Burlap and AANN

Burlap 4 - Phillip Stearns 2006 (pixel form)

YouTube via pixelform.
"http://www.art-rash.com/pixelform

Title: Burlap IV
Artist: Phillip Stearns
Year: 2006
Media: Wood frame, Burlap, Interactive Electronic Components

Notes:

Two tone generators have been programmed to match the pitch of the other. Intervention using various components prevents one from ever quite reaching the other. Shadow falling on the photocells in the middle of the piece will allow the dance of the two pitches to be heard though sometimes they exceed the limit of human hearing in their ascents.

Burlap Series 2006

Burlap is a continuing series of work inspired by Peter Vogel and Marc Nimoy that explores the blurring of the electronic circuit and traditional two-dimensional art forms. Small interactive, physically programmed musical computers have been embedded, woven into a skin of burlap, creating an electronic music composition in the form of a reactive textile. Gallery guests interact with the pieces by casting shadows over embedded sensors. CMOS 4000 series ICs are configured into circuits which produce tones, sequencers, and dynamically behaving oscillators that respond to shadows cast by guests. Each composition explores themes of cyclical and chaotic structures, iterative sequence generation, and dynamical feedback systems. The visual form of the Burlap pieces takes its cues from traditional circuit design and is the result of a dialog between the functions of the different parts of the circuits and the nature of the signals shuttled from one part of the circuit to the next. Weaving the circuits into a canvas of burlap juxtaposes natural construction materials with electronic technologies, and thus presents a challenge to the notion of the circuit as something that is cold, calculated, and non-human. The Burlap itself is used as a semiotically rich signifier indicating, amongst other themes, the historical origins of computing in mechanized weaving, pre-industrial age textiles, and a return to reliance upon renewable natural resources."

AANN (Artificial Analog Neural Network) - Phillip Stearns

"http://www.art-rash.com/pixelform

This is a short documentation clip of AANN from the 2008 Juried Exhibition at the Torrance Art Museum (City of Torrance, LA, CA, USA).

Dimensions: 4x2x2 hanging installation
Medium: Electronics

AANN is an interactive, handmade electronic sculpture that responds to changes in ambient light and sound. The sculpture itself is 45 interconnected, electronic neurons that are actively responding to environmental stimuli in a display of light and sound. Constructing the sculpture in such a way that function and form are keenly interconnected, borrows from the sculptural, musical electronics works of Peter Vogel. Great care was taken in the design of the electronics to accurately mimic biological neural behavior. The resulting form of the piece was influenced in part by layering models used in neural computing, and by Fibonacci based branching found in natural systems. AANN explores the notion of interactivity with electronics by making physical the abstract processes being used by modern computer scientists to solve complex problems in pattern recognition.

The science of robotics seeks to study, mimic and recreate life through the creation of automatons which are ultimately are designed to complete tasks that serve our desires. Here with the creation of AANN, the desire is to explore the possibility of making a thinking thing, one that is allowed to have its own desires. However, in the end what AANN becomes is a sign of the industrial military complex, signifying not only the possibility of the pursuit of such idealistic techno-fetishistic dreams of machine intelligence, but also their very negation through the terminal exploitation of the very life which it seeks to replicate (and eventually replace).

Questions which arose during the course of researching and developing the work branched outwards from the decade old debate about machine intelligence and its potential impacts on society and environment. What is interactivity? What are the preconditions necessary for such interactivity? Does intelligence play a role or is interactivity a generic feature of reality. What is it to think? Is it possible for a machine to think as we do? If it is not yet possible to understand what it is to think and how we humans do it, what is it that drives us to make machines think? Are we too lazy to think for ourselves? How much does structure factor into the functioning of a network both biological and artificial? What are the implications of accepting a networked model of understanding? What is the total impact of technology on society and on the biosphere which supports it? Is it possible for a technological work to affect enough positive change to offset the potential social and environmental damage wrought in its history of development and application? Can technology exist without economies of scale, and if not, can those economies of scale be maintained in an ecologically sustainable manner?"

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