Time to Reflect on What is and What Might be Coming

Leading on from my previous blog I thought i would discuss some of the findings of my fellow academics who over the past week have sought out what they consider to be "New Media" forms. My own findings uncovered two fashion-centric media forms, which blur the lines of what is human and what is electronic. The first of these is Issey Miyake's Spring/Summer 2005 animation 'A-POC INSIDE'. The piece utilizes motion capture to postion the letters of "Issey Miyake" at what we assume are the extreme points on the contours of the body. I have posted the video below.

For me it is a struggle to identify the piece as anything other than organic. Even when the dots and letters begin to flow sideways at different rates along a horizontal plane the animation still maintains the motion of something incredibly human. Regardless of Miyake's intention it seems that human data transduced into an uncommon medium does not alter what is at the essence of human movement, which is fluidity. Even through electronic means we cannot escape what it means to be human.

But we can use new media forms to break down what has constrained us as human beings in the past. The ADIDAS 3D mapping venture explores the relationship between man and architecture and how the dislocation of authority from certain structures can be not only an entertaining experience but also a cathartic and liberating one.

Architecture is increasingly being considered and integral part of new media forms. From spatially aware electronics to geo-tagging and augmented reality, our perception of the boundaries that architecture traditionally establish is being turned inside out. We are no longer confined to another persons idea of how architecture should function.

My final example brings us back to the theme of the beauty within the machine. It comes from the much-loved, but unfortunately now deceased Alexander McQueen. His final showing incorporated robotics and prosthetics so as to suggest where humanity and technology might be heading in an ecologically distressed world.

McQueens vision of a world aquatic looks enthusiastically towards a globe without polar ice-caps, but also examines the ongoing struggle between surveillance and those being watched. It questions the definition of voyeurism suggesting that as we come to view more things from more angles we are returning to a natural state of inquisition, but at the same time extending our capability of doing so into the machine.

From a personal understanding it is not so much about considering the binary opposition between man and machine, but rather coming to the realisation that machines are an extension of our desires and expression and that they offer the opportunity of experimentation beyond the biological capacity of our bodies. The relationship cultivates a fertile space of creativity with the ever present possibility of better understanding ourselves and how we might relate to others.