Towards a Secondary sensoriality

Sensory confusion created by literacy

•Try to say the color that you see, not the name that you read•YELLOW, GREEN, RED, BLACK, ORANGE, GREEN, BLUE, RED, PURPLE, BLUE, GREEN, ORANGE

•The analytic side of the brain conflicts with the visuo-spatial side

Left/right biases

Literacy conditionning space orientation

The Medium is the MessageVirtual means caught somewhere between the

Objective and the Subjective See the virtual 3D image between mind and machine

For some people, it is easier with this

stereogram…

“I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it”

The story of art in 3 slides1. The alphabetic abstraction

Sensory revolution

Reconfigura-tion and specialization of the senses

The birth of the artistic function

The 9 muse

The story of art in 3 slides

2. From the Baroque to Modernism

• Acceleration by the printing press

• The “re”-naissance• Obsessive perspectivitism in time and in space

• Man, measure of all things

• The mechanical metaphor

The story of art in 3 slides

3. From Post-Modernism to Neo-Baroque • Implosive

• Policultural• Politemporal• Global• Distributed perceptual environments

• A delight in illusion

• Back to the body

Character of the Neo-Baroque

• Delights in illusion

• Fluid• Multimedia• Implosive• Policultural• Politemporal• Global

Continuous externalization

of the mind from the

«Magic Lantern » to television

• Screenology• Three screens• Reversal of perspective

• Penetration of the screen

An early tendency towards providing the total surround

Quasi penetration of the screen

Immersed in the

machine, a tactile

environment

From visual to tactile

“Electricity is touch”Marshall McLuhan

“Electricity is touch” (Marshall McLuhan)

• The extension(s) of our skin = the skin of our extensions

• The hand in the mind (mouse and pointer)

• Number is touch (sampling, statistics)

Mark Ngui

The “point-of-being” is electricity’s answer to the point-

of-view imposed by literacy

The Reality of the Imaginary

= the externalization of the

mind on the screen

The « Objectiv

e Imaginary 

»

Mental Objects (MO) and Digital Objects (DO)

• Jean-Pierre Changeux’s theory of mental objects

• Three categories:• Percepts• Memory images• Concepts

Comparative properties of MO and DO

• Synaptic connections• On demand• Organic electricity• Constructed • Front of the mind• Instant modification

in real time• Morphed • Combined • Scalable

• tags• On demand• Technological electricity• Rendered• Front of the screen• Modifiable in almost real

time• Morphed• Sampled• Scalable

Digital Objects– Evoked– Based on weak currents of electricity– Reticular

• They are made by different configurations of perceptual, iconic and conceptual networks

• Trames e poligons are equivalent to simulations of concepts (as the written word or symbol is to all human utterances)

• Rendering is the job of the sensory (multi-media) memory (iconic) that adds flesh and colour to the sticks

• Scalable and capable of shortcuts and generalizations

• And created specifically to be tagged and interconnected

La dimension, l’aspect et le niveau d’interactivité

de chaque site est fonction des conditions

locales

Breaking the visual dominance of the modernist era

• Cezanne eliminating perspective

• Impressionism: the experience of the sitter instead of the sitter

• Cubism returning form to its origins

• Bringing the hand into the scene

The meaning of « trompe-l’œil »

…versus 3D

The reversal of perspectiveThe “end of theory”

Multimedia: the recovery of the other senses into the image

VR: wearing the image as an extension of the skin

Virtualization

Internet Zero (I0)

From surface to hypersurface via

interface• From icon to button (Eidos vs “actor”/verb)

• The interval is filling up (end of neutral space)

• Digitization (0/1 = scd)

• The return of the senses in communication

• Hypersurface (= ALL THE SENSES CONVERGING INTO A SINGLE ONE)

MarcosNovak: Transarchitecture

The Augmented Body

• Loss of boundaries

• Restructing of sensory life

• Cyborgism (neo-romanticism)

The body electric

Three cyborgsSteve Mann

Stelarc

Kevin Warwick

Steve Mann sends what his eyetap sees to the web…

permanently

Whatever he is looking at goes on line for anyone to

see

Stelarc connects his

CNS to someone

else’s via the www

Warwick implants sensors for

contextual cues from the environme

nt

Recent artistic experiments

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Relational Architecture

Alzado Vertical: el Zocalo in Mexico City (Rafael Lozano-Hemmer)

Tunnel sous l’Atlantique

Maurice Benayoun

Cosmopolis (Maurice Benayoun)

Cosmopolis (Maurice Benayoun)

Floatables of Usman Haque

Floatables (Usman Haque)

No man’s data

Courbet-PicassoStelarc

Volcanic theory of art

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HOMEOPATHY

Homeopathic Theory

Poison (vaccine)

Instantaneous circulation in the global nervous system

Provokes a defense reaction in the system

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How do tags work?

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hypertinence

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RFID

• Carlo Infante

• Piero Fantastichini (il grande muro di stelle)

• Giuseppe Stampone

• Maurice Benayoun

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© ©

Chip 40x40cm, particolare del Grande Muro di stelle

Muro di stelle, 2006

2metri x2

© ©

In the electric age, we wear all mankind as our

skin

Collaborative Exploration: Consider These You

2 Examples

Doppelgänger

Merged Identity

Medical IDs

Avatar

No Identity Lifecaste

r

Digital Identity

Ubiquidentity

And in a ‘global image economy’ … 92% of girls want to change at least one aspect of their bodies