Dr Sommerer: Interactive Installation; Filmteractive 2013

Interactive Installation between Expanded Cinema and

Expanded Poetry

Christa SOMMERER & Laurent MIGNONNEAU

Professors for Interface Cultures, Kunstuniversität Linz, Austria

[email protected]

http://www.interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent


Expanded Cinema

Expanded Cinema had a strong influence on the development of today’s

Interactive Art.

Expanded Cinema is an elastic name for many sorts of film and projection

events. The term was coined by Steve Vanderbeek and Carolee Schneemann

in the mid 1960ies. Often even the body was used as a projection screen.

The experimental film maker Jonas Mekas writes already in 1965 about the

“expanded” cinema in the crucible or multimedia spectacle, optical experiment

and film performances by the NY and international underground (mentioning

Bryon Gysin, Ian Sommerville, Gregory Markpolous and Robert Breer).

More information and interviews at:http://www.rewind.ac.uk/expanded/Narrative/Home.html

http://www.rewind.ac.uk/expanded/Narrative/Home.html

In 1970 Gene Youndblood wrote a book with the title Expanded Cinema, he is

one of the first to consider video as an art form and he propagated the use of

alternative cinema. (Gene, Youngblood, Expanded Cinema. Publisher: E P Dutton;

January 1970)

Stan Vanderbeek‘s

Movie-Drome» 1963

Influenced by Buckminster Fuller’s

spheres, VanDerBeek had the idea for a

spherical theater where people would

lie down and experience movies all

around them.

Floating multi-images would

replace straight one-dimensional film

projection. From 1957 VanDerBeek

produced film sequences for the Movie

Drome, which he started building in

1963. His intention went far beyond the

building itself and moved into the

surrounding biosphere, the cosmos,

the brain and even extraterrestrial

intelligence.

(source: Jürgen Claus in Leonardo, Vol. 36, No. 3,

2003, p. 229 from medienkunstnetz.de.)

Werner Nekes‘

Schnitte für ABABA, 1967

The film starts with a real scene of

policemen who try to capture a man.

After 4 minutes of black film the light

is switched off in the room and viewers

only hear the sound of the movie.

Viewers starts using lighters and

look around in the room. At one point

the film projector is directly

projected at them and a sense of

participation occurs. The film

passages switch between green and red

and through a very fast cut a

threedimensional sensation is created.

Nekes uses the filmprojector as a

mobile instrument, that projects at

the audience, the wall and the

interior of the cinema.

Paul Sharits‘s works

Paul Sharits (1943-93) was a pioneer of “expanded

cinema.” He made “flicker films” of stroboscopically

changing colors and structural films that

experimented with the basic properties of the

medium. (quoted from New York Times) see also

interview conducted by Steina and Woody Vasulka:

http://vimeo.com/12607672

« This has nothing to do with “pleasing an audience”

– I mean to say that in my cinema flashes of projected

light initiate neural transmission as much as they are

analogues of such transmission systems and that the

human retina is as much a “movie screen” as is the

screen proper. At the risk of sounding immodest, by

re-examining the basic mechanisms of motion

pictures and by making these fundamentals explicitly

concrete, I am working toward a completely new

conception of cinema. « (quoted from: Notes on Films

by Paul Sharits (1969)


Carolee Schneemann‘s Snows, 1967 at the Martinique Theater New York

In Shows Schneemann produced a kinetic theater piece combining performance and

film in order to « extend the visual densities of the live event. » The performers bodies

are key elements for projections. video at http://vimeo.com/20392122


Valie Export‘s

Ping Pong - Ein Film zum Spielen, 1968

With the ball and raquet you have to try to hit the

dots that appear on the screen. A film to play with –

a players' film. Stripped of semantics, the relationship

between viewer and screen becomes clear:

stimulus and reaction. The aesthetic of conventional film

is a physiology of behaviour, its mode of communication

a perceptual event. 'Ping Pong' explicates the relationship

of power between producer (director, screen) and consumer

(viewer). In it, what the eye tells the brain occasions motor

reflexes and responses.

‘Ping Pong' makes visible the ideological conditions.

Viewer and screen are partners in a game with rules dictated

by the director, a game requiring screen and viewer to come

to terms with each other. To this extent, the viewer's response

is active. But the controlling character of the screen could

not be demonstrated more clearly: no matter how involved

the viewer becomes with the game and plays with the screen,

his status as consumer is hardly affected – or not at all.

Valie Export (text from MedienKunstNetz)

Expanded Poetry

Experimental Literature in the early 1900

Early forms of experimental literature can be traced back to the 18th century. In 1897 Stephane

Mallarme published a poem that used spacing and the placement of sentences as important

components for producing meaning. The German poet Christian Morgenstern also partly played

with the placement of characters and words to achieve a special visual expression (see: Fisches

Nachtgesang). Around 1913-1916 the French Avantguarde poet Guillaume Apollinaire produced

Calligrammes, drawing a connection between text and image, often expressing the subject and

meaning of the text through a corresponding drawing, sometimes even opposing it (f.e. Eiffel

Tower Calligramm).

The Historical Avant-garde movements also contributed to the development of experimental

literature in the early and mid 20th century. In 1920 Tristan Tzara, a central figure in the

Dadaist movement, suggested a system where newspaper clippings were poured out of a bag to

produce new forms of random poems and experimental typographies. Fragmentary

typographical Bulletin Dada. (See image Johannes Baader Gutenberg Commemorative Sheet)

The Beat poets William S.Burrough’s and Brion Gysin rediscovered the cut-up technique in the early

1960ies.

Expanded Poetry by The Vienna Group

During 1954-1959 H.C. Artman, Gerhard

Rühm, Oswald Wiener, Konrad Bayer and

Friedrich Achleitner produced experimental

literature that defied any categorization and

was strongly inspired by Dadaism and

Surrealism.

The Cool Manifest was written and the

following forms developed: typewriter-

ideograms, typocollages, formular poems, word

and phonetic compositions, news paper

collages, inventions, montages, series, rows,

constellations, text montages, studies, picture

texts, text films, projections, picture montages,

dialect poems, theater pieces, spoken pieces,

text sculptures, etc.

In 1953 H.C. Artman manifested in his Eight-

Point-Proclamation of the Poetical Act that

one can be a poet without having so much as

written or spoken a single world, he called

this openness of the genre Expanded

Poetry.(see image Literary Cabaret on 15th

April 1959, Vienna)

Gerhard Rühm’s A Poetry in Numbers, 1968

Here numbers are placed to propose a continuous plot, an optical rhythm, with sequential numbering and

alternating dynamism.

The Media Poet Peter Weibel

Weibel’s Action Lecture from 1986, is made up of various films showing Weibel projected onto his body

as well as the screen behind him. He also carries on his body a tape recorder playing back a lecture,

while at the same time holding a lecture through a microphone with the same content as the one recorded on

the tape. The central element of the action was a visible electronic switch mechanism with which the

audience could influence the operation of the film projector, the tape recorder, as well as a second

tape recorder playing music. The amount of noise produced by the audience controled not only the

projection of several films, but also a magnetophone, a spotlight, and a record player. (quoted from M.

Michalka, XScreen, MUMOK Vienna, 2004, p.95)

Peter Weibel’s Split Medium Simultan from 1974

A text about the problem of concurrence is typed simultaneously on two typewriters. The left hand of the

protagonist types only the characters that are placed on the left side of the typewriter, while his right hand

types only the characters on the right side. Once these two resulting texts are overlaid again, they should

give back the original text about simultaneousness.

Interactive Installations combining

Expanded Cinema and Experimental Poetry

by Sommerer & Mignonneau

© Sommerer & Mignonneau

* antique type writer isadapted

* typing text createsdigital text on thepaper

* when turning the lefthandle this texttransforms in B&Wcreatures that “live”on the paper

* they try to survive ndreproduce by eatingtext that the userwrites

© 2006, Sommerer & Mignonneau

Life Writer© 2006 Christa SOMMERER and Laurent MIGNONNEAU, for MOCA Cleveland

* text typed by the users =genetic code

* genetic code determinesthe look and behavior ofthe creature

* text becomes alive (seealso W. BurroughsNaked Lunch)

* creatures feed on textand reproduce (geneticprogramming)

* the user can also kill thecreatures



* the paper tray can bemoved by turning thecylinder and creaturescan be move with it

* user can use the paperas it were normal paper,though it has becomethe computer screen

* intuitive interaction withthe type writer

* obsolete technology(media archaeology) ofknowledge creation hasbeen transformed into asubversive tool of textcreation, destruction andmutation



* expanded literaturewhere the the bordersbetween author andreader disappear

* The Death of the Author(see R. Barthes)

* everyone can become apoet, by participating inthe poetic act (see H.C.Artman)

* Derrida’s sense of theliberation of the text/workthrough the participantsco-creation of the work



Life Writer

© 2006 Christa SOMMERER and Laurent MIGNONNEAU

video at:




Excavate© 2012, Laurent MIGNONNEAU and Christa SOMMERER

developed for The View Contemporary Art Space


* media archaeologicalinterface consistingof a magic lantern

* this device wasinvented in 1650 byChristiaan HuygensMagic Lanterns arethe ancestors of theslide and filmprojector as well asour multimediadevices

* we equipped themagic lantern with amobile phone and amini projector as wellas sensors




* visitors can explorethe damp and totallydark cave with theExcavate device

* when users shinelight onto the cavewalls various darkparticles appear

* they looking a bit likeisopods; theyassemble and buildfaint children’s faces

* the image particlesare created by A-Lifeswarming algorithms




* In Excavate thesurrealistic sensation ofseeing faces in randompatterns is produced

* the user becomes theproducer and theaudience (see V.Exportproducer-consumerrelationship)

* the device represents aform of ExpandedCinema combining amedia archaeologicalinterface with analgorithmic imageproduction



video at:




Escape© 2012, Laurent MIGNONNEAU and Christa SOMMERER


The installation deals with

the issue of Expanded

Poetry and Expanded

Cinema. It was originally

developed as site specific

installation in the civilian

airraid shelter in Salenstein

Switzerland.

The installation consists of

an antique film projector

and an antique projection

screen from the 1930ies.

The projector was modified

to hold a small LCD video

projector and sensor

technology.




* When visitors enter, they

see a fat fly sitting on the

projection screen

* Once they start turning

the handle, the fly starts

to frenetically move

around, like it would be

trapped, trying to escape

* When continuing to turn

the handle, more and

more flies appear,

packing together as

having discovered some

nutrition





One fly calls more flies and they look for text pixels; once they find invisible text they sit

on it and reproduce by producing more and more flies (produced through our

Artificial Life algorithms)



* At one point text starts

to form out of the fly

pack and when one

continues to turn the

handle, a text of Kafka

becomes legible.

* It is a chapter of

“!etamorphosis” by the

writer Franz Kafka

where the protagonist,

Gregor Samsa, realizes

that he is trapped in his

own body and begins to

transform into a gigantic

insect





As long as the visitors turns the handle the text is formed, however if he/she stops,

the text dissolves again; the visitor becomes a producer and consumer of the text

(see Barthes, Derrida, Kluszczynski); an interactive installation referring to

Expanded Literature and Expanded Cinema was created




video at:



Publications by Sommerer & Mignonneau

Recent Solo Exhibitions:

2012 Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art

Gdansk, Poland

Wonderful Life, Art& Science Meeting

Curator: Ryszard Kluszczy"sk, Jadwiga

Charzy"ska

14. May 2012 - 24. June 2012

TV Report on Polish TV:

http://www.tvp.pl/kultura/magazyny-

kulturalne/informacje-

kulturalne/wideo/16052012-

2000/7179045

http://www.tvp.pl/kultura/magazyny-kulturalne/

Recent Solo Exhibitions:

2011 Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona,Spain

Sistemes Vius/Living Systems

1st June 2011- 30th September 2011

Curator: Josep Perello & Irma Vilà Odena

TV Report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDs0m

e1zXTk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDs0m

G. Stocker, Ch. Sommerer, L.

Mignonneau (eds.)

Christa Sommerer & Laurent

Mignonneau: Interactive Art

Research

A first monography of Sommerer

& Mignonneau’s interactive art

works and writings, with essays

by:

C. Paul, O. Grau, R. Ascott, E.

Huhtamo, M. Kusahara, J. Casti,

F. de Meredieu, P. Weibel, M.

Michalka, et al.

Springer Verlag Vienna/New

York, Sept 2009, ISBN978-3-

211-99015-5 English, with DVD

This book brings together key

theoreticians and practitioners of

interaction and interface design and its

shows how historically relevant the term

is, as it can be analyzed not only from

an engineering point of view but from a

social, artistic and conceptual, and even

commercial angle as well.

Artists and creators of interactive art

have shown how interactive digital

processes and human-computer

interaction are essential elements for

their artistic creations. Their resulting

prototypes have often reached beyond

the art arena into areas such as mobile

computing, intelligent ambiences,

intelligent architecture, fashionable

technologies, ubiquitous computing and

pervasive gaming.

This book, edited in 2008, gives an

overview of the current state of interactive

art and interface technology as well as an

outlook on new forms of hybridization in

art, media, scientific research and every-

day media applications.

We have invited around 40 practitioners

and theoreticians for guest lectures over

the past 4 years. This book is a collection

of these guest lectures, to stimulate the

discourse on Interface Cultures and its

social impact.

This book, edited in 1998 provides

articles by 24 scientists and artists

on the following topics where art

and science meet:

Telecommunications, Scientific

Visualization, Artificial Life, Artists

as Researchers,Chaos and

Complex Systems, Public Spaces,

Education of Art & Science, Art &

Science in Historical and Cultural

Context

More information at:

Christa SOMMERER & Laurent MIGNONNEAU

INTERFACE CULTURES

Department of Media, Kunstuniversität Linz, Austria

[email protected]

[email protected]



Dr Sommerer: Interactive Installation; Filmteractive 2013

Entertainment & Humor

pioneer of expanded

film performances

sorts of film

film sequences

film passages

film projector

use of alternative cinema

minutes of black film