mkstewar /210 /clusterg

Cluster Members:

• Nada
• Melanie
• Gordon

Questions

For Melanie:

Project Description: The Penultimate Life Point is an installation engaging posthuman technologies, while supplanting ideological concerns about posthumanism’s emerging pedagogy, specifically regarding the extraordinary reproductive process of living, breathing, soulful, sensory human beings.

From Gordon and Nada

1. Why name the installation the "Penultimate Life Point?

   1. Answer: The installation Penultimate Life Point is a three part space. Each space represents a transition stage in our human life-cycle. In the first stage, which is usually sexual union, we act as and are the creator, and are usually mindful in our choices to create life. The second point on the circle of life is the creation stage, when we have become a new creation, but we are still physically connected to our creator, and existing and growing within the womb. The third stage in my model is the point of birth, which is when we enter the physical world of our biological creator, but as a separate created being. When the created matures, it becomes creator and the circle continues.

2. How is this a new media art piece?

   1. Answer: Outside sound will be filtered to represent the womb's acoustic environment: amniotic fluids, the mother's body, and her voice. This sound will infuse the womb space. This is also conceptually a new media piece, in that it uses theoretically posthuman technology to describe the most basic human activity - reproduction.

3. How are you going to engage the user?"

   1. Answer: Video will be shown on smaller screens in the space outside of the womb. Inside of the womb, darkness requires a focus on the physical environment.

4. What would interest the museum in this installation?

   1. Answer: Only in a gallery space or museum setting would the sublime quality have real meaning. This conceptual and posthumanism installation represents as well as defines emerging concepts in the fusion of media, art, and theory. This is the contemporary challenge applicable to curators of modern museums, many of whom recognize the need to provide innovative and informative exhibits which relate to the public's quest to understand.

5. What do you hope viewers will get from the experience?

   1. Answer: The aesthetic goal is to provide a sublime environment designed to inspire viewers to think about the magnificent capabilities of their own human bodies. The secondary goal is to provide a textual framework of the new media language so viewers can express themselves to each other, and be accurately understood.

For Nada:

Project Description: The E Room is a completely immersive igloo type environment in which the participant (s) lay down and has an interactive conversation with polymorphious avatar of all ethnicity.

From Gordon & Melanie

1. What are the specific EEG methods that you will be using?

   1. Can frontal lobe activity be recorded with sensors that only contact a limited portion of the participant’s head?
2. Will visual morphing facial features in itself be sufficient to generate empathy, or will it only generate surprise or amusement like a circus distortion mirror?
3. Are there other experiences you could provide for your viewers before they enter your morphing environment that could set them up for their experience?
4. How will you verify the biometric responses are actually measuring the empathy response? Q also relevant to Gordon
5. How are you going to construct the "other" ethnicity?

For Gordon

Project Description: An interactive installation incorporating video, sound and sculptural elements in which the emotional state of the viewer creates the piece that is experienced, promoting mindfulness and the awareness that we have the power to choose the experiences we have.

From Nada & Melanie

1. I wonder if there is a way to provide the experience to more than one person at a time. I think the beauty in this project is what the viewer will carry with them as another layer or altered perspective on an already formed idea/relationship/or memory.
2. How and what biometric readings are you going to measure for mindfulness or have an affective installation?
3. What kind of inexpensive, disposable device is available to collect data unique to each person?
4. How are you going to keep the participants moving through the installation?
5. How are you going to choose the images to stimulate mindfulness for a whole range of participants from age, gender and ethnicity?

For Melanie:

Project Description: Others and Isms is a portable interactive educational game, developed to be an aid in diversity training.

From Gordon and Nada

1. What constitutes “audience specific” content? What questions would you ask?

   1. How would you ensure the questions were relevant?
2. How is this a new media art piece?
3. How are you going to engage the user?"
4. How are you going to get your organizations interested?
5. How will you track data, progress, piece, usefulness of the dialog?