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Conformity, Process and Deviation: Digital Arts as 'Outsider' |
Carl H. Smith (Learning Technology Research Institute (LTRI) London Metropolitan University, UK)
The Art of Hacking the Self: Exploring New Forms of Vision and Creativity using Sensory Augmentation, Perceptual Adaptation and Context Engineering.
We are entering a new perceptual paradigm in art where form, content, and context are merging. Through the development of hybrid spatial technologies we can now hack the individual's sense of self and relationship to the world (transforming the subject/object relationship). As a result radical new forms of vision and creativity are becoming available.
This paper is concerned with examining how artists are using emerging spatial technologies to reconfigure perception. The dominant perceptive regimen is still based on the Cartesian split (subject-object separation). We see matter as separated from mind, a perceptive model inherited from literacy-Cartesian culture that has not yet digested the new changes brought about by hybrid techniques and methodologies.
The role that hybrid space plays in the construction and transformation of perception through the practice of context engineering will be examined. Context engineering is understood as an “intermediality” art practice for the subversive engagement and augmentation of perception; giving us control over our senses, allowing us to adjust them in real time.
The ability to alter our senses and develop entirely new ones provides us with a new form of (self) control; sub-merging identities. We will examine which technologies, techniques and navigation methodologies artists are using to enable this new era of sensory augmentation and perceptual adaptation.
In addition a new kind of literacy is required to deal with these perceptual technologies that merge the physical and the virtual dimensions of reality. The objective of ‘Human Centric Hybrid Literacy’ is to develop our understanding of all the processes related to the new forms of creativity emerging in this field.Biography:
Carl H Smith is a Senior Research Fellow and PHD student at the Learning Technology Research Institute based in London. His background is in Art History, Computer Science and Architecture. He specialises in using various visualization techniques to produce augmented spaces for the generation, transformation and distribution of radical pedagogy. His primary research involves using the web of relationships made possible between the physical, digital and conceptual aspects of augmented space to increase the potential for knowledge formation. His other research interests include visual and spatial literacy, pattern recognition, intermediality, visualisation as interface, and open source learning. He is an academic expert and developer with over fourteen years’ experience conducting R+D into the application of advanced persuasive technologies for lifelong, work and creative learning. He has worked on a number of large scale FP7 and Leonardo Life Long Learning European projects. He specialises in using hybrid reality methodologies and visualization techniques to produce augmented spaces for the generation and transformation of learning.