MCP501 Proposal Year 1

MCP501 Proposal Year 1

01 Title- 

Temporal and spacial simultaneities manifested in the landscape surrounding astronomical observatories in remote locations. 

04 Description of proposed project or body of work - practical element

I will produce experimental video, a set of photographic images and an online journal. As well of a series of sculptures based on data obtained from astronomical observations. 

I will document the astronomical sites using video and audio using a first-person observation strategy that will allow me to experience technology, nature and the social surroundings in these remote places as an integrated landscape that will render conceptually strong, contemplative, poetic and visually compelling artworks. With the information obtained from astronomic observations, I will produce a series of sculptures that will materialize the huge temporal and spatial gaps in the Universe enhanced by astronomical observations. Celestial bodies seen by this instruments are located millions of years away, both in distance and in time.

05 Description of project report or thesis - written element

I will present a written thesis that will try to establish the poetic nature of the temporal and spacial simultaneities reflected on the landscape surrounding astronomical observatories in remote locations.

It will provide the context needed to understand the artworks developed and will document the process of creating the artwork.

It will elaborate on the resources, techniques and language (e.g Cinematographic) chosen to realize the works. I will describe how observations made by the scientific community pose poetic simultaneities that resonate with philosophy and History

06 Anticipated results

An experimental film, several sculptures and possibly some paintings. A journal.

07 Initial bibliography

– Pfaffenberger, Bryan. "Social Anthropology of Technology." Annual Review of Anthropology 21.1 (1992): 491-516.

– Barros, Alonso. “Pachamama y desarrollo: paisajes conflictivos en el Desierto de Atacama”. Estudios Atacameñios 13 (1997): 75-94

– McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium is the Massage”. 1964

– Encounters at the End of the World. Dir. Werner Herzog. THINKFilm, 2008. Film

–Nostalgia for the Light. Dir. Patricio Guzmán, 2010. Film

– Chapela, Emilio. The space around. Documental research about ruins of technology in connection to Bell Laboratories in NJ. https://vimeo.com/166038794 Password: space

08 Research statement, question

I am interested in exploring the poetical simultaneities of time and space manifested in the landscape surrounding astronomical observatories. And by the observations themselves. Can observatories be thought as Cosmological Machines? Extensions of ourselves to exercise philosophy and History?

09 Formulae entire project in 2-3 meaningful sentences

Production of an experimental video, new media works and sculptures that explore the interconnections, dissociations and contradictions rendered from the interaction of technology, information, nature and society around highly specialized and remote astronomical sites above 16,000 feet above the sea level in Mexico and Chile. 

I will document the astronomical sites using video and audio using a first-person observation strategy that will allow me to experience technology, nature and the social surroundings in these remote places as an integrated landscape that evidences the huge temporal and spatial gaps in the Universe enhanced by astronomical observations. Celestial bodies seen by this instruments are located millions of years away, both in distance and in time. 

Simultaneously, I will produce sculptures based on the fossilized light coming from the Universe (and picked by these observatories) to enrich the temporal simultaneities manifested by our interaction with these instruments.

10D How will this research support your creative project or practice

It will help me to define how to approach the situation, the places, the people and nature around the observatories. I will help me develop the cinematographic language to use. And how to perform interviews (if any) or under what guidelines music or audio design should be composed.

Reading Diary: Live-writing. Cox

Reading Diary:  Live-writing. Cox

This reading diary covers the following texts:

Kenneth Goldsmith, Uncreative Writing, New York: Columbia University Press 2011

The concept of uncreative writing (and the book) by Kenneth Goldsmith has influenced and informed my practice extensively. My work relates among other things, with technology as a mediator of human communication.

I read the book for the first time a couple of years ago and I became very interested in its bold (almost cynical) approach to appropriation and plagiarism. I was impressed and excited, and for some months I became a self-proclaimed ambassador to his work and all writing machines. I engaged in many discussions, some meaningful and others futile, especially with writers. But most importantly, I incorporated into my work some of the strategies outlined in the book. My interest expanded to Christian Bök and his experimental poetry and other artists and writters.

I’m revisiting the book now that some of my enthusiasm on appropriation has diminished. I found interesting the way how the book explores the potential poetic qualities of data, code, algorithms and writing machines of all kinds. Relating poetry to machines and computers is quite interesting. I wonder about the possibilities of poetry and artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms? Will computers (as Goldsmith suggests) could write poetry for themselves on day? Could they win nobel prices in literature? 

There are really interesting projects described in the book and lots of interesting exercises that can be done easily, like translating mp3 to text to images, transform code, print binary information, make memes, etc. But one important question remains: how to be critical? is being poetical enough to take a critical stance? I believe it is. But how do we decide what is poetical? It’s a closed circuit: Maybe what manages to become critical is the poetic. 
If we can't be critical, we are left with just the code. Instructions, at that's all.

Here I share some works (or exercises) I have done in the past using some strategies read in Kenneth’s Goldsmith book.

Autosuggestion poems:

[STATIC]

I am the prince of darkness,
Lord of Light,
And many other things long since passed.
Over time and across,
I roam these lands for the future
And while no man than before
Save to which they belonged

SOFTWARE

Love track the data
Appendix below low speed
Love track the web
And have the writer
That depends almost constant throughout time,
For''Shizzle in different IP connection to theirs.

* Generated by auto-suggestion algorithms 

This is another project that consists of a sequence of wikipedia entries illustrated by its corresponding Google image search counterpart. 

A book. 2013.

Reading Diary: Engaging Conflict. Cypis

Reading Diary:  Engaging Conflict. Cypis

As a photographer (originally) I am aware of the visual characteristics of a given space like light, dimensions, color, etc. I also understand how this properties can portray a message of power, comfort, security, or a set of predispositions. This is of course, independent of what its being told inside a room or a space. In relation to media, Marshall McLuhan said “The medium is the message”, which translates well into this context. I would add, the room is the first message. 

I have never researched or read about mediation, conflict and empathy. It seemed to me that my work hasn’t needed, at least directly. But even if you are not engaging directly in mediation practices, it seems vey important to incorporate or at least practice these set of tools: Roland Barthes’ notion of being “twice fascinated” seems extremely useful when interviewing someone, directing actors and when studying social phenomena on the site.

If you are doing documentary film, for example, you have to be aware of the room or place where you are performing the interview but you have to be empathic as well. And if I understood well, empathy starts with a recognition of yourself. It is important that you explore your prejudices, understand why are you doing what your doing in order to become fascinated for the first time. The second will follow later, hopefully. 

From what I understand, research in art practices demands you with the capacity of de-attaching yourself from your practice to think and be critical, just to come back into a personal level. It is another form of being “twice fascinated”.

Regarding conflict, one question came to my mind: how is conflict defined? what is conflict? Does it arises from a extreme position of disagreement only? or from a position of great emotional distress? I guess not only, but it is not clear to me what constitutes as conflict and to what degree. I ask this because it is seems that other interactions, personal or professional, like collaborations in art, could present positions of conflict where empathy could be useful. 

It is hard to argue against empathy, even though some people with a lot of power seem to be pushing against it.

Reading Diary: Wanderings, Musings and the Art of getting Lost. Casbarian

Reading Diary:  Wanderings, Musings and the Art of getting lost. Casbarian

I will start writing this knowing that I might not have read every page of the required texts (I'll explain why). I noticed that some of the pdf are chapters from the same book like Wunderlust by Rebecca Solnit, others are excerpts from different sources. I'm part of a confused generation that can't decide if it is better to read out of xerox copies and make annotations with my marker, or if I should read in the screen or the ipad. I printed some and read others in their electronic version. Because of this, I jumped from one text to the next without thinking about the logic behind the syllabus. In any case, I don't understand the logic, so I read like if I was walking. I wondered through the texts enjoying myself a lot, like I enjoy walking. I didn't know Nietzsche was a walker/worker. Richard Long, Solnit, Thoreau, Debord and Cildo Miereles, who I believe is not in the texts and he is a daily walker). My parents named me Emilio, in part because of Rousseau's walks in the forest.  
I believe to be a good walker, a city walker. Not necessarily a situationist kind of walker. I don't have much of an agenda like Rousseau did (until he didn't). Not a flânuer either. Sometimes I need to get from A to B, and most occasions, I don't. But I have always associated walking with thinking. Thinking clearly, thinking loud. But above all, walking gives you total authority over everything that can be thought of. While walking you can think about almost everything, you are the expert. Walking as the democratization of thinking. I heard a chef once talking about how the potato made us all equally: We all eat potatos! - he said. 

I has been part of my practice to think about the derive in connection to new media and the Internet. It does not present the same poetical possibilities. But it present us with a chance of re-defining the critical possibilities of going-a-drift. If we are to become digital walkers, lets be critical about it.

I'll continue soon....

Reading Diary: Documentation-Forms of reflection. Rostad

Reading Diary:  Documentation-Forms of reflection. Rostad

I decided to pursue a PhD a month ago (June 2016). The idea had been inside my head for sometime but it became real very fast. And as I read these texts (in my way to Berlin), that address how artists should research, think, write and create works when aiming for a PhD –which is the exact thing I plan to achieve– many questions come to mind:

What is the goal of a PhD art research? Is it to develop new knowledge? or to produce stronger and relevant artworks? or both? do I have to present new ideas that work within the academic context? Is my research needed? Is Art ever needed as knowledge does?

There seems to be a lot of debate on how to approach artistic research and how to resolve the apparent (or real) tension between practice and research. It seems that it our role to help define it. But from what I understood from the readings, they all suggest strategies on how to involve art practice into the research. The practice becomes part of a dynamic development that comprises reading, producing artworks, researching, asking questions, and writing. All of this coordinated by a methodology supported on several methods and documented extensively.

For now, here are some and ideas and excerpts from the books that I found interesting and that triggered some new thoughts and insights. List of book at the end of the post.

- A coordination between the art practice and the language of the writing (the use of words) is desirable and leads to a strong research.

- Imagination is a key element for research.

- There is no imagination without a sense of context.

- Gather as much context as possible. A rich context provides gives the chance of building a more integral and holistic research.

- Narrative is a strategy that interests me, especially as a tool for writing.

- I need to present a project that gives me enough freedom to move easily between practice and research.

- I have to build a contextual review, statements, arguments and keywords

- Documentation is vital: informal writing, audios, photos, sketches, videos and artworks.

- It is interesting how artworks done by the artist-researcher, can become documents that feed the research itself. 

- It seems like artists doing PhD’s need to develop the capacity of switching from researcher to artist and vice-versa. This happens by being –at moments– close and involved into the research’s situation/site/acts, and at times by taking distance to look things from a distance/outside. As an artist does when painting a large canvas: paints small areas but takes distance to see the overall result.

I hope my intuition, that helped me to write an initial proposal for the research, materializes into a well structured project. I aim to find a strategy to tighten the relation between research, writing and making artworks. Or maybe the goal is to erase the line that apparently keeps them separated. 

Texts

The Role of Documentation in Practice-Led Research by Nithikul Nimkulrat, Journal of Research Practice Volume 3, Issue 1, Article M6, 2007

Visualizing research: a guide to the research process in art and design by Carole Gray and Julian Malins., Ashgate Publishing, 2004

Artistic research methodology : narrative, power and the public by Mika Hannula, Juha Suoranta, Tere Vadén, New York : Peter Lang, 2014

Project proposal - Transart - Emilio Chapela

PhD Proposal - Transart - Emilio Chapela

01 – Title of project

Landscape study of Astronomical instruments in remote locations

02 – Description of proposed project / body of work (600 words max.)

The project consists on the production of a series of artworks as result of my visits to various astronomical observatories in remote locations: Including the Large Millimetre Telescope and the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory in Sierra Negra in Mexico at an altitude of 4,700 meters (15,000 feet) and the Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array in the Atacama desert in Chile over 5,000 meters (16500 feet) above sea level.

In an effort to present a more comprehensive idea of the landscape, I will explore and document on video some of the relationships –often dissociated– between the technological instruments, the hostile natural environment and the social context surrounding these sites. The artworks, mainly experimental video, new media and sculpture, will be presented as a cohesive element that reflects on space and time.

In search for the most suitable places for astronomical observations (high altitude and dry climates), Scientists and Engineers are traveling to the most remote spaces of the planet where life is very scarce, to build powerful instruments. These sites, like the one built at the Atacama desert in Chile, an array of more than 60 radio-telescope antennas, or the observatories built on top an extinguished volcano in Mexico, are located in remote places away from human settlements, light and sound contamination. I will spend time inside these facilities along with the astronomers who operate them for short periods of time to document, learn and discuss. I will document the surroundings as much as I can while remaining safe due to the lack of oxygen at that height.

I want to show these astronomical observatories as a cosmological machines, which in addition to the extraordinary operational tasks they perform, they invite us to a philosophical, ontological and artistic reflection about time, space and the origins of the Universe. Borrowing a concept from Marshall McLuhan, they are an extension of our body and our minds.

These telescopes allow us to see millions of years away into the past. I’m interested in producing sculptures and new media works based on the observations and data produced by these instruments. The artworks will present us with a temporal contradiction: They will depict (using an abstract language) how celestial bodies were millions of years ago. They are cosmological machines that have no choice but to look into the past. It is possible that the very thing they portray, might not even be there any more.

I believe that a multidisciplinary PHD program like the one offered by Transart, will provide me with the critical feedback and research tools to produce the body of work described above. I am interested in a strong multidisciplinary arts program that allows me to satisfy what my artwork entails: to develop new tools to establish links between my interests, to expand my visual resources and technical abilities to resolve ideas with great impact, to enrich my work’s social awareness and its impact on the public space, to integrate writing as a critical instrument and to incorporate a research-based strategy to my practice. I aim to develop a unique poetic language rooted in complex ideas portrayed with simplicity.

03 – The project’s relevance: What is the broader context for the proposed work?

The work done at these observatories has a profound scientific and philosophical importance which needs to to be documented from the perspective of art. I’m interested in fostering the collaboration with scientist, technicians and other artists to produce works that aim towards a comprehensive understanding of the connections between science, technology, nature and society within the context of these sites. I will try to do work that will have a resonance with the public.

04 – Research methods* and methodology: How will you be creating the work and how will this reflect your theoretical interests?

I will document the astronomical sites using video and audio from a first-person observation strategy that will allow me to experience technology, nature and the social surroundings in these remote places, as an integrated landscape, that will render conceptually strong, contemplative, poetic and visually compelling artworks.

I aim to develop the tools to accomplish these goals during the development of my PHD. And while I have used similar strategies in the past, I need guidance on how to incorporate a social component into my creative process that is fundamental on presenting a more holistic view into the research. It could be in the form of interviews, conversations, collaborations, actions or performances for the camera (like music).

With the help from my advisors, I would like to expand into new methods of approaching the subject matter, possibly rooted in participant observation, dialectics or Phenomenology. I would like to study and develop new knowledge that allows me to explore and adapt the concept of Anthropology of Technology into this project and to my practice at large.

I will learn –with help of the astronomers– how to read data extracted from the radio telescopes and spectrographs, to produce sculptures that deal with the concept of time by interpreting astronomical data of objects that are millions of years away, to produce physical objects that portray the distant past.

05 – Initial list of sources (written materials, examples, prior works by others and/or yourself)

Pfaffenberger, Bryan. "Social Anthropology of Technology." Annual Review of Anthropology 21.1 (1992): 491-516.

Barros, Alonso. “Pachamama y desarrollo: paisajes conflictivos en el Desierto de Atacama”. Estudios Atacameñios 13 (1997): 75-94

McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium is the Massage”. 1964

Chapela, Emilio. The space around. Documental research about ruins of technology in connection to Bell Laboratories in NJ. https://vimeo.com/166038794 Password: space

06 – Your research question/s: What is the basic focus of the proposed work?

Are these astronomical observatories an extension of our bodies? Can they be considered as cosmological machines? How to produce artworks that embody philosophical issues like time and space? How can I adopt strategies from Anthropology into my creative research? How should I approach to the astronomical observatories in terms of documentation?  

07 – Project results, e.g. documentation, performance, script, intervention, website, exhibition, book, journal

I will produce a long duration experimental video, a set of photographic images and an online journal. Also, a series of sculptures and new media works based on data obtained from astronomical observations.

08 – Intended audience

Art related audience through exhibitions in Museums and galleries, members of the local and rural communities in San Pedro Atacama, Chile and México, and the scientific community involved in the project. I will make the artworks available online to all public.

09 – Short statement on your current practice

I am a multidisciplinary artist based in Mexico city. My artistic career has been fostered by science, philosophy and film. The critical, philosophical and scientific reflection on technology and its impact on society has been the core to my artistic practice. I am part of a generation that has welcomed technology seamlessly but cautiously, simultaneously resistant to technology, and dependent on it. A generation that made me conclusively aware that the role of technology is neither socially nor politically neutral. I am interested in producing artworks that render visible in a descriptive and critical way, what technology says about society: technology as a lens capable to amplify or to distort, as critical stance that reverses the gaze back to the observer.

10 – Formulate entire project in 2-3 meaningful sentences.

Production of an experimental video, new media works and sculptures that explore the interconnections, dissociations and contradictions rendered from the interaction of technology, information, nature and society around highly specialised and remote astronomical sites above 16,000 feet above the sea level in Mexico and Chile. I will document the astronomical sites using video and audio using a first-person observation strategy that will allow me to experience technology, nature and the social surroundings in these remote places as an integrated landscape that will render conceptually strong, contemplative, poetic and visually compelling artworks.

With the information obtained from astronomic observations, I will produce a series of works (sculptures and new media) that will materialise the huge temporal and spatial gaps in the Universe enhanced by astronomical observations. Celestial bodies seen by this instruments are located millions of years away, both in distance and in time.

11 – Technical description and production process

The video and audio documentation of the two important observatories (millimetric and gamma rays) on top of the Sierra Negra mountain in México will be done in several stages: I have already visited the site and I plan to go back on different times of the year, especially during the observation nights, from October to May. These observatories will allow me to experiment and develop new ideas since they are reachable by car from Mexico City (2 hour drive). They will become my temporary studios. The National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (INAOE) is already giving me support.

The visits to the Observatories in the Atacama Desert in Chile needs more planning and will be scheduled once I have defined a creative and conceptual strategy with the help from the PHD advisors. I have secured some of the funds to travel to the site at least twice.

I will edit the videos in my studio in Mexico city, where I will also produce the rest of the works: the new media projects (I program in Cycling Max and Jitter) and the sculptures. My studio is part of a collaborative workshop where other 5 people work: We share a lithographic press and a wood-shop with a CNC machine, laser cutter and other machines to make sculptures.