datalife

Hybrid Worlds: Nano_Biotech + Art.Parsons MFA DT program. Professors Victoria Vesna and

Siddhartha Ramakrishnan

Maxim Safioulline

abstractThe world where we live and our own bodies are a product of physical laws that make this world stable and connect its elements to each other. As we are attempting to create unique worlds in cyberspace we should start thinking about what sort of organizational structure would enable those worlds to develop and grown on their own.

abstractWhen a person browses the Internet or plays a computer game her body does not exist in that environment for the observer from the inside - only her mind. She is still connected to it with her body through an interface and the feedback that she receives is necessarily translated for our world. But what if those layers where removed and a pure human mind would be able to interact with an environment of pure data.

concept/topic

I propose an alternative approach to the creation of interactive simulated environments - a re-thinking of the basis and the laws upon which such environments are created and a re-thinking of role, place and purpose of a user/observer/participant in such environments.

I also propose an alternative approach to human-computer interfaces, a systemic view of human-machine combines and an exploration of the alternatives to mice and keyboards that stem from this approach.

context

• Sims/MMORPG/Second Life - If we have a chance to construct new environments on the web why do they have to resemble the one where our bodies live?

• A-Life Art - if you’re constructing a new environment why is a user not a part of it, just an onlooker?

proposal part 1:

Create an environment that reflects the larger system where it exists: the cyber world - and is based on the “energy = data” metaphor: things grow with abundance of data and die because of lack of data and the shapes of objects is determined by the types of data.

The objects in this environment will be able to generate data-energy themselves and to affect each other similarly to the way that living beings do.

Create a special object in this environment: the participant - through which a person connected to the computer with a brain-computer interface would be able to interact with the environment.

The environment will provide feedback to the user by changing the chemistry of the user’s brain through Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).

proposal part 2:

questions for exploration

• How to get user to interact with an artificial simulated environment on a bio-chemical level?

• How our psyche is going to adapt to environments that are so unfit for our bodies? A possibility of exploration of mind-body connection and co-dependence.

• Can humans live and interact with the environment only by using their mind?

project under development

by Maxim Safioulline

for Connected Cat Media

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