Papers by Gordana Novakovic
Abstract. Fugue is the result of a collaboration between artist, musician and computer scientists... more Abstract. Fugue is the result of a collaboration between artist, musician and computer scientists. The result is an on-going project which provides a new way of communicating complex scientific ideas to any audience. Immersive virtual reality and sound provide an interactive audiovisual interface to the dynamics of a complex system – for this work, an artificial immune system. Participants are able to see and interact with immune cells flowing through a lymphatic vessel and understand how the complex dynamics of the whole are produced by local interactions of viruses, B cells, antibodies, dendritic cells and clotting platelets.
Engineering nature: art and consciousness in the post- …, 2003
Is it the form of interactive work that separates it from and opposes it to the tech-spectacle of... more Is it the form of interactive work that separates it from and opposes it to the tech-spectacle of massive pop-concerts, VJ clubbing and “shoot'em up” online games despite the similarity in terms of the technology employed? Is interactive work another immersive narcotic or is it ...
ALEXA WRIGHT The Art and the Science of A Speech-based Interactive Installation Abstract Artist A... more ALEXA WRIGHT The Art and the Science of A Speech-based Interactive Installation Abstract Artist Alexa Wright and Mike Lincoln from the Centre for Speech Technology Research, University of Edinburgh will present Conversation Piece, an intelligent room that can converse with its occupants. Conceived as an artwork that explores the interface between technological and 'real world' experience, Conversation Piece incorporates a number of newly developed speech technologies. This interactive space, which can hold conversations with up to three people at any one time, is the result of a long period of research and development, during which the boundaries between art, science and technology research have often become blurred. ANN BORDA Community and Innovation : JISC Funded Activity in the Arts & Humanities
Electronic Workshops in Computing, 2010
Most of us at this meeting are users – sometimes heavy users – of electronic and digital technolo... more Most of us at this meeting are users – sometimes heavy users – of electronic and digital technology. We use it to present information to people in particular ways and forms in order to achieve a variety of purposes: to inform, communicate, engage, excite, challenge, influence, educate, entertain, and more. In what we do, we naturally tend to focus on technological concerns, seeking out faster hardware, brighter projectors, smarter interfaces, new combinations of media, and so on. In this talk I want to look at a rather neglected component of the whole process, something we take for granted simply because of our intimate familiarity with it: the human brain. I will describe how the new science of neuroplasticity is teaching us that the brain can no longer be regarded as a fixed, closed, passive receiver of information from the senses – a mere processor for the information that is controlling our body through a kind of one-way communication. We are now seeing the recognition of growin...
Nature Immunology, 2009
The Science Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, recently held an exhibition called &... more The Science Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, recently held an exhibition called "INFECTIOUS: STAY AWAY" that used art to illustrate infection and immunity. Luke O'Neill talks to one of the artists, Gordana Novakovic, about her involvement in this project.
Fugue is the result of a collaboration between artist, musician and computer scientists. The resu... more Fugue is the result of a collaboration between artist, musician and computer scientists. The result is an on-going project which provides a new way of communicating complex scientific ideas to any audience. Immersive virtual reality and sound provide an interactive audiovisual interface to the dynamics of a complex system -for this work, an artificial immune system. Participants are able to see and interact with immune cells flowing through a lymphatic vessel and understand how the complex dynamics of the whole are produced by local interactions of viruses, B cells, antibodies, dendritic cells and clotting platelets.
Springer Series on Cultural Computing, 2013
This paper describes the development over several years of Fugue, an art| science audio-visual pi... more This paper describes the development over several years of Fugue, an art| science audio-visual piece inspired by the human immune system. It has been presented in a number of different contexts -as an artwork, as an aid to the public understanding of science, and as a potential tool for scientists -and it is still under development. Stimulated by the response of some participants to the interactive and immersive version of Fugue, by recent discoveries in the field of neuroplasticity, and by contemporary analysis and criticism of some adverse effects of the digital revolution, a possible new category of art, neuroplastic art, is identified and briefly discussed.
Is it the form of interactive work that separates it from and opposes it to the tech-spectacle of... more Is it the form of interactive work that separates it from and opposes it to the tech-spectacle of massive pop-concerts, VJ clubbing and 'shoot 'em up' online games despite the similarity in terms of the technology employed? Is interactive work another immersive narcotic or is it potentially a form through which ritual can re-incarnate? The ambiguity between fascination and consternation in experiencing interactive work might be inherent in this art's very nature – a hybrid of art and science. However, the influence of the installation's body onto the bodies of participants remains enigmatic. The world is divided into a complex caste system defined in direct proportion with the level of technological development. The flux of financial and information data exchange within a network of interconnected cities forms the Global City: the a-locus of superpower. The transparent hyper-real world of the obsolete horizon shaped by new technologies defines the contemporary aesthetics of abstraction and obsolete bodies. The citizen of the Global City is bombarded with the obscene pornographic banality of the mass-media spectacle. Perception fractures and disperses suffocating in noise. The body and mind are permanently overwhelmed with a kaleidoscope of noise: street noise, media-noise, electromagnetic noise, genetic noise. Immersed in the borderless ocean of the city, the contemporary citizen has the confidence that technological development has harnessed natural forces. Nature is a trophy, an ornament, an abstraction. The archaic fear of natural forces is replaced by the fear of technology and eternal progress. The force that sustains us is also that which destroys us. The network that forms the blood-circulating system of the Global City is spreading fear like a virus. Lulled by noise, bewitched by the specatcle of fear, in the screen-luminescent eternal twilight, global citizens are daydreaming artificial daydreams. Interactive aesthetics has arisen in these conditions and unless it strikes out its own path, it is in danger of turning into another form of tech-spectacle. Interactive installation, with its paradox of simultaneous repulsion and fear from the impersonal automatised process on the one hand and the acceptance of the oneiric immersion on the other is the ultimate battleground between art and science and between the living body and technology. The symbolic conflict between man and machine takes on a ritual form. Instead of attempting to implant or reconstruct primordial ritual embedded in tribal society, interactive installation can be seen as a symbolic act of resolving contemporary tensions. Parallels are dangerous but useful, both where they fail and
The philosopher of art Roger Scruton has claimed that photographic images are not representations... more The philosopher of art Roger Scruton has claimed that photographic images are not representations, on the basis of the role of causal rather than intentional processes in arriving at the content of a photographic image (Scruton 1981). His claim was controversial at the time, and still is, but had the merit of being a springboard for asking important questions about what kinds of representation result from the technologies used in depicting and visualising. In the context of computational picturing of different kinds, in imaging and other forms of visualisation, the question arises again, but this time in an even more interesting form, since these techniques are often hybrids of different principles and techniques. A digital image results from a complex inter- relationship of physical, mathematical and technological principles, embedded within human and social situations. This paper consists of three sections, each presenting a view of the question whether digital imaging and digital visual artefacts generally are representations, from a different perspective. These perspectives are not representative, but aim only to accomplish what Scruton’s paper did succeed in accomplishing, that is, being a provocation and a springboard for a broader discussion.
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Papers by Gordana Novakovic