Dear all

This is interesting re Unconscious Thought, and I address it in my book 
in the last chapter on psychic space. I look at Bion's theory of 
transformations.

Basically there are beta thoughts which come from the unconscious and 
which are transformed into Alpha thoughts in the conscious mind. The 
transformations involved are described by Bion as being like an artist 
making a painting of a field of poppies, where there are variants and 
invariants. The beta thoughts are to Hanna Segal connected to the 
Paranoid schizoid position. I relate this to the transformations in 
computer animatography. In the art object as data, transformations are 
all that we have.

I don't know if you have seen Wim Wenders film 'Bis an endes der welt' 
but in it the lead characters go mad because of looking at their own 
dreams which are downloaded on computer. They are caught up in beta 
thoughts.

I am just concerned that we are safe in what we are pursuing

best wishes

Sarah

On 2021-11-24 12:41, Simon Biggs wrote:

> Makes me think of N.K Hayles's recent Unthought book - what she terms 
> cognitive assemblages, unconscious cognition.
> 
> Simon Biggs
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk
> http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
> https://www.youtube.com/user/SimonBiggsUK
> http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
> 
> On 24 Nov 2021, at 22:25, Sarah Thompson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Karen Ann, Simon, Johannes,
> 
> I find 'co-materialisation' a problematic term in that it implies a 
> physicality which is not there
> 
> To quote Byung-Chul Han :'The human being is no longer the sovereign 
> subject of knowledge, the originator of knowledge. Knowledge is now 
> produced mechanically. The data-driven production of knowledge takes 
> place without the involvement of conciousness. Enormous volumes of data 
> displace the human being from its central position as producer of 
> knowledge, and the human being itself is reduced to a data set, a 
> variable that can be calculated and manipulated.' (Han, 2020,82)
> 
> Data Object relations is a way of seeing ourselves as a variable that 
> can be mapped, calculated and manipulated.
> 
> best regards
> Sarah
> 
> On 2021-11-05 00:16, Karen Ann Donnachie wrote:
> Hi Simon, Sarah, Johannes,
> This is a great conversation, and not only for the familiar echoes of
> constructivist discourse.
> The use of thee term data-doubles in the way Simon has outlined,
> certainly can prove functional, but I am always cognisant that this is
> a (sometimes distracting) corollary output, another technological
> layer or mask with its own set of explicit and implicit values (OO,
> $$, etc). It is indeed fundamental to the processes, yet not
> necessarily, (nor necessarily not)) the end in itself, nor does it
> tangibly help resolve the affect of the experience.
> I think one fascinating aspect of Johannes' hybrid and co-agentic
> performance research is the (very human) potential for
> co-materialisation, in- and out-of- immersive boundaries, VR worlds,
> tethered one to another across this multiplicity of place/space. In
> this regard I recognise the resistance of the term 'data-double' or
> 'data-object' --from what i can ascertain without seeing the piece, the
> 'data' merely accounts for a small facet (a minor narrative) of this
> multi-human, plurispatial experience, and one perhaps Johannes is
> attempting to mask out, or de-emphasize.
> I am including below some snippets from a piece we wrote earlier last
> year for an immersive art wearable startup, which speaks to an
> understanding of 'co-materialisation':
> **
> ... a co-materialisation of selves, across data-driven doubles
> composed of empirical measurement of our biological self (heart-rate,
> hours slept, calories consumed and burned); through the looking glass
> of the webcam across chat and video conferencing platforms; as avatars
> in gaming environments; as voices, images and texts. We co-exist,
> alone and together, in multiple states and across multiple spaces
> contemporaneously, synchronously and asynchronously, freed from the
> limitations of (mere) corporeal existence.
> Yet contemporaneously, our physicality is also being reconfigured in
> this process of co-materialisation, as we interface through keypads,
> touchscreens, gestures, voice command and other modes of transaction.
> Contemporary digital experiences engage our senses in a range of
> qualities and quantities, from ocular input (for example when reading
> on a screen) to sound and voice, multisensorial and propriocentric
> immersion. As we enter and shape the space of flows, it shapes us.
> ...
> The traditional division of material and virtual worlds is losing some
> of its dialectical utility in both theoretical frameworks and
> practical applications. As the distinction between online and offline
> phenomenologies become increasingly problematised by the
> mass-virtualisation (and the correlated co-materialisation), so do the
> social behaviours surrounding these domains. Manifestations of this
> new digital co-materiality can be observed in the quasi-symbiotic
> relationship of human-computer systems --including, but not limited to,
> the smartphone or computer and its user. Feedback, from the visual, to
> the designed (such as sounds and vibrations) to the accidental (such
> as the heat generated by a microprocessor) are enfolded within many
> human activities. The haptic call and response of human-computer
> activity, whether conscious (such as interactions through a
> touch-screen) or unconscious (such as biodata collected and
> distributed via networked self-tracking devices) can be considered as
> contributing to new human behaviours.
> ...
> As we engage with this space of flows, the device(s) we interface with
> carry the potential to offer more than a portal, or window, to
> mediated experiences. They perform processes of data collection,
> aggregation and transmission (representational, social and
> biologically-derived). Furthermore, the body is not passive, nor
> discrete, within this process but is part of more complex ecologies of
> co-materialisation occurring across biological entities and
> data-doubles. It is in the reconfiguring, consciously, and
> unconsciously, for digital delivery that these theories of assemblage
> are useful, and for the exploration of the potential for the
> experience of new feelings within and through the new social spaces
> within the space of flows.
> **
> as you can see, as with Johannes' silk bindings, for the moment,
> perhaps, we are still tethered to these discourse of assemblage, which
> 'help hold us in place'? The data, the knowing of it and the very
> devices which capture it will inevitably shape the bodies in this
> work, as they move through these spaces, perhaps this can be harvested
> or captured, glitched, decanted or derailed in some way?
> wishes,
> karen ann
> Now, more than ever #WeNeedToTalk
> Unannounced, unscheduled, uncurbed, over the phone.
> Feel free to call~~~> 0468 385385
> Karen Ann Donnachie, PhD
> https://rmit.academia.edu/KarenannDonnachie
> <https://rmit.academia.edu/KarenannDonnachie>
> karenanndonnachie.com <http://karenanndonnachie.com/>
> [now reading] Déja Vu & The End of History, Paolo Virno
> On 4 Nov 2021, at 11:09, Simon Biggs <[log in to unmask] 
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> Hi Sarah
> It's not that I 'don't like' data objects - it's just that I prefer 
> data doubles. It is the terminology used in the information and 
> surveillance industries and employed in critical theory concerning the 
> topic (admittedly an emergent area at this time).
> I would seek to avoid conflating two very distinct fields such as 
> object relations theory and object oriented programming (I am a 
> programmer who uses OOP a lot; have for decades). They do not mean 
> 'object' in the same way and I don't think black-boxing is part of ORT. 
> Object Oriented Ontology (fashionable a few years ago) sought a similar 
> conflation of terms, with not entirely successful outcomes.
> As for whether your data double is you, that's an interesting question. 
> From within a constructionist approach the self is considered a social 
> construct, the outcome of social interactions and dynamics. Your data 
> double is the same kind of thing - it is a socio-technical construct, a 
> product of your social interactions and other activities, 
> algorithmically constructed and then employed to define you within the 
> surveillance-information infrastructure that now constitutes much of 
> communication and exchange in our society. In this sense (the 
> constructivist sense) the data double is you.
> best wishes
> Simon Biggs
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk
> http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
> https://www.youtube.com/user/SimonBiggsUK
> http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
> On 5 Nov 2021, at 03:52, Sarah Thompson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Johannes and Simon
> I'm sorry you don't like 'data objects', I mean by 'object' as used in 
> object relations theory, target of the instinct (Gomez, 1997)also as 
> used in object oriented programming.
> I can see how 'data doubles' would fit also with your project Johannes, 
> whatever, you are mapped in this virtual space and it is important to 
> remember that it is 'not you'
> Your project sounds very interesting and you are obviously affected by 
> the sensations you are receiving that it is 'very real' - but it is 
> virtual and therefore it sounds to me as though you are temporarily not 
> separating from the experience - be careful!
> best wishes
> Sarah
> On 2021-11-03 19:28, Johannes Birringer wrote:
> Dear Sarah, and also Simon;
> perhaps I cannot address your response properly as I would need to
> learn first, and appreciate, how you have analyzed or proposed such
> "data objects"
> [or data doubles?].... and perhaps -- not being able to add my photos
> to my post about our rehearsal with wearing the Oculus Quest2 VR
> headsets & performing/improvising together (as a duet) in real space
> and being connected in a very tactile way in this space sharing weight
> and bodily motion (as w e had connected our wrists via red silks that
> Zhi Xu had brought with him from China) -- thus I am not ready to
> accept the terminology either of you propose, as I do not conceive our
> mutual presences in augmented and virtual reality as an 'object'
> issue, i actually can't do much with the idea of a data object in
> dance and in movement.
> Naturally, in terms of digital input and output, if we are also
> programming data environments (sound, digital images, graphics,
> animation, etc), I grasp the idea of data objects, no problem. I tend
> to understand them as projected media in the theatre.
> But my dance partner and I are not not-I's trying to make contact, and
> the guardian role you interestingly address,
> in this case (the pun is on Oculus's parameter drawing, the "limit"
> space in which your VR and the controllers works/participate --
> curiously called "guardian" space by the product manufacturers), is
> not virtual. It is and it is not. For me the guardian role is
> holding/helping my partner in space even as I cannot see them.
> But I hold them with my red silk, and they hold me. I am safe as long
> as I a, held and can move without needing to "see" the real floor, I
> feel it, and I sense the environs. My eyes are seeing some virtual
> data-world whatever, though in our initial experiments, using the
> google tiltbrush (when we held the "controllers", we drew red silly
> lines in 3d space).  Controllers,  ha. They tend to bore.
> I sense the hold on my wrist and skin. Very real. and subjectively
> affectively sensed. I move, without controllers.
> with regards
> Johannes Birringer
> ________________________________________
> From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org
> <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Sarah Thompson
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 28 October 2021 10:35
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Book Publication / Virtual 
> Re-embodiments
> Thanks Johannes for your interesting response
> I would  conceive of the users in your VR environment as becoming data
> objects, interacting with other data objects in the environment.
> It all depends on the degree and manner of control (Bell 1991) which is
> afforded to them, as to what they can do.
> The important thing to remember is that as a data object it's not you
> who is in the virtual space but a mapping of you. Then there is also 
> 'I'
> wanting to make contact with another 'I'. This could be your guardian
> role.
> Your project sounds fascinating!
> thanks
> Sarah
> On 2021-10-27 12:49, Johannes Birringer wrote:
> congratulations Sarah,
> and thank you for sharing your publication info with us.
> I had a look at the summary of your contents and it sounds really
> fascinating, perhaps you could say a bit more about the issue of "data
> objects in virtual performance"? Did we not have a long discussion
> here on the list, some whole ago, on Immersive Virtual Reality
> installations, teamLab etc?
> I am currently rehearsing with performers and design collaborators,
> trying to connect real spatial and
> physical relations (for a workshop on 'somatechnics and dis/abilities'
> to be conducted at the Body IQ
> festival in Berlin, November 2021)* to imagined space, wearing the
> Oculus Quest 2 headset as a potential approach
> to not-wearing VR but learning from not-seeing but feeling/sensing
> other possibilities - I can't yet fully describe
> what we are doing, but we are performing together (two 'users' wearing
> the VR headset, one is active,
> the other one not quite, as I have left the "guardian" space and am
> trying to 'guard' the other one who is
> inside a virtual landscape and cannot feel or see the actual space
> surround us so well (but we are attached via a silk thead,
> an "Ariadne' device). The mis- and dislocations interest us, and the
> limitations and impairments we learn understanding to
> accept/circumvent.
> (I attach rehearsal photo but message may not go through with
> attachments)
> I wonder, Sarah, whether you, or others in our community,  have worked
> with false realities (VR) occluding vision or proprioception,
> with "data objects" as delusions and aggravations (even wearing the
> headset became very tiring and disconcerting
> after a while, annoying actually) or as health risks.
> [ I think any workshop now, when I bring the Oculus, I'll spend some
> real time reading through the Health & Safety Warning Guide with
> participants -- a substantial list, thought supplied by the product
> company in the tiniest possible print edition....
> with regards
> Johannes Birringer
> co-director, DAP-Lab
> * for your info:  'BODY IQ Festival 2021: Bodies of Cultures,
> Communities & Places'
> 19 - 21 Nov. 2021       https://www.bodyiq.berlin/
> ________________________________________
> From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org
> <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Sarah Thompson
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 27 October 2021 11:46
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Book Publication
> Hi Crumbsters
> Sarah Thompson Bell
> my book 'The Art  Object As Data' is available on Amazon
> In The Art Object As Data Sarah  unfolds a theory of  data object
> relations using the psychoanalytic theory of object relations and looks
> at how we relate to and through data
> Using critiques of art exhibitions both on and off line, from her blog
> transjuice.org she captures a significant moment in cultural terms.
> Best wishes
> Sarah
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