abstract.computer


Duncan Figurski

The artist and algorithm celebrate the obfuscation of legibility // visibility in joyous and optimistic terms, using abstraction as a playful rebellion against all those things which keep us disconnected from the void.

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C.O.M.I.O (Version 1.0)


The Convergence of Many into One

This is an ongoing experiment created by Duncan Figurski, August Luhrs and Rebecca Walden. This iteration was presented as an installation and performance series at the Level Gallery at Rockella Space in Queens NYC.

We initially became enamored with the linkages between the occult and abstract expressionism, our bibliography ranged from things like a CIA Analysis the GateWay Project to the the 1905 book Thought Forms. We began to dance around a variety of ideas, and rituals.  The Link below is the culmination of our thoughts as we began exploring this project. 




Initial installation concept.


Initially the idea was to create some sort of alter which would act as the ritual location for a variety of individuals to merge and control one virtual avatar. However we became much more focused on the individual in space, and converging that seperate entity from the environement itself. 

More than any other concept we started to really play around with the notion of a body without organs. This is a concept explored by Deuleze and Guattari which discusses the potential of the body beyond its physicallity. This mainly pushed us to experiment with the ways in which we used motion tracking data to create the score for Rebeccas Dancing. 





Prototype for the Floorplan (This one with 16 Axis)


Premdominantly we worked to set the dance on a 9 x 9 ft floor grid where rebeccas movements would directly influence the sounds of the performance while acting as the vector for which virtual worlds we would explore. The movment of each of Rebecca’s hands controlled on oscillator. The further to the right she moved the higher the pitch. The dance was segmented into a variety of parts which would demonstrate the amount of control that Rebecca was being given, first the movements were set predomninantly on the X-Axis, next the Y and Z-Axis were faded in.



How do you move differently when your motions control a tone, the air around you changed by limbs that have never touched the world this way. Do your limbs become the sound, does the sound become your limbs?

Where is that line? 






Rebecca Mid Performance. 


Simultaneously we wanted to ask the same questions within the virtual world. Specifically we wanted to change the context of space and descenter the individual bulling than back and forth from an experience of physical and virtual being. 


Am I in that virtual space? What parts of me are brought into the virtual, what parts of the virtual are brought back into the physical world?






Early prototypes of the Fading Environments.


To highlight this we created a system of 8 fully populated worlds, extremes in their own right - archetypes. One world - an idyllic seaside hill embodied “nature” something that we often keep at arms length from the gutter of a populated city. A dillapidated environment, a skyscraper, a land of ghosts, the sun, an empty dessert. These extremes often seem like they are seperate from us. Either too holy or too bitter for us to accept as part of the same gurgling undulating environment. As Rebecca moved through the axis these worlds would fade in and out of existence, always present.  By reaching extremes popups would innendate the participant, pushing those in the square into the liminal inbetween places. 




ScreenShot of the Virtual World (Mid Performance)


A virtual Floorplan was added in as a means to tie the physical and virtual together. As you can see above we have the playground world, business world and nature world bleeding into eachother.





Full documentation of In Game Experience (No Sound)




ScreenShot of the Virtual World (Mid Performance)


The Virtual Avatar consisted of a variety of different elements, a more precise femenine, a more sluggish and meandoring masculine element, and a variety of cubes showing the exact locations of body points of the participant.





Installation at Level Gallery


As opposed to trying to shy away from the large clunks of technology which made these interactions possible we chose to highlight them. 





Tech Shot Mid Performance.






Demonstration




Demonstration





Installation Teaser