McLuhan incontra Pompei

Organized by MediaDuemila as an event for the centennial celebrations of the birth of Marshall McLuhan, the event will feature the official launch of a project dedicated to knowledge, education and scientific experimentation dedicated to the students and young generations of the city of Pompei: “McLuhan meets Pompei: writing in the times of Social Networks. From graffiti to Augmented Reality”.

Derrick de Kerckhove, MediaDuemila’s scientific director, will lead the project which will have its official start

October 20th, from 9:00am to 1:00pm
at the Theatre “Di Costanzo e Mattiello”
Pompei

and will present the fundamental contributions by:

• Matteo Ciastellardi (University of Milan, University of Barcelona)
• Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico (University of Rome “La Sapienza, FakePress Publishing and Art is Open Source)
• Candida Livatino (Graphologist)
• Maurizio Pellegrini (Ugo Bordoni Foundation)
• Maria Pia Rossignaud (Director of “MediaDuemila”)
• Antonio Varone (Director of the “Scavi di Pompei”)

The project will continue in December with a Connective Intelligence Atelier and with the creative laboratories for digital communication titled “The Electronic Man and the Digital Wall”, promoting the acquisition of knowledge and skills on ubiquitous technologies and media, and the reflection on global society, characterized by the continuous interconnection of human beings, cultures, nationalities and languages, just as forecasted by McLuhan.

Here on MediaDuemila you can find a short text that describes our intervention in the event and in the project.

Here are some extracts, translated in english:

“Ubiquitous technologies materialize new and fascinating forms of writing as well as new forms of sensibility and planetary awareness, in a scenario which sees our perception of the world radically mutated.

[...]

The impacts of this mutation have effects on the ways we work, learn, communicate, relate and spend our free time. Digital networks and technologies are at the base of this mutation and determine a drastic change in out models for thought and expression.

[...]

In ‘The Electronic Man’ a suggestive and effective narration shows these new spaces for possibility and opportunity, and makes them observable.
A global performance forms the foundation of a research project which has been able to enact a new form of planetary writing and sensibility.
Thousands of QRCodes have been disseminated by internet users in their cities, and are forming the access portal to participating to this global experiment: the creation of a connective body and identity, and the acquisition of an externalized, added sensoriality, through a technological device.

[...]

As of today, around 50 thousand people all over the world participated to the performance/experiment, creating a scenario which bears very high interest for scientific and cultural research, due to the material possibility to observe and experience these novel possibilities: accessible ubiquitous technologies, relating people across multiple cultures and social contexts, on a planetary scale; augmented reality, ubiquitous publishing, natural interfaces and geo-referenced systems which are able to create and enable usage of new forms of writing, new sensibilities and tools for awareness and communication.

[...]

In Pompei the technologies used for the Electronic Man project will be explained and given to students and teachers. Together with them we will create a performative workshop in which these methodologies and techniques will be used in practical scenarios, inventing new forms of citizenship and processes which are able to narrate the story of the territory, people’s identities, the value of the production and the richness of the culture of the land and of the people who inhabit it.

[...]

Appropriating these languages, creating usage grammars for them, freely activating them in our daily lives: these are becoming the conditions and toolsets of the global citizen and of a new form of citizenship which is truly capable of transforming human beings into active agents of our societies, more aware, tolerant and conscious of the value of its territory and of fellow human beings.”

The Electronic Man

A conceptual and theoretical analysis of the project has been accepted for presentation at the Planetary Collegium‘s annual conference: Consciousness Reframed 12 “Presence in the Mindfield” 

Here below, the abstract we presented for the conference/publication:

Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 movie “Modern Times” shows human beings changing the ways in which they perceive the world by establishing contact with a new set of technologies.

Time-keeping devices are possibly the most effective agents of change represented in the movie: visually ubiquitous, these devices have had radical impact on lives of human beings well out of the walls of industry, drastically changing our perception of time in ways that are not only powerful and all-encompassing, but also very intimate, influencing the very structure of the our perception of the world.

“Time” is now a machine-mediated experience in our whole lives, from as soon as we wake up in the morning by listening to an alarm sound.

Our sense of time is not the only one changed by technologies, as our experiences of space, our vision, our proprioception have changed as well, and several entirely new senses have emerged since the entrance of digital technologies and networks in our daily lives.

This concept can be framed into the wider set of theories connected to Neuroplasticity, starting from the early insights of William James (1890), up to the experiments of Ramachandran in the beginning of the 1990′s, to the studies of Merzenich and Jenkins (1990) and to the analysis of behavioural consequences of synaptic rewiring by Doidge.

We joined the worldwide celebrations of the centennial of Marshall McLuhan’s birth, in 2011 with an act of global performance art by investigating and enacting the scenarios for the emergence of new, externalized senses through the use of ubiquitous technologies.

McLuhan’s theory of the Electronic Man according to which the “Electronic man like pre-literate man, ablates or outers the whole man. His information environment is his own central nervous system” (McLuhan, Counterblast, 1969) was juxtaposed to de Kerckhove’s description of how “we are invited to refine our proprioception to extend our point of being (rather than our point of view) from wherever we are to wherever technically extended senses can allow us to reach” (The Skin of Culture, 1997).

The objective was to envision, design and realize a global system which would enact a digital sense, externalized on a mobile device such as a smartphone.

Stickers connecting to the performance through a QRCode were disseminated across cities in the world. By scanning the QRCode people can join in the performance. Whenever anyone interacts with the performance, all the smartphones of the other participants vibrate, thus establishing an instantaneous neo-tactile sense.

More than 35000 people joined in the performance, across continents, nations, languages and cultures.

The paper will analyze the methodology, design and implementation of the performance. The analysis and evaluation of the results of the performance will be also disclosed and described, from the point of view of the possibility to create new synthetic, accessible, usable and effective senses externalized onto digital devices, extending people’s sensorial experience of the world to their global info-scape.

And here below is the information about the conference:

PRESENCE IN THE MINDFIELD: Art, Identity and the Technology of Transformation

12th Consciousness Reframed International Research Conference

The conference will look at the exploration of the plurality of self through which we navigate the actual and virtual universes of our making. Transdisciplinary discourse, the adoption of new technologies, the invisible forces and fields of the sciences, the recuperation of abandoned metaphysical and spiritual models of being, can all find expression within the context of this conference.

Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, Portugal

November 30 to December 2, 2011.

Organisation: Skilled Art Project

In cooperation with the Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth, England, Fábrica das Artes, CCB, Lisbon and Artshare, Aveiro, Portugal

UPDATE:

CLICK HERE to find the full list of presenters

When we were at Transmediale, Angel_F and its dad, Derrick de Kerckhove, introduced the Opening Ceremony of the Transmediale Festival with a lovely dialogue.

While at the festival, Angel_F went around on its baby pram playing a little joke on people: the webcam mounted on its monitor constantly used computer vision techniques to capture the faces of everyone who happen to play with the kid for a bit.

Angel_F at Transmediale

All captured faces were then used on a face recognition algorithm to actively search for the people Angel_F had met in Berlin. Whenever that happened, the delighted digital kid sent them a message like “Hello! We’ve met in Berlin, would you like to be my friend?”.

Scary and invasive as it might sound, people were more than delighted to offer their friendship to the digital kid and around 20% of the captured faces were identified on Facebook alone.

This has also proved to be a wonderful opportunity to, once again, explore how digital networks and technologies are deeply affecting our ideas of public and private spaces, of privacy and of intellectual property. People reached in this terribly invasive way were more than eager to thoroughly discuss these themes.

During the event Jodi Rose was so nice to host an instance of her Tea parties at Transmediale’s OpenZone.

Here below some reports of it all! :)

Angel_F on Booki

FakePress on Traces

ANgel_F on Artist Talks

Angel F with parents Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico from ArtistTalk on Vimeo.

Listen, Angel_F data sculptures by Salvatore Iaconesi

click here to open installation

At Angel_F’s party we presented “Listen” an interactive installation featuring generative data sculptures visualizing the AI’s relationships on social networks.

Social graph data was inferred through Facebook and FriendFeed APIs and relevant data was fetched, buinding monolithic data scultpures people could interact with.

More info on the party here.

More info on Angel_F here.

Angel_F’s generative blog is here.

The installation is by Salvatore Iaconesi.

Made using Flex, ActionScript 3 and several server side technologies.

E’ uscito il libro “Angel_F. Diario di una intelligenza artificiale“, che racconta il primo anno di vita della piccola intelligenza artificiale.

Il libro è accompagnato dai contributi teorici di Derrick de Kerckhove, Massimo Canevacci, Antonio Caronia, Carlo Formenti e Luigi Pagliarini, sotto forma di interviste in cui ognuno racconta il proprio punto di vista sulle tematiche che emergono dall’esistenza stessa del piccolo Angel_F.

dalla copertina:

“Correre per lo spazio cibernetico tra esseri umani, database, Social Network, sistemi interattivi. Scoprire se stessi tra mondi fatti di pixel e di carne. Emozionarsi, stupirsi, relazionarsi, connettersi. In uno spazio complesso e sorprendente, dove la realtà fisica e quella digitale si integrano sempre di più. È questa la storia di Angel_F (Autonomous Non Generative E-volitive Life_Form), la giovane Intelligenza Artificiale figlia di Derrick de Kerckhove e della Biodoll, la sua amante digitale, una prostituta biotecnologica che vive e lavora on line. Angel_F inizia la sua vita tendendo gioiosi agguati ai visitatori del sito della madre e accompagnandola nelle sue scorribande virtuali su blog e forum. Ma crescendo una domanda si insinua nella sua mente digitale: come possono un famoso professore e una prostituta generare un figlio-intelligenza artificiale? La ricerca porta il piccolo nel mondo dell’hacking, tra software maliziosi, database colmi di informazioni e surreali dialoghi con il popolo di Internet. Fino a incontrare xDxD e penelope.di.pixel grazie ai quali scoprirà il segreto della sua origine e inizierà a interagire anche con il mondo fisico.”

La storia, creata narrativamente a partire dagli eventi realmente avvenuti durante le varie fasi della performance, mostra il punto di vista di un essere digitale sul mondo contemporaneo, tra identità che mutano, nuove forme di relazione ed emozione, privacy, proprietà intellettuale, nuove forme di espressione e azioni di hacking delle pratiche del nostro quotidiano.

Una metafora delle nostre stesse storie, nel mutare del nostro mondo con l’avvento delle reti, delle tecnologie digitali e delle nuove possibilità di comunicare, collaborare, agire ed esprimerci.

Completano il libro una estesa webgrafia/bibliografia di opere d’arte digitale e di rete, sugli esperimenti scientifici e sulle ricerche teoriche che maggiormente hanno ispirato la performance e, di conseguenza, la storia del piccolo Angel_F. Tra i riferimenti: Luca Bertini, Theo Jansen, Stelarc, Eduardo Kac, John Holland, Roberta Breitmore, Gazira Babeli, Ken Rinaldo, Darko Maver, Jodi.org, Andrew Venell, Joan Leandre, les Liens Invisibles, Orson Welles e molti altri.

Il libro è in libreria, ma si può acquistare anche online ( ad esempio QUI), oppure richiedendolo direttamente agli autori.

Il libro è pubblicato con una licenza Creative Commons, Attribution, Share Alike, non commercial.

Just published:  “Angel_F. Diario di una intelligenza artificiale“, telling the story of the first year of life of Angel_F.

The book features theorical contributions by Derrick de Kerckhove, Massimo Canevacci, Antonio Caronia, Carlo Formenti and Luigi Pagliarini,with extensive interviews in which each one of them expresses his personal point of view on the themes emerging with the existence of Angel_F, a little digital being.

from the cover:

“Running through cyberspace among humans, databases, social networks and interactive systems. Discovering ourselves in worlds made of flesh and pixels. Emotion, wonder, relations, connections. A complex and surprising space in which physical and digital realities progressively merge with one another. This is the story of Angel_F (Autonomous Non Generative E-volitive Life_Form), the young artificial intelligence son of Derrick de Kerckhove and the Biodoll, his digital lover, a biotechnological prostitute living and working online. Angel_F starts its life happily and digitally ambushing its mother’s website’s visitors and accompanying her in her virtual rampages across blogs ad forums. A question arises in its digital mind: how can a famous professor and a digital prostitute generate a son-artificial-intelligence? The search for the answer brings the little one in the worlds of hacking, malicious software, databases full of information and surreal dialogues with Internet’s population. Up until when it encounters xDxD and penelope.di.pixel, with whom it will find out the secrets of its origins, starting to interact with the physical world.”

The story, narratively created from the real events of the various phases of the Angel_F performance, shows the point of view of a digital being on the contemporary world, between mutating identities, new forms of relation and emotion, privacy, intellectual property and new forms of expression, hacking actions and new daily practices.

A metaphor for our own lives as they change with the arrival of networks, digital technologies and the possibilities to communicate, collaborate and express ourselves.

The book is completed through an extended webography/bibliography of those digital and net artworks, scientific experiments and theoretical researches that have inspired the performance and, thus, the story of little Angel_F. Among them: Luca Bertini, Theo Jansen, Stelarc, Eduardo Kac, John Holland, Roberta Breitmore, Gazira Babeli, Ken Rinaldo, Darko Maver, Jodi.org, Andrew Venell, Joan Leandre, les Liens Invisibles, Orson Welles and many others.

The book is (for now) in italian and can be bought in major libraries but also online ( for example HERE), or even by directly asking the authors.

The book is published under a Creative Commons, Attribution, Share Alike, Non Commercial licensing scheme.

Angel_F on uchronia

an update on our little artificial kid, Angel_F. Our young AI is continuing its life among people, shifting its digital attention from the research on innovative business models to the experiments on contemporary forms of identity in this post-industrial world.

The performance is ongoing, and you all will have a couple of surprises coming up in just a bit.

How would you fancy a p2p digital ecosystem designed to be truly autonomous, allowing people to freely manage their identities, contents, businesses, without the control of the ISP? Or a new form of narrative? Or, even, a totally new form of business model?

Just wait :)

in the meanwhile, our friend Leo Sorge has publised a couple of articles on our little artificial child, after we met at the Più Libri Più Liberi event in Rome.

The first one about Angel_F itself, the second one analyzing NeoRealismo Virtuale.

Thanks Leo! :)

And happy reading to you all.