Response to "Rhythm Science"

“Once you get into the flow of things, 

you're always haunted by the way that things could have turned out. 

This outcome, that conclusion. You get my drift. 

The uncertainty is what holds the story together, 

and that's what I'm going to talk about.”

        Coming back to this quote again and again throughout the book, it helped keep me focused through the rambling-type writing style.  In this book, DJ Spooky delivers a manifesto for rhythm science--the creation of art from the flow of patterns in sound and culture, “the changing same.”  Spooky explains how there are only so many things you can do with a DJ mix, and how it is up to the artist to make it authentic, how to make it their own.  According to Spooky, it is about how you arrange the mix of cultural ideas and products that inundate our everyday lives, how you use technology and art to create something new and expressive and endlessly variable.  Technology has become the medium, bringing together the artist’s consciousness and the outside world.  

        Spooky’s writing style is collage-like, randomly pasting in those ideas of technology, culture and the ever-changing shifts of DJ music.  At times, this becomes a challenge to take in and digest.  He goes back and forth from theory to autobiography to history, leaving the reader drifting in a collection of words.  Consequently, the pages are often dense and uneasy to follow.  The threads that are meant to tie each sentence together are usually not readily apparent; a style which forced me to re-read page again and again.  

Spooky puts it this way: “DJ-ing is writing, writing is DJ-ing.  Writing is music, I cannot explain this any other way.  Take Nietzsche, for instance, whose brilliant texts are almost musical.  Obviously, you feel the rhythm inside a great poet’s stanzas, but it’s there within the great philosophers’ paragraphs as well.  So many media and cultural techniques of interpretation coexist - reading, watching, listening, surfing, dancing - that this textual/sonic synashesia demands a great deal from us.”  

        Overall, Rhythm Science demands a great deal from the reader.  This type of writing style summons complete focus and a willingness to thoughtfully put the pieces of the story together on your own.  Nevertheless, the book does a tremendous job at describing the ideas of DJ culture and the issues that surround art in the digital age.  

Net Artist Report: SelfControlFreak (Olivier Otten)

History

  Selfcontrolfreak (Olivier Otten) is a Dutch independent multimedia designer who’s also active within the Holland-Interactive Collective.  He was co-founder of multimedia studio Toxit, which he worked with for ten years.  He is VJ for Major League teaches at Willem de Kooning Art Academy in Rotterdam.  A selection of projects he was involved in include: VPRO’s 3voor12’s Viewmaster, Villa Achterwerk’s (On)geloofstest and Visual-power.com.

selfcontrolfreak.com
oli4.com

Projects

SelfControlFreak

  One of Otten’s most popular works is titled “Self Control Freak”.   According to Otten, the site “shows his research project; exploring the possibilities of interaction design in combination with a video.”  He goes on to explain that usually if you’re watching a video online as a spectator you have no role (passive third person).  However, in this project the visitor plays an active role and becomes first person.  “Who is in control of who?  Are visitors responsible in the way they act e.g. by mouse movement, clicks and dragging?” asks Otten.  The visitor is able to directly influence the videos and trigger various emotions and behaviors.  Since early 2009 the series has resulted in 21 (and counting) interactive videos.  

  A typical Selfcontrolfreak video begins with Otten framed against a white wall anxiously waiting to comply to the visitors commands.  #11 for instance, is a zoom-in of this scenario.  As the cursor moves over Otten’s face, specific features react.  Pointing to an eye provokes a wink.  Passing over his mouth elicits a smile or frown ... on and on the options go.  Each video invites a moment of focused attention, a hand-eye riddle and invariably, amusing trial and error. 

  When this lab rat stimulus and response appears to wear out and the visitors attention begins to fade, the real surprises, intrigues and conceptual depth emerges as Otten bites back--literally.  Bring your cursor too close to Otten’s face in video #2 and he’ll lunge forward to aggressively seize, chew and spit it back out.  The link between the viewers hand and the virtual icon becomes included in the story; slide your mouse left or right and Otten’s head follows.  Click and he spits out the cursor.  Again, Otten explores variations of this theme.  

  Despite the seemingly repetitive and limited reactions, each scenario is refreshingly unexpected.  Part of what makes Otten’s work so unique and valuable is that he replaces passive conventions with participation.  Combining the playfulness of YouTube with the hyperactivity of hyperlinking, Otten successfully erases the Internet’s “fourth wall.”  As Otten suggests, exactly who is in control appears open to negotiation--the ultimate answer perhaps being the actor who exerts a greater desire for self-control.  

  Ultimately, Selfcontrolfreak is a self-reflexive look at media and the theatrics of identity.  It draws forth a question of influence.  The viewer is free to move their cursor anywhere on the page, but the consequential outcomes are programmed and determined.  Otten’s simple actions work to remind us that the proclaimed freedom of the web is actually controlled and coded.

  

http://www.selfcontrolfreak.com/
                          ----> Interactive Videos!!

Masterpiece 2.0

  Recently, Oliver Otten collaborated with Baschz (a co-founder and curator of cultural breeding ground and exhibition space SingerSweatShop, Rotterdam), to create the first ever unique painting made with a Web 2.0 approach.  The canvas interacts with its visitors who, (similar to Selfcontrolfreak) can affect the process and final outcome of this authentic piece.  

  Throughout the summer and fall of 2009 a multilayered canvas and animation was created which could be influenced and followed by website visitors online 24 hours a day.  Each sent in suggestion was represented through animated interactions as they were painted layer-by-layer into the growing animated canvas by Baschz.  Every new layer was photographed separately and together with the others, creating the stop motion animating canvas, (which left the end canvas consisting of well over 100 different painted layers.)

<--- Visitor Input

<--- Represented Animated Interactions

Original Feedback:

• Everyone who applied for an interaction received a personal high resolution picture of their frame, signed by Baschz.
• The whole coming-of-art process could be followed live through a webcam.
• Anyone can send an object image for Selfcontrolfreak to interact with or you can send in a tee-shirt which he will wear on the canvas until somebody else decides to clothe him differently. 
• The sequel (Masterpiece 2.1) can be followed on their site currently.

http://masterpiece20.com/ ---> Watch the Masterpiece yourself!

http://www.selfcontrolfreak.com/press/fontanel.jpg -- Interview with Selfcontrolfreak and Baschz (in Dutch).  

Conclusion

  Overall, I was extremely impressed by Olivier Otten (Selfcontrolfreak’s)work.  He developed a new way to work interactively on the Internet and was the first ever to create a painting using a Web 2.0 approach, as seen in “Masterpiece 2.0”.  The term Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information, sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web.  A Web 2.0 site gives its users the free choice to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumer) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumer) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them, (Wikipedia).  

  This approach (although not used directly) was also seen in his “Selfcontrolfreak” project.  Usually while watching a video online, the viewer plays no role; they are the passive third person.  However, this project made a successful stride towards using a Web 2.0 approach.  Although the viewer was not the creator, they did play a large role in what Selfcontrolfreak did throughout the videos.  However, it wasn’t until “Masterpiece 2.0” that Otten officially broke the imaginary boundary (the fourth wall) between actor and audience, interacting with the web viewers directly.  

  Both projects were playful and intriguing, showing a great deal of creativity.  I enjoyed finding the two projects stylistically consistent (whether through using some form of the Web 2.0 approach, or by appearing experimental and humorous in nature.)   

http://johnnyholland.org/2008/12/16/selfcontrolfreak-a-series-of-short-interactive-videos/

• Response by Jeroen van Geel (The Netherlands)

http://www.oli4.com/site/selfcontrolfreak.html

•  Otten’s thoughts on Selfcontrolfreak

http://www.image-festival.com/must-see/baschz-selfcontrolfreak/ 

• Masterpiece 2.0

"The Yes Men" Response ... PLUS Steve Lambert

        The “Yes Men” are two activists who primarily aim to raise awareness about what they consider problematic social issues.  In attempt to fix the problem at hand, they will show the truth by exposing a lie, a practice they like to call “identity correction.”  In the Yes Men Documentary, Mike and Andy begin by building a George W. Bush mock website, a successful attempt at “identity correction” as it gained a breadth of attention in the media.  As their next project, they create a parody of the WTO’s website.  Many of the visitors don’t notice that the site is fake, and send speaking invitations intended for the real WTO.  The Yes Men play along with the gimmick and eventually find themselves speaking on behalf of the WTO in numerous interviews, conferences and TV talk shows. With the intention and expectation of raising a few eyebrows and “inevitably” exposing their true identity, they are quickly disappointed as the experts don’t seem to notice the joke and actually agree with every shocking idea the duo devised.  In fact, it wasn’t until the men gave a lecture at a local university (which happened to be on recycling food via septic systems for third world countries) that anyone noticed their talk went from strange, to offensive, to appalling ... at last, success.  

        Similar to The Yes Men is Steve Lambert, an American artist who works with issues of advertising and the use of public space.  He is a founder of the Anti-Advertising Agency, an artist-run initiative which critiques advertising through artistic interventions, similar to “identity correction” of the media, Lambert works to reveal the true identity of advertising campaigns.  He has also collaborated with The Yes Men (along with 30 writers, 50 advisors and close to 1000 volunteer distributors) to create a New York Times Spoof on ending the Iraq War.  Check out his other works at http://visitsteve.com/bio/.