Dear Johannes et al

first Happy Birthday!
I've been having some thoughts on your post last week, and it seems to 
me that you are more concerned with choreography and dance than the way 
the VR kit works, you say that it is a physical matter whereas what I am 
looking at is a mental matter. Maybe you 'stretch' the use of the kit 
through dance and are unconcerned about the mental space that is implied 
with the use of VR.
The VR kit 'sees' you as a data object, and if there is a representation 
of you then you perceive yourself as a data object. It maps you into the 
space, by all accounts very effectively.

best regards
Sarah Thompson Bell




On 2021-11-25 22:59, Johannes Birringer wrote:
> Dear all
> 
> realizing that there is a main thread on ‘practical’ methods found to
> be ‘successful’ in creating socially-engaged projects (on & offline)
> where ‘participation’ occurred in its highest form" (curated by
> Janine), I hope that our second on-going thread is interesting enough
> for all here to continue...
> and naturally I see it partly also connected to the participation 
> topic./
> 
> I also just returned from a workshop we did in Berlin for the Body IQ
> Festival, continuing our somatic and somatechnical exploration of
> working with VR, and it of course involved curating a group workshop,
> so I feel that this thread is significant (and 'blended' of course as
> well, as the Berlin festival was using real and telematic spaces)
> 
> My main concern is reflecting on the responses I got from Sarah and
> Karen Ann -- and I am not sure how to say this without perhaps
> sounding ignorant (not yet having had time to read Sarah's book: 'The
> Art Object As Data' ). I do not know OOO or objects relation theory,
> but in your book description I read that the author  "captures a
> significant moment in cultural terms.
....Chapters cover topics such
> as women artists' practice and its relationship with data, data
> objects in virtual performance, data objects and new media art,
> technology and difference, separation and relationship....."
> 
> Now when I described our performance rehearsals, and in Berlin we went
> a few steps further, it was quite exciting as we introduced two hard
> Oculus Quest 2 headsets (VR), three Oculus 1 (headsets to play 3D
> film, given to us by Polish artist Wojciech Olchowski), and
> additionally two new prototypes created by my collaborator, designer

> Michèle Danjoux ( a white and a black NoÓculos, made of white leather,
> and black velvet), soft devices that are 'false' and have no
> ocularcentric VR immersion data); I was really emphasizing the
> affective, spatial, sensorial experience of the wearers. I imagined
> the wearing as an interface action (not screenic), between inside
> somatic (internal experience), sensory relation to a space, and
> outside "projection" of the material experience (VR as action):  the
> wearer may  create a 3D virtual data space experience, yet in dance we
> do not think data, we think movement (choreography), kinaesthetic and
> of course embodied.
> 
> Sarah, i honestly disagree with all the "data object and data double"
> terms, they mean very little to me, since there is organic human
> materiality involved (and that is , I guess, what Karen Ann meant in
> her participatory philosophy -- her long cited text was hard for me as
> i would prefer, here, to improvise, not to cite publications, I prefer
> to stumble, as we write.
> 
> I thus stumble. Physicality in my work is always there; there is a
> relationship (and this could be a humanist, feminist and queer
> argument) and a physicality, gendered, racially/culturally and
> socially determined, always, there is age (I am older),  and since we
> are talking relations (to data), I would like to keep the human or
> creaturely involved at all times. I am not interested, I must say, in:
> "Data Object relations as a way of seeing ourselves as a variable that
>  can be mapped, calculated and manipulated" -- and why would one? is
> that not actually politically defeatist?
> 
> Last weekend our team traveled from London to Berlin and back, having
> to undergo numerous completely unpleasant procedures, COVIDpass forms,
> Locator forms, Einreisegenehmigung, etc.  QR-codes were scanned at
> airports and border police stations.
> 
> What is a machine-readable QR code?  do i even really comprehend how
> such a code is constructed * by NHS, by the State? * and 'what' reads
> it?
> 
> Sarah, you are quoting Byung-Chul Han ["the human being itself is
> reduced to a data set, a variable that can be calculated and
> manipulated"}  as if this was acceptable.
> 
> It is not, it is a reprehensible idea. I find i appalling.
> We now see the divisive police decisions regarding vaccination, and
> the 2G / 3G data control policing coming into practice in European
> countries, not sure whether this is global but I imagine China and
> Korea, Japan, NZ and other countries are enforcing machine-controlled
> surveillance.  I will protest it where-ever i can.
> 
> Not sure now where to leave this, data doubles,  co-materialisation,
> in- and out-of- immersive boundaries?  In my dance practice, I will
> continue to be physical, and I imagine am somewhat closer to Karen
> Ann's suggestion that ..."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? --
> yes derailing for sure,
> 
> and I remain  unconvinced that "data" shape my way of moving.......... 
> At all.
> 
> regards
> Johannes Birringer
> 
> 
> _______________________________________
> From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org
> <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Simon Biggs
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 24 November 2021 12:41
> 
> Makes me think of N.K Hayles’s recent Unthought book - what she terms
> cognitive assemblages, unconscious cognition.
> 
> 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/
> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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