Regularity
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[See the discussion page for the outlines and ideas: http://weizenbaum.mit.edu/mediawiki/index.php/Talk:Regularity#Outline_for_Repeating:_Regularity_in_Time_and_Process] | [See the discussion page for the outlines and ideas: http://weizenbaum.mit.edu/mediawiki/index.php/Talk:Regularity#Outline_for_Repeating:_Regularity_in_Time_and_Process] | ||
| − | + | ===Sculpture=== | |
The visual arts at their most traditional, represented by frescos, stone and bronze sculptures, and canvases, are static. A viewer creates motion by moving around a work, eyes exploring the surface, but the object is still. The thrust of machines into life at the beginning of the 20th century was an inspiration to painters (the Futurists) photographers (Étienne-Jules Marey, Eadweard Muybridge) and sculptors who used motors to create motion. The origin of integrating physical movement into artworks in the twentieth century is often credited to Naum Gabo for his ''Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave)'' from 1919-20. This sculpture created a virtual volume in space by mechanically hitting a metal rod near the base to send a wave through the object. Gabo was thrilled to bring motion into his art and his enthusiasm led to "The Realistic Manifesto," co-written with his brother Antoine Pevsner in 1920. After rejecting the traditional foundations of art in an ordered list (1. Color 2. Line 3. volume, and 4. Mass) they declared: | The visual arts at their most traditional, represented by frescos, stone and bronze sculptures, and canvases, are static. A viewer creates motion by moving around a work, eyes exploring the surface, but the object is still. The thrust of machines into life at the beginning of the 20th century was an inspiration to painters (the Futurists) photographers (Étienne-Jules Marey, Eadweard Muybridge) and sculptors who used motors to create motion. The origin of integrating physical movement into artworks in the twentieth century is often credited to Naum Gabo for his ''Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave)'' from 1919-20. This sculpture created a virtual volume in space by mechanically hitting a metal rod near the base to send a wave through the object. Gabo was thrilled to bring motion into his art and his enthusiasm led to "The Realistic Manifesto," co-written with his brother Antoine Pevsner in 1920. After rejecting the traditional foundations of art in an ordered list (1. Color 2. Line 3. volume, and 4. Mass) they declared: | ||
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The next phase of the pairing motion and repetition in visual art brings us closer to 10 PRINT as artists began to create works for screens, first with film and later for CRT screen with video. Akin to the minimalist sculptures referenced above, there was a proliferation of minimal gestures within experimental film and animation. Starting in the 1960s, artists including Lillian Schwartz, John Whitney, Norman McLaren, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, and Paul Sharits explored repetitive physical movements and abstract motion with rigor. The Flicker (1965), a film by Tony Conrad, stands out for it's clarity. In figure ??, we see that without the semicolon in 10 PRINT each line in the program could be seen as a panel of a film strip. It's only a small leap to imagine the left line of the program as an unexposed film frame (clear) and the right line as the maximum exposure (black) to bring the fundamental mechanism of 10 PRINT close to The Flicker. The fundamental different is the larger arcs within Conrad's work. The pace at which the projection flips from pure light to black is slower at the beginning and end of the film to give it a beginning and end, while 10 PRINT maintains the same pace and is without a change at the end and has no fixed end. | The next phase of the pairing motion and repetition in visual art brings us closer to 10 PRINT as artists began to create works for screens, first with film and later for CRT screen with video. Akin to the minimalist sculptures referenced above, there was a proliferation of minimal gestures within experimental film and animation. Starting in the 1960s, artists including Lillian Schwartz, John Whitney, Norman McLaren, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, and Paul Sharits explored repetitive physical movements and abstract motion with rigor. The Flicker (1965), a film by Tony Conrad, stands out for it's clarity. In figure ??, we see that without the semicolon in 10 PRINT each line in the program could be seen as a panel of a film strip. It's only a small leap to imagine the left line of the program as an unexposed film frame (clear) and the right line as the maximum exposure (black) to bring the fundamental mechanism of 10 PRINT close to The Flicker. The fundamental different is the larger arcs within Conrad's work. The pace at which the projection flips from pure light to black is slower at the beginning and end of the film to give it a beginning and end, while 10 PRINT maintains the same pace and is without a change at the end and has no fixed end. | ||
| − | + | ===Music=== | |
Simultaneously to the exploration of repetition in film, a host of composers and performance artists based works on repetition A strong argument can be made that performance, including musical performance, is the area of the arts that is most similar to 10 PRINT. Like film and video, performance is temporal, but unlike these linear media, performances and 10 PRINT unfold in real time, with each step happening in the moment and potentially informed by the present state. | Simultaneously to the exploration of repetition in film, a host of composers and performance artists based works on repetition A strong argument can be made that performance, including musical performance, is the area of the arts that is most similar to 10 PRINT. Like film and video, performance is temporal, but unlike these linear media, performances and 10 PRINT unfold in real time, with each step happening in the moment and potentially informed by the present state. | ||
''Piano Phase'' (1967) by Steve Reich is an iconic sound work built on repetition. In this approximately twenty minute composition, two pianists start by playing the same twelve-note melody continuously. One pianist plays the sequence faster so it moves out phase until they are back in phase, but the faster pianist is playing the second note, while the slower is on the first note. This continues until the faster pianist has looped so both are playing the same sequence at the same time. The piece iterates further from that point, but the same phasing technique is used until the end. In 10 PRINT, new forms emerge from the programs decision to display the left or right line, but in Piano Phase, new sonic forms emerge by playing the same sequence over and over, but with one musician at a different speed. | ''Piano Phase'' (1967) by Steve Reich is an iconic sound work built on repetition. In this approximately twenty minute composition, two pianists start by playing the same twelve-note melody continuously. One pianist plays the sequence faster so it moves out phase until they are back in phase, but the faster pianist is playing the second note, while the slower is on the first note. This continues until the faster pianist has looped so both are playing the same sequence at the same time. The piece iterates further from that point, but the same phasing technique is used until the end. In 10 PRINT, new forms emerge from the programs decision to display the left or right line, but in Piano Phase, new sonic forms emerge by playing the same sequence over and over, but with one musician at a different speed. | ||
| + | ===Dance=== | ||
''Step Piece'' by Vito Acconci is another performance work based on repetition that is interesting to compare and contrast with 10 PRINT; it is a defined, repetitive procedure that is carried out by a person rather than a computer. Acconci defined this work in a brief text: | ''Step Piece'' by Vito Acconci is another performance work based on repetition that is interesting to compare and contrast with 10 PRINT; it is a defined, repetitive procedure that is carried out by a person rather than a computer. Acconci defined this work in a brief text: | ||
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So, these are four ways that ''Step Piece'' changes through its repetition: (1) human performance changes in subtle ways from repetition to repetition, (2) documentation shows different, non-repetitive moments, (3) human performance improves over time, and (4) the work is perceived in different contexts, even by the same viewer. ''Step Piece'' is exemplary here because it seems to be the more or less pure repetition of pure repetition, but actors putting on the same play on different nights encounter a similar type of non-repeating repetition and all of these four points apply to the case of plays that run for several performances. Even though 10 PRINT is a performance by a digital machine, (2) and (4) still apply, so that its repetition also varies. | So, these are four ways that ''Step Piece'' changes through its repetition: (1) human performance changes in subtle ways from repetition to repetition, (2) documentation shows different, non-repetitive moments, (3) human performance improves over time, and (4) the work is perceived in different contexts, even by the same viewer. ''Step Piece'' is exemplary here because it seems to be the more or less pure repetition of pure repetition, but actors putting on the same play on different nights encounter a similar type of non-repeating repetition and all of these four points apply to the case of plays that run for several performances. Even though 10 PRINT is a performance by a digital machine, (2) and (4) still apply, so that its repetition also varies. | ||
| − | The performance piece ''Dance,'' a collaboration between choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer Phillip Glass, and artist Sol LeWitt, is a work that integrates these performance strands together. Like all of the works discussed above, narrative was removed and the subject is literally movement, hearing, and seeing through variation and repetition. For three of the five sections of the performance, LeWitt created films of the dancers performing the same sequence of motions that they perform live on stage. He filmed them on top of a grid to reinforce the structure within the choreography. The film is projected onto a scrim at the front of the stage during the performance and it's synchronized to a recorded version of Glass' score. At times the projected image is enlarged and at times it is slowed down as the film echos the movements of the live performance. Glass's music for ''Dance'' features his signature style of repeating and transforming brief passages. The foundation of Dance is Lucinda Childs choreography which she has referred to as stripped down ballet. In the first and strongest movement, the dancers move along straight lines from left to right and right to left across the stage. As they quickly follow the line in a mix of running, skipping, and turning, they move through a series of tilts. The perception is they are moving through every permutation within the grammar of movements created for the dance. Like 10 PRINT, the sound and motion are hypnotic and emphasize the details of the variation rather than larger global structural changes. Unlike 10 PRINT, ''Dance'' works across multiple media to synthesize a powerful and at times overwhelming aesthetic experience. | + | The performance piece ''Dance,'' a collaboration between choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer Phillip Glass, and artist Sol LeWitt, is a work that integrates these performance strands together. Like all of the works discussed above, narrative was removed and the subject is literally movement, hearing, and seeing through variation and repetition. For three of the five sections of the performance, LeWitt created films of the dancers performing the same sequence of motions that they perform live on stage. He filmed them on top of a grid to reinforce the structure within the choreography. The film is projected onto a scrim at the front of the stage during the performance and it's synchronized to a recorded version of Glass' score. At times the projected image is enlarged and at times it is slowed down as the film echos the movements of the live performance. Glass's music for ''Dance'' features his signature style of repeating and transforming brief passages. The foundation of Dance is Lucinda Childs choreography which she has referred to as stripped down ballet. In the first and strongest movement, the dancers move along straight lines from left to right and right to left across the stage. As they quickly follow the line in a mix of running, skipping, and turning, they move through a series of tilts. The perception is they are moving through every permutation within the grammar of movements created for the dance. Like 10 PRINT, the sound and motion are hypnotic and emphasize the details of the variation rather than larger global structural changes. Unlike 10 PRINT, ''Dance'' works across multiple media to synthesize a powerful and at times overwhelming aesthetic experience. |
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== Conclusion == | == Conclusion == | ||
