G.H. Hovagimyan is an experimental digital artist. In the early nineties he became one of the first artists in New York to start working with the Internet. He has won many awards for his work, including a residency program at Eyebeam in 2002.
Since I was sadly unable to attend the class session that G.H. came and spoke at, I had to check out his website to find out what he is all about. He has a large amount of his work up, so I took a closer look at a few of his pieces. One that I found to be particularly interesting was SoaPOPera for laptops – robotoc performance. It is an performance that involves several laptops moving around on radio-controlled cars, which are controlled by performers. The software that the laptops use allow them to talk to each other, sing, and respond to notes by singing along. Sinclair and Hovagimyan perform with the characters by talking with them as well as playing the guitar for them. I watched the video and found it to be very interesting. The laptops have even been given different hairstyles. I think that this installation is very relevant to a lot of the discussions we have been having in class regarding human and computer interaction. We have discussed how people interacting through computers, similar to the people driving the laptops, in a way, embody their character. I also think that it is interesting to think about these computers in relation to the Eliza program. Eliza worried some because people interacted with is as though it was a real person, not a computer. I these videos, I think it is interesting to see people trying to make computers act like humans more and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment