Expertise

Recently I am working on Howwa We Ana, but I am also doing my own work. I've been shooting video - lots of shots of my face while I carry out various mysterious experiments, mostly me acting like a bozo. Oh yeah. Hopefully I will post some of the rejects at some point. But the project I am planning for the long term (though before the placebo machine sculptures) is an experiment on evolutionary growth of non-linguistic communicative symbols that was inspited by these new microchips that design themselves. I've got a whole thing planned out, and it isn't tricky at all (like the last idea up here) so I can feel comfy with it. There's gonna be a lot of drawing and talking - what else? For this I am going to need experts. Any experts will do, really, which is great because there are a million experts at Berkeley although nobody can really understand exactly what they are experts on. By which I mean most of their topics are super-specialized. Though I have found people to be most kind when explaining their research to me, Mr. bug brain art student. Well...

I forget what path exactly lead me here:
consciousness journal review site
I think it was a prof at Berkeley who is writing (second article) on the Quantum theory of mind - which is one of the most interesting things anyone is researching these days. I would like to learn more about it so that I can design projects that take it into account, but I am afraid that my brain is still to small to understand it.

Anyway, while trying to get something done for one project (choreography), I took a break and was reading about these chips - well, looking at the pictures mainly - and fell asleep, and I woke up and suddenly I knew how to do this project - it involves duplicating drawings by destroying the original, while still keeping a copy of the original, and it involves letting one idea go to gain another - basically decentralizing the authority of the drawings. It sounds very abstract, but really it is quite practical. The algorithm for the project is very clear, and it uses von Ahn's idea of wetware in a way that starts out rational, but through the loss of information automatically becomes more of an artistic, intuitive exploration of form, conducted through a node system of wetware. I can't reveal the way the project works. This is not because I have artistic hangups, but that if the participants knew exactly what my goals were it would invalidate the experiment. But it is not tricky yo.

I think my sciatic nerve has decided to quit monopolizing my attention - although I am out of ibuprofin, so we will see what happens tomorrow morning. Tomorrow (after meeting with a group of people to talk over these interactive puppets we are making for this woman's project doing playback theater with migrant workers in China...) I am going to go DANCE in the studio. YAAAAAAAAY!!!! Too bad it's so far away - I think it's the bike that makes my back mad (I wrote "my mack bad" - I hear bikes can do that as well...). But it's all worth at it because my choreography is AWESOME. For procedural reasons I can't reveal what it's like at all, but I can say, "oh gya no dao we are chika..." Anyway, it's not really the choreography that is awesome, it is the whole project. Howwa We Ana is so important to me.

I should say goodnight. Goodnight.