the case of biophilia nLEA .pdf

vol 20 no 2 book editors lanfranco aceti & paul thomas editorial manager çağlar çetin In this particular volume the issue of art as interference and the strategies that it should adopt have been reframed within the structures of contemporary technology as well as within the frameworks of interactions between art, science and media. What sort of interference should be chosen, if one at all, remains a personal choice for each artist, curator, critic and historian. ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 VOL 20 NO 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 1 LEA is a publication of Leonardo/ISAST. Editorial Address Leonardo Electronic Almanac Copyright 2014 ISAST Sabanci University, Orhanli – Tuzla, 34956 Leonardo Electronic Almanac Istanbul, Turkey Volume 20 Issue 2 April 15, 2014 Email issn 1071-4391 [email protected] isbn 978-1-906897-32-1 The isbn is provided by Goldsmiths, University of London. leonardo electronic almanac, Volume 20 issue 2 Web » www.leoalmanac.org lea publishing & subscription information » www.twitter.com/LEA_twitts » www.lickr.com/photos/lea_gallery Editor in Chief Lanfranco Aceti [email protected] » www.facebook.com/pages/Leonardo-ElectronicAlmanac/209156896252 book editors lanfranco aceti & paul thomas Co-Editor Özden Şahin [email protected] Copyright © 2014 Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Managing Editor Interference Strategies Sciences and Technology John Francescutti [email protected] editorıal manager çağlar çetin Leonardo Electronic Almanac is published by: Art Director Leonardo/ISAST Deniz Cem Önduygu [email protected] 211 Sutter Street, suite 501 San Francisco, CA 94108 Editorial Board USA Peter J. Bentley, Ezequiel Di Paolo, Ernest Edmonds, Felice Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) is a project of Leonardo/ Frankel, Gabriella Giannachi, Gary Hall, Craig Harris, Sibel Irzık, The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technol- Marina Jirotka, Beau Lotto, Roger Malina, Terrence Masson, ogy. For more information about Leonardo/ISAST’s publica- Jon McCormack, Mark Nash, Sally Jane Norman, Christiane tions and programs, see http://www.leonardo.info or contact Paul, Simon Penny, Jane Prophet, Jefrey Shaw, William [email protected]. Uricchio Leonardo Electronic Almanac is produced by Cover Passero Productions. Deniz Cem Önduygu Reposting of this journal is prohibited without permission of Leonardo/ISAST, except for the posting of news and events listings which have been independently received. The individual articles included in the issue are © 2014 ISAST. 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 20 NO 2 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 22 6 - 10 VVO OLL 21 0 9 NO 4 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 3 The Leonardo Electronic Almanac The publication of this book is graciously supported by acknowledges the institutional support for this book of The book editors Lanfranco Aceti and Paul Thomas would especially like to acknowledge Su Baker for her continual support of this project and Andrew Varano for his work as conference organiser. We would also like to thank the Transdisciplinary Imaging at the intersection between art, science and culture, Conference Committee: Michele Barker, Brad Buckley, Brogan Bunt, Edward Colless, Vince Dziekan, Donal Fitzpatrick, Petra Gemeinboeck, Julian Goddard, Ross Harley, Martyn Jolly, Daniel Mafe, Leon Marvell and Darren Tofts. 4 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 20 NO 2 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 VOL 20 NO 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 5 C O N T E N T S C O N T E N T S Leonardo Electronic Almanac Volume 20 Issue 2 10 13 72 Lanfranco Aceti INTERFERENCE STRATEGIES: IS ART IN THE MIDDLE? IMAGES (R)-EVOLUTION: MEDIA ARTS COMPLEX IMAGERY CHALLENGING HUMANITIES AND OUR INSTITUTIONS OF CULTURAL MEMORY INTERFERENCE STRATEGIES Oliver Grau Paul Thomas 16 86 THE ART OF DECODING: n-FOLDED, n-VISIONED, n-CULTURED Mark Guglielmetti 26 96 THE CASE OF BIOPHILIA: A COLLECTIVE COMPOSITION OF GOALS AND DISTRIBUTED ACTION 114 CONTAMINATED IMMERSION AND THOMAS DEMAND: THE DAILIES 122 GESTURE IN SEARCH OF A PURPOSE: A PREHISTORY OF MOBILITY 132 HEADLESS AND UNBORN, OR THE BAPHOMET RESTORED INTERFERING WITH BATAILLE AND MASSON’S IMAGE OF THE ACEPHALE LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 20 NO 2 TOWARDS AN ONTOLOGY OF COLOUR IN THE AGE OF MACHINIC SHINE Mark Titmarsh 146 TRANSVERSAL INTERFERENCE Anna Munster Leon Marvell 6 A ROBOT WALKS INTO A ROOM: GOOGLE ART PROJECT, THE NEW AESTHETIC, AND THE ACCIDENT OF ART Susan Ballard Darren Tofts & Lisa Gye 60 MERGE/MULTIPLEX Brogan Bunt David Eastwood 50 INTERFERING WITH THE DEAD Edward Colless Mark Cypher 36 INTERFERENCE WAVE DATA AND ART Adam Nash ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 VOL 20 NO 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 7 E S S A Y E S S A Y The Case of A B S T R A C T Biophilia Rather than follow the machinations of a singular artist in the production and exhibition of an interactive artwork, this paper uses an actor-network approach to collectively hold to account a whole host of actors that literally make a diference in the production of an interactive artwork, Biophilia A Collective Composition of Goals and Distributed Action (2004-2007). My main argument is that in order for any action to take place both humans and non-humans must on some level collectively work together, or, in actor-network terms translate one another. However, such new relations are predicated and indeed just as dependent on and what these new actors are willing to give up as it is to do with what they can ofer. Needless to say that when the negotiations are momentarily over, INTRODUCTION by actors give up individual goals and compel others to collectively form new In an application form addressed to the Siggraph Ma rk Cypher 2006 Intersections Gallery, the artist must describe deinitions, new intentions and new goals with each interaction. In other his interactive artwork. The form states: words, the ‘work’ represents neither the beginning nor the end of a par- Murdoch University, Western Australia [email protected] www.markcypher.com.au The installation Biophilia will enable participants to interact with and generate organic forms based ticular event, but is described more as a continually shifting and cumulative series of distributed actions. upon the distortion of the user’s shadow. Coined in 1984 by sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia refers to the need of living things to connect with others - even those of diferent species. On one level, Biophilia critiques Wilson’s notion that western culture desires a connection with nature, even attention and interest of Siggraph and the judges who it, into a binding sociotechnical relation. Even though though that same desire belies a deep unconscious work on its behalf. the artist is in Australia and Siggraph and its judges are in North America. In the end, the written form and fear of all things natural. With these ideas in mind The form together with the inscriptions and reference the installation Biophilia attempts to absorb and images, imply a desire for a connection to form, or a the actors involved that a relation can be made. The movement from disinterest to one of interest. efect will be that the artist’s CV will get bigger, Sig- Although short, this simple paragraph, like many oth- Several months later, the artist receives an email that and Biophilia will be more attractive to other judges, ers about the work, belies the complexity of relations accepts the proposal. synthesize users and their contexts, producing unpredictable patterns of propagation and hybridity. 1 graph will also get greater international participation festivals and curators in the future. In a sense, both that have enabled such a reference to be made. actor-networks are now able to achieve efects that Now unbeknown to the artist and the judges, they 26 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 20 NO 2 its inscribed references were enough to convince all For the moment though, complexity is not important. have just formed the irst step in translating the art The statement must have enough impact to catch the work Biophilia, and the chain of actors that support ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 would not have been possible on their own. 2 VOL 20 NO 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 27 E S S A Y E S S A Y Several days later the artist receives another email human, a collectivity or an individual. Neither does from the Siggraph “Art Show Chair”: it say anything about B’s status as, an actor. B might be endowed with interests, projects, desires, I am concerned about the amount of walk space strategies, relexes, or afterthoughts. The deci- between your booth and the art walls below it in sion is A’s – though this does not mean that A has the plan. [...] We need more space so people can total freedom. For how A acts depends on past stand back and view the art plus the Fire Marshal translations. These may inluence what follows to does not like us to have close passageways. 3 the point of determining them… All the entities and all the relationships between these entities should Several emails later it is clear that some negotiation be described – for together they make up the over space is required, if the embryonic relation be- translator. tween Biophilia and Siggraph is to be sustained. 4 The trajectory and relative makeup of a translation can This description of the trials of strength inherent in be mapped when we consider the amount of associa- the construction and exhibition of an artwork may tions and substitutions that go into making a relation have started in a rather strange place. But the process stable and thus viable. This process can also be ex- demonstrates how actors are co-deined when they pressed in Figure 1. begin to form relations. In actor-network terms, the elemental ailiation that enables a network to form is So what an actor in translation gains in one area is the process called translation. Michel Callon describes a result of having lost something in another. It’s in translation as: this way that all translation requires a series of transactions. ‘A translates B’. To say this is to say that A deines B. It does not matter, whether B is human or non- 6 That is, Biophilia will disengage weak or Figure 2. Mapping the Collective: threatening entities whilst incorporating those that Biophilia. © Mark Cypher, 2013. Used are sustaining. It is the nature of these trans-actions, with permission. which deines the strength or weakness of a given vision is socialised, it enables the computer to ‘see,’ translation and will contribute to the explicit shaping and the computer and camera can ‘talk’ to each other, of the artwork; apart from the intentions of the artist. Therefore, a collective entity like Biophilia cannot be 7 entirely deined by its ‘essence’ or what we see on the just as computer code is compatible with reading. What at irst seems like a highly complex objective process with sophisticated technological components surface in a representation at anyone particular time. is made compatible with social ways of coding and Rather, translation as observed in Biophilia produces reading. a unique mediatory signature of a speciic association rowed from the social and inscribed into nonhumans. 8 It is in this way that properties are bor- of entities at work at any given moment, as is shown in Figure 2. At the same time, this process will also extend non- The notion of translation demonstrates that the prob- equally absorb nonhuman properties; that is, take the OR positions that succes- lem solving involved in art practice, is a deeply inter- position of sitting and using a mouse, submit to the sively deine the modiication twined sociotechnical process. When we see the artist limits of the technical components, follow structured of ingredients that compose take his position at a desk in front of the computer software patterns or read feedback given, in order to a translation it. It is impos- and begin to work on the problem of Siggraph’s lack establish a working relation. So much so that what sible to move in any direction of space, he will need the desk, the computer and a the artist will learn from the production process is without paying a price in whole host of other entities to be compelled to solve the result of contact with nonhumans, which is then the AND or OR direction. © the problem. But of course in order for this problem- re-imported back into the social as conceptual and Bruno Latour, 2013. Used solving process to work it will require that technical aforded content through the artwork. with permission. components are already socialised for use. Computer Figure 1. Translation Diagram. 5 human inluence in the social. Whereby, humans will Innovation can be traced by both its AND, or, 28 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 20 NO 2 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 VOL 20 NO 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 29 E S S A Y E S S A Y The computer, code and technical components lend humans in this time and setting is somehow divorced Any element which bends space around itself, particular event, but is described more as a continually their nonhuman properties to what was previously from the nonhuman low of activity, procurement of makes other elements depend upon itself and shifting and cumulative series of distributed actions. a scattered and unordered bunch of parts and loose skill and the accumulation of goals, which are essential translates their will into a language of its own. intentions. The intersection of nonhuman inluence for any action to take place. But of course many hands Before the elements dominated by an actor could will allow these actors to align and their relations to and many things outside of this time and place lay escape in any direction, but now this is no longer harden. So much so that the sociotechnical hybrid embedded in every skill, in every tool. So much so that possible. Instead of swarms of possibilities, we ind Biophilia will eventually submit to the ire laws of it should be impossible to clearly deine any action, lines of force, obligatory passage points, directions Boston, measured by irewardens, held accountable as beholden to any one actor because ‘beforehand’ and deductions. by the Chair of the art gallery and be granted a social should rightly stretch into the long distant millennia. life, worthy of its place in the Siggraph Intersections Therefore hands and material are relevant contact In this way, actors and space are mutually dependent previous ‘interactive’ experiences. As she steps of the points, but they are also just one point of many in the and as such mutually constituted in translation. Pro- crowded bus, handrails and human attendants guide continually shifting and collective trajectories that are totypes, much like institutions such as galleries, are her to the entrance to Siggraph. On entering the gal- part and parcel of all action exemplars of this kind of compelling space. Galleries, lery, the space is dark and quiet, and the participant’s installation spaces and indeed prototypes not only pass is checked and stamped. The darkened gallery Nonetheless, prototyping Biophilia in relation to the regulate physical and material movement but also space, gallery attendants and didactic information ‘work.’ However, when we take into account the vast problem of Siggraph is necessary because it increases the cognitive, political and ideological rhythms of the about each installation ensure that by the time the amount of translation in the construction of Biophilia the probability that Biophilia’s goals will align with that many actors constituted in their frame of reference. our observations are undermined. Translation shifts of the gallery. It can only ever be a probability because the focus to a vast assembly of actors who are directly the actors involved in each situation will be diferent. related by function, material and ontological insepara- Thus the associations the new situation creates will al- like the collectives at work in the construction of Bio- At a more intimate level, the point at which the par- bility, recombined in a speciic time, space, actorial and low or disallow a whole range of unforseen afordanc- philia) not only control the networks between inside ticipant enters the installation space of Biophilia and material sequence, who are also doing the work. es. Although the Art Show Chair and the gallery staf and outside. They also shape the political, material and begins to interact signiies a change in behaviour. The require a certain ‘stability,’ duly required by profession- practical participation actors have in those spaces. As gallery visitor is now redeined as a ‘participant.’ The als, they are not going to get it unless the other half of John Law states, “spatial systems ... are political be- cavernous Boston Convention Centre becomes the the relation (the nonhuman kind) is cajoled into line. cause they make objects and subjects with particular Siggraph Intersections Gallery. Siggraph lives up to its No matter how obstinate, professional standards also shapes …. Because they set limits to the conditions of Try as he might, the artist is unable to solve the in- relate to nonhumans. Yet even with all this work done object possibility.” creasing complexity of the code. The computer is not with, and before the artists hand, the prototyping way afair. As much as Biophilia submits to the limits they, in association with the artwork are “an interface able to ‘talk’ suiciently fast enough to the camera, so process is tenable and only as strong as the alliances it imposed by the Siggraph gallery, it also pushes Sig- that becomes more and more describable as each yet another actor, a technician, is associated to the can maintain and carry forward into space. graph to negotiate and open the institutional and reg- [actor] learns to be afected by more and more ele- ulatory boundaries imposed on it. Until both networks ments.” to engage the artwork, begins to identify with the exhibition. 9 When we observe the so called ‘social’ actions of the artist sitting and at work at the computer, trying to solve this problem, it looks as if the human does the THE PROTOTYPE realization process of the artwork. After meeting with Before the participant arrives, she is already ‘prepared’ for involvement by various marketing materials and participants come in contact with the artwork they already know, in part, the role they must play. The spatial relations generated by institutions (much 12 Yet this relationship is not a one- promised brand and Biophilia becomes truly ‘interactive.’ The participant literally learns in real time, that 14 Moreover, the participant’s objectives the technician, it is decided that a scale prototype of John Law describes the construction of space in rela- become re-aligned each negotiation pushes Biophilia the artwork will be constructed beforehand. This will tion to the actor-network as one in which objects and Siggraph to a unique sociotechnical collective that physical afordance of Biophilia, to the point that the accommodate the testing of new goals and new con- are co-constituted with the surrounding space. This will occupy a distinct spatial topology at a particular user’s intentions are shaped, both in a positive and igurations of Biophilia and indeed Siggraph’s dimen- means that “spatial relations are also being enacted point in time. Therefore, Biophilia becomes much negative sense of enabling and constraining certain 15 In other words, a certain level of inlu- more than an artwork deined by a singular interac- behaviours. The tion/representation and more like a nexus of relations ence is distributed throughout the act of engaging To say that prototyping happens ‘beforehand,’ as- relation to space, to the actor-network and/or pos- that shapes objective, subjective, cognitive, social and with participatory artworks that alters each actor’s sumes that the most important actions must at some sible actions, seems to it well with Callon and Latour’s institutional associations. point involve hands. Or that material contact with early deinition of actors as: 13 deinition, ontological makeup and associated goals represents neither the beginning nor the end of a sions for its exhibition space. at the same time [as translation]… Or, to put it more concisely ..., spaces are made with objects.” 30 11 INTERSECTIONS EXHIBITION, SIGGRAPH ART GALLERY, BOSTON, USA LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 20 NO 2 ISSN 1071-4391 10 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 ISSN 1071-4391 In other words, the ‘work’ I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 and objectives. VOL 20 NO 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 31 E S S A Y E S S A Y Figure 3. Goal Translation Figure3 adapted from Latour. 16 The explosion in unintentional goals is a result of diferent combinations of actors interacting. One can never really know what is going to happen, because we can never really know all the elements activated in a given association or context beforehand. © Bruno Latour, 2013. Used with permission. This is represented in diagrammatic form as goal variability and exchanges to develop. The implication translation in Figure 3. then is that action can be redeined as follows: Figure 4. Individual sub-programs of action are bent towards a collective goal. Goal translation represents a symmetrical example of [N]ot a property of humans, but of an association how, through interaction, competencies, objectives of actants [human or nonhuman agents]…[Where- and possible actions are co-constituted. Both the by] provisional “actorial” roles may be attributed human participant and the artwork’s goals are trans- to actants only because actants are in the process lated into a collective program of action, in which any of exchanging competencies, ofering one another number of unintentional consequences could result. new possibilities, new goals, new functions. In other words, action is shared amongst those in the 21 © Bruno Latour, 2013. Used with permission. 19 collective and is in part uncontrollable by any one ele- This kind of distributed action not only highlights the ment, human or otherwise. implausibility of humans and nonhumans acting alone This kind of unpredictability is brought to bear by competency is underwritten by exchange. As Latour such translations and is used by the artist (whether further explains: but that the whole process of gaining some kind of he recognises it or not) to take advantage of the volatile collective action produced when a multitude Interaction cannot serve as the point of depar- of entities come together. It is no wonder then, that ture, since for humans it is always situated in a Frank Popper conceptualised such phenomena in framework which is always erased by networks electronic art works as “neocommunicability [as] an event - full with unaccustomed possibilities...” going over in all directions. [...] the attribution of a skill to an actant always follows the realization uncontrollability of relations in an interactive event by that actor of what it can do when others than is a small articulation of what many artists come into itself have proceeded to action. Even the everyday contact with every day. That is, to act means to be usage of ‘action’ cannot serve here, since it presup- perpetually overtaken by the thing you are suppos- poses a point of origin [...] which [is] completely edly building. 32 17 The 18 improbable. 20 In this way goal translation as evidenced in both the Action and indeed agency is always shared and dis- construction and interaction with Biophilia demon- tributed amongst other entities. The ability to act is Figure 5. Mapping the cumulative inluence of the collective. The composi- strates that there is no prime mover of an action and therefore mediated by others’ actions that have come tion of new goals is made possible by the colonising of many sub-programs that a new, distributed, and nested series of practices before it. Such cumulative inluence can be illustrated which are then cumulatively bent towards the collective goal for Biophilia. © allows all kinds of unintentional actions, ontological in Figures 4 and 5 below. Mark Cypher, 2013. Used with permission. LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 20 NO 2 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 VOL 20 NO 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 33 E S S A Y E S S A Y in isolation can do much. [...] Agency is in constant together, their initial goals are forcefully exchanged, lux, an in-between state that constantly violates sacriiced and colonised for the greater good of the and transgresses the physical boundaries of the collective. Sometimes these goals align with a strong ogy and Culture 28, no. 2 (1987): 237. 8. Bruno Latour, “Where Are the Missing Masses? The Soci- elements that constitute it. Agency is a temporal probability that the trajectory of action grows stron- and interactively emergent property of activity not ger with more associations. Other times they don’t. 9. Ibid., 799. an innate and ixed attribute of the human condi- Nevertheless, these unfounded probabilities and lost 10. John Law, “Objects and Spaces,” Theory, Culture & Society tion. The ultimate cause of action in this chain of propositions connote a deeper sense of the multitude ology of a Few Mundane Artifacts,” 796. 19, no. 5-6 (2002): 96. micro and macro events is none of the supposed of sacriices required for a strong relation to form. As As Figures 4 and 5 illustrate, there is a long chain of agents, humans or non-humans; it is the low of a result intentions and goals are detoured from their Leviathan: How Actors Macro-Structure Reality and How actors that contain their own sub-programs of action. activity itself. initial trajectory and precipitate new alliances and new Sociologists Help Them to Do So,” in Advances in Social actions that would not have been originally possible. Theory and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Micro and Macro Sociologies, ed. K Knorr and A Cicourel (Lon- The nature of each subsequent movement not only 23 11. Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, “Unscrewing the Big requires new associations. But it also means that indi- By examining Biophilia as much more than a discrete It is in this manner that the interactions, and indeed vidual sub programs (intentions and motivations) are artwork in itself we begin to see that the competen- the intentions to act in the production, exhibition and cies and functions of each actor begin to lose their interaction with interactive artworks, is considered 12. John Law, “Objects and Spaces,” 102. distinctions in order that the ‘work’ is made. collective and distributed. ■ 13. Albena Yaneva, “Chalk Steps on the Museum Floor the trans-acted, if not subject to “modes of ordering” 22 implicated in the process of translation and required for a collective goal to be successful. don: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), 96. `Pulses’ of Objects in an Art Installation,” Journal of Mate- In this way, the intentions of the artist are signiicantly In this sense translation is important for rethinking translated and thus altered to the extent that all the production because it usually involves the exchange actors in the development and exhibition of the art- or trans-action of one actor, to replace another actor work shape the conceptual and physical aspects of to help solve a problem. But as we have seen in Fig- Biophilia. In a sense, the long tail of the sociotechnical rial Culture 8, no. 2 (2003):176. 14. Bruno Latour, “How to Talk About the Body? The Normative Dimension of Science Studies,” Body and Society 10, no. 2-3 (2004): 206. 15. Lambros Malafouris, “At the Potter’s Wheel: An Argu- ure 5 these new cumulative problem solving abilities, translations shape the type of cognitive and functional ment for Material Agency,” in Material Agency Towards afordances and skills come at a cost. For example, operations that are possible. As Edwin Hutchins states, a Non-Anthropocentric Approach, ed. Carl Knappett and although the artist spends precious hours rigging the video camera to hang at the optimum height in the in- “One cannot perform the computations without con- Lambros Malafouris (New York: Springer, 2008), 33. structing the setting; thus, in some sense, constructing 24 In this way, stallation, the slightest bump throws out the camera’s the setting is part of the computation.” focus. So another set of goals, equipment and techni- the Siggraph gallery and the installation space are also cians is associated and a new reshuling of actors dependent on similar sociotechnical systems (bricks, and associations take place. The order of which is not mortar, funding bodies, committees, community sup- aligned by mistake, nor wholly by chance, but through port) that sustain the types of movements within it. the inely tuned or out of tune cumulative translation So too are participants’ actions, intentions and cogni- of goals. Nonetheless a new camera rig collectively tion similarly shaped as an efect of the “modes of or- eventuates. The cost is time, misplaced intentions, dering” detoured goals, and professional pride. This is not an and indeed the installation itself. Therefore, for the unimportant detour from the narrative of Biophilia’s artwork to emerge the individual goals and functions collective construction. But an integral ‘taking into ac- of each actor must merge into a larger if not distrib- count’ of the way relations are predicated and depen- uted action. 25 implied by the framing aspect of the gallery 16. Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, references and notes 2006. Frank Popper,” CAA Art Journal 62, no. 1 (2004): 62-77. 18. Bruno Latour, “On Interobjectivity,” Bruno Latour’s web- 2. Sections of this paper are derived from my PhD dissertation. Mark Cypher, Trans-Action: an actor-network Approach to Interactivity in the Visual Arts” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Western Australia, 2011). 3. Siggraph Art Show Chair, e-mail message to author, March site, http://www.bruno-latour.fr/articles/article/063.html (accessed January 15, 2014). 19. Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies, 182. 20. Bruno Latour, “On Interobjectivity.” 21. Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of 28, 2006. dent on what actors are willing to give up, ransom or ibility,” in Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Tech- sacriice, as it is to do with what they can ofer. nology and Domination, ed. John Law (London: Routledge, CONCLUSION 1999), 179. 17. J. Nechvatal, “Origins of Virtualism: An Interview with 1. Mark Cypher, Siggraph Gallery Application form, January, 4. Michel Callon, “Techno-Economic Networks and Irrevers- Science Studies, 181. 22. John Law, “Actor Network Theory and Material Semiotics,” in The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, ed. B. S. Turner (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell 2009). 1991), 143. The means by which collectives like Biophilia apply 34 The Case of the Portugese Maritime Expansion,” Technol- 5. Bruno Latour, “Where Are the Missing Masses? The Soci- 23. L. Malafouris, “The Cognitive Basis of Material Engage- these kinds of enforced behaviours is recognised as From an actor-network approach, actual interactions ology of a Few Mundane Artifacts,” in Shaping Technology ment: Where Brain, Body and Culture Conlate,” in a sort of agency. For Lambros Malafouris agency is with participatory art works (much like still images of / Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, eds. Rethinking Materiality: The Engagement of Mind with the something that: the event) are not a departure point, but one point of Bijker Wiebe and Law John (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Material World, eds. E. DeMarrais, C. Gosden, and C. Ren- many in a chain of associative links. As is seen in the 1994), 172. [C]annot be reduced to any of the human–nonhu- various translations in Biophilia, interaction consists man components of action. [...] It cannot be too of agents that can only act by and through association strongly emphasized that neither brains nor things with others. As these actors associate and thus work LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC VOL 20 NO 2 ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 frew (Cambridge: McDonald Institute, 2004), 34. 6. Mark Cypher, “Trans-action: an Actor-network Approach to Interactivity in the Visual Arts.” 7. John Law, “On the Social Explanation of Technical Change: ISSN 1071-4391 I S B N 97 8 -1 - 9 0 6 8 97-3 2-1 24. Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995),159. 25. John Law, “Actor Network Theory and Material Semiotics.” VOL 20 NO 2 LEONARDOELECTRONICALMANAC 35 ocradst.org