Rosalie Clemens (a 3M engineer interested in light and optics) and I walked along the new condos at the Upper Landing on October 19.Listen to the conversation HERE
3M Light Tubes (aka Solar Tubes), large optical fibre to guide light through tubes using super-reflective mirror technology (ordinary mirrors are very inefficient)..
How does theory turn into practice on an industrial scale? Cross fertilization, creative ferment (a giant water cooler to chat around?); interdisciplinary/-departmental exchange is encouraged. Eg security systems is relatively small (in people and finance terms) and must come up with new technologies to stay ahead of the criminal curves. Necessary to look around and leapfrog evolution. Must invent brand new paradigms and sell them. A brief to be audaciously inspired and radical (unlike the arts?). International exchanges are facilitated using technology.
Similar to experimental art; creating new meanings that have no apparent application yet. Where do concepts come from? No boss is setting the agenda. Arts follow curiosity more purely; for personal satisfaction.
Is there an audience or is it selfish indulgence? Why compose for an assumed audience? There is at least an audience of one; the rest is projection and market functioning. Composition is at least self-interrogation; sharing is an outcome but not the main motivation. More like scientific fundamental research to find things. The R&D arm of the universe. In science the end output is a research paper; a dull format for conferences. Is a song the equivalent of a paper? Music comes in more than just Song formats though.
The Talking Plant (EEG sensor on a plant sonified by MIDI) is an example of a heuristic exercise, stimulus to imagination and wonder, outcome not predetermined. Familiar materials (eg piano) build up traditional habitual uses; new instruments/contexts/installations/occasions are more open ended. It is not packageable or repeatable, can’t be commodified or distributed.
The role of risk, when equipment is expensive and time is short.
A complex system is rich fodder for the imagination (and a problem if you need to sort it out). Reduction is the goal of scientific enquiry. Complexification/mystery a goal of art.
Music only exists in performance. Cf Schroedinger’s cat. A score is a thought experiment. When a score is written not experienced then it becomes the medium for that kind of evolution (Schoenberg, 12 tone, set theory) as opposed to Indian Classical music that lives only through the ear.
Harmonics and tuning systems are conventions and habits with various rationales in different times and cultures, it depends on the metaphors and conditioning. Theory and analysis that proves western music is the best is just a circular argument. With more novel or new art forms there is little common precedent and people don’t trust themselves to simply experience but believe they must also understand. They also assume that they did understand something traditional. Context is vital to appreciation; a Science Museum audience will react differently from a conservatory one.
Developing a tech application and marketing is the next step in business. Science explores new things, asking Why? Whereas technology and engineering ask “how can I use this?” Technology is all about control. Curiosity is removed to some extent.
Music technologies offer ultimate controllers to maximize human determination. But being out of control is just as interesting, it sets up a dialog and feedback system. Tech and science must be repeatable and reliable. Fast, Cheap and Out of Control movie shows technologies that create self-evolving dynamic systems. If it can’t be repeated then it is religion or belief, or observer-created quantum reality. Data must be consistent, measurable and verifiable. The interpretation come in. String Theory is metaphor until proven.
Hypothesis (what if?),
Assumptions (based on prior knowledge)
then Assertion (which has data).
Need an anchor in some system to make relevant commentary. Art is Freedom. Science is not freedom (other than the freedom to explore what you don’t know); it can’t live with ambiguity.
Form and Function. Science (except for Victorian machinery, furniture, architecture, iPhone, industrial design, product development): forms of experiments follow form. Blackberry = business; iPhone = when family calls. We don’t know the Function of art yet. The iPhone is not just a phone, its uses are limited by only the imagination (barometer, camera, GPS, metronome…). Bauhaus design; simple object that encourages people to ascribe meaning to it (2001 monolith).
[Building near the Upper Landing; warehouse? Acoustic potential? Laser light art? Potential for laser beam set up across river to bounce of rippling waves of the river, and projecting a real time oscilloscope near Carver’s Cave]
Sustainability
We all have the responsibility and opportunity to make changes but we make decisions that counteract all our other efforts. We can bike, turn off lights but then choose to live away from family in Europe so must fly everywhere. A sense of inevitability; it is luxury that has brought us this far. There are trade offs everywhere, many of them hidden. False dichotomies (paper or plastic?, Republican or Democrat? Fluorescent or incandescent?); choices are made simplistically because public policy has to be black or white.
Will Nature take care of the problem by eliminating humans? Will the fight for resources cause the collapse of cultures, and reduce populations significantly to a sustainable population level? Communication may survive but everything else is going to run out.
What does a post carbon art form look like?
You need carbon based energy to make the new alternative forms (battery powered cars still need plugging into the grid). Family biogas facility in Germany (where the goal is to run a profitable business): Energy is sold into the grid but the plant generates heat. The heat is used to dry wood to sell wood pellets for burning then machines are used to compact the pellets (with energy used from the coal fired grid!). A shell game. It’s cheaper so there’s no incentive.
People aren’t able to pay more for the luxury of sustainable food. Trader Joe’s relies on food that has traveled far; nothing is local, including treats from Germany. How organic or beneficial is something after you move it thousands of miles?
Will macrobiotic theory save us? Eat local, in season, in harmony. What is a macrobiotic city? Old St Paul was made with local stone and brick. People power (lots of people with buckets). Use technology for translocation (be in jungle and office at the same time). We are not suffering enough yet to change our habits. Trend towards more simplicity (not Stone Age).
In the security business we look for simple genius ideas. We want technology that you can explain on the side of a truck (quick, comprehensible, like an elevator speech). Clever technologies can be useful as products or as inspiration. Eg, Cyan colored film changes color when viewed from different angles.
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