during the conductive thread stitching process, creating a more accurate and visually clean circuit.
Although they worked to make circuit "nodes" more accessible, I overestimated the power of iron-on glue. Attaching the wires to the circles probably should have been done in a more sturdy fashion, by either looping the wire ends and stitching them, or maybe even soldering them in addition to the glue. But smacking the circles over a turbulent wire terrain wasn't sufficient strength to withstand the tugging that accompanies a few tangled wires and a need to get the device on the body.
However, I was able to finish one complete set of foot/head devices. When assembled, it looks like this:
And works like this:
And I'd like to express a sincere thank you to Leah and Hannah and the students in this course. It was a very exciting journey, especially for a technophobe like me, who didn't even know the difference between the + and - on a battery. More "aha" moments than a junior high student in anatomy class. Thank you!