[NetBehaviour] banff

[anniea]

Dear Ruth and Marc

I watched the piece completely, and that wasn't a "devoir", a task. It came
naturally because your piece is very interesting.

Thank you for giving me more context for the piece. I hope more people will
watch it and give their opinion. I am still very interested in hearing more
about how people reacted, react to the content of the piece.

For me it's as if the Fundamentalism side of the opposition is much more
present than the Evolution side.
All these beautiful sounds, singing and voices act on me as a promotion for
believing, a promotion for "god".
It makes me aware that religion has for more aesthetic beauty than science.


Yours Annie





On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 2:13 PM, marc garrett <marc.garrett at furtherfield.org>
wrote:

> Hi Annie,
>
> Sorry for not responding to your post on here earlier. Since coming back
> it has been extremely busy with much happening at furtherfield and the
> HTTP space, plus I have been marking dissertations. In fact I am aiming
> to finish the dissertations later today (one can hope:-)
>
> Your comments regarding the collaborative piece 'Fundamentalism v
> Evolution: another dilemma of coexistence', by Ruth and myself;
> originally performed live at Banff, and then archived.----------- are
> very interesting.
>
> Before the actual live, networked performance on visitorsstudio.org we
> spent an awful lot of our time collecting much data from the Internet
> for this work. All files that we used as well as material we did not
> use, can be traced. There is information on the Diwologue blog listing
> where all the files originally came from - http://diwologue.net/blog/?p=25
>
> We collected, edited and looped over 300 files found in a range of other
> online archives and blogs: general, special interest, didactic and
> evangelical. All the software that we used for editing the found
> material was open source. Some of the tools used can be found on this
> page called 'Tools and Production' - http://diwologue.net/blog/?page_id=4
>
> 'Acknowledging that we are mediated by the tools that we use we are
> making a conscious choice to inform ourselves about the culture of the
> tools and platforms we engage in. We are giving our artistic attentions
> and energies, wherever possible, to Free and Open Source (rather than
> proprietary) tools and platforms.'
>
> The reasoning behind our Diwologue adventure can be viewed on this page
> - http://diwologue.net/blog/?page_id=2
>
> Sorry for all the links, because this e-mail is becoming a little longer
> than expected I didn't want to cut and paste loads of info here,
> creating too much information overdose.
>
> At the residency we decided to focus our our attention for the creation
> of collaborative, net art work in Visitorsstudio.org. Mainly because we
> know this live, networked platform very well, and we wanted to
> concentrate and give quality thought and time to the theme of
> 'Fundamentalism v Evolution: another dilemma of coexistence' which in
> itself was a learning curve for us. Plus the added experience of
> embarking of researching downloading, editing the content and learning
> how to use some of the new open source and free tools for editing, it
> all also took up much of our time.
>
>
>  > I am impressed, It's beautiful, and it brings on reflexion!
>  > Great.
>
> Glad that you enjoyed viewing the archive it looks as though you sat
> through the whole thing which of course deserves a full 'thumbs up' of
> respect.
>
> One of the things we decided to do was not make a piece of work that was
> just about the technology alone. We wanted the work itself to matter. As
> you can imagine, when one is immersed in exploring and researching non
> propriety tools you have to discuss it and explain why (well, we do),
> and this to some degree can get in the way of the content of the work.
> So we wanted the content and the theme to be equally respected. Even
> though, we think that it is extremely important that we are always
> conscious about the medium that we use, and that users of technology
> make an effort to understand more deeply what it is, as well as the
> political and social responsibilities behind it all. We have always
> known that we are here because we wanted to create artwork that has
> significance and relevance that can be appreciated for its own
> imaginative intentions. The work needed to look outside of the medium,
> which means no 'one liners' in the work about the medium itself. We
> wanted the art to reflect something about the human condition somehow.
>
> The trigger which inspired us to take on the theme for 'Fundamentalism v
> Evolution: another dilemma of coexistence', happened by chance. We found
> this old film on-line called 'Fundamentalism vs Evolution' released by
> the BFI Creative Archive Licence Group. It was originally made in 1925
> produced in 1925 by Topical Film Company www.creative.bfi.org.uk/. It
> features a "Head-on train smash staged at 'Monkeyville' to typify clash
> in U.S.A. between adherents of Bible and followers of Darwin." This film
> represents "the blaze of conflict between Science and the Scriptures…"
> surrounding the Scopes 'Monkey' trial in the USA.
>
> It seemed so relevant that we just had to use this archived material.
> Yet we wanted to include other forms of Fundamentalism as well, which we
> did. Which included certain sound extracts of Quran prayers, sound files
> of discussions about religion and politics, music placed in the public
> domain by Rev Bill McGinnis for "children of god", Evangelical Preaching
> which included old and new recordings of evangelical preachers from
> www.biblepreaching.com. And much more of this kind of stuff as sound
> files, as well as movies, images. Then we collected a large amount of
> material that related to Darwinism from sites such 'Evolutionary theory
> in layman's terms - by Dr Zachary More'. As well as extracts from the
> The Selfish Gene: Thirty Years On, a Daniel Dennet and Richard Dawkins
> lecture www.edge.org/3rd_culture/selfish06/selfish06_index.html. And yet
> again, even more material. The process of editing was arduous,
> especially if you are editing sound files repeatedly and listening to
> various evangelists expounding extremely didactic statements about how
> evil and sinful we all are.
>
>  > While watching I sometimes thought the whole thing was promoting a
> believe in God. If it wasn't for the undertitle and the context I would,
> could believe you being fundamentalists.
>  > So strange!
>
> That's so funny...
>
> I think that, because we were very keen to give all the
> subjects/beliefs/theories/ideas their own equal presences, to argue
> there own perspectives, create controversies within the work as it
> happened. Much of the performance had a kind of spiritual flavour to it.
> We did not place any personal ideas within it at all and just mixed it
> all up equally, so to let it all speak for itself as much as possible.
> Even though the content was mediated through ourselves in the production
> and performance, the subject matters stood out very strongly in contrast
> to each of their own stances. One example of how strange it was, was
> when the Quran prayers were mixed with music, it was very beautiful,
> especially if one does not know the actual language and just listens to
> the singing. The other thing is we did want to make something that was
> beautiful even if it did feature subjects that we find repulsive such as
> 'creationism'.
>
>  > I was wondering how people reacted after your performance. Could you
> please tell us more about it, and maybe also about your stay in Banff?
>
> The whole event, performance was filmed but the camera guy forgot to
> turn the sound record on, which was pretty annoying. Although, we may
> show the film anyway and put the sound track of the performed piece over
> the top, soon.
>
> Ruth and myself performed the work in front of about 40 people. It was a
> full studio harbouring various peer resident artists, others who
> practised different forms of creativity, such as dance, classical music
> etc. It was a rich mixture of people who turned up to experience our
> performance. Of course, some people did not have a clue what kind of
> thing was going to happen, and many did not conceptually understand what
> a live networked performance really was until that evening. We explained
> the context of our residency and about why we chose the theme and what
> visitorsstudio was. When we performed we were not the only ones in the
> platform, there were others visiting from different parts of the world
> as well, which was great. So that we could perform the whole piece, no
> one could use the studio (even though they were in there) until we had
> finished. So, at the end everyone dived and began collaborating, some
> uploading their material, some using the files that were already there.
>
> There were two screens, one so the audience could view Ruth mixing the
> images and video in real-time. The other screen was the main larger
> screen where it all happened. We sat in chairs half facing the audience
> and mixed. Ruth on visuals, myself on sounds. The audience enjoyed the
> whole event, and it felt invigorating making work in front of everyone's
> eyes in real-time.
>
> We now intend to do more performances using visitorsstudio in physical
> spaces around the world, as well as in Internet space at the same time.
> The fact that we are physically involved, creates a different element to
> the whole thing and seems to add a context that we feel was missing (for
> us). With ourselves being there, explaining the context of it all as
> well discussing the subject matter really helps to ground the work.
>
> It was an excellent evening :-)
>
>  > The piece has a good pace, beautiful sound, it's not imposing, but
> letting you time to adjust, to find your way, and all the time it isn't
> where I thought it would be, it doesn't bring me where I thought it
> might bring me. That's probably it's force..
>
> One of the interesting elements in creating a piece of work that is
> real-time, is that it offers an engagement which allows a rhythm to
> settle, which is not about the product but more about the process, the
> happening and the thoughts that rise up during the experience. Time is
> the magical factor here, because we not only go through a journey with
> it, but also reflect upon what is explored in the work at various
> levels, in a context or manner which is closer to lived intuition and
> emotional reflection, about the subject and our own feelings and
> relational connections with it. Such a non linear work opens up
> different options for personal engagement if the piece is allowed to
> breath, if the artists and viewer can live with it for a little while.
> For it does possess multi-layered meanings that need time for one to
> process.
>
>  > I wish someone would write about it.
>
> So do I.
>
> Wishing you well.
>
> marc
>
>
>
>
>  > Dear Ruth and Marc,
>  >
>  > I just watched
>  > http://www.visitorsstudio.org/session.pl?id=88
>  > Fundamentalism v Evolution
>  > another dilemma of coexistence
>  >
>  > the archives of your performance at Banff
>  >
>  > I am impressed, It's beautiful, and it brings on reflexion!
>  > Great.
>  >
>  > While watching I sometimes thought the whole thing was promoting a
> believe in God. If it wasn't for the undertitle and the context I would,
> could believe you being fundamentalists.
>  > So strange!
>  > "genes are forever" ?
>  > ??
>  > I was wondering how people reacted after your performance. Could you
> please tell us more about it, and maybe also about your stay in Banff?
>  >
>  > The piece has a good pace, beautiful sound, it's not imposing, but
> letting you time to adjust, to find your way, and all the time it isn't
> where I thought it would be, it doesn't bring me where I thought it
> might bring me. That's probably it's force..
>  > I wish someone would write about it.
>  >
>  > Yours Annie
>  > --
>  > http://www.bram.org
>  > http://aabrahams.wordpress.com/
>  >
>  >
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-- 
http://www.bram.org
http://aabrahams.wordpress.com/
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