Marko Ciciliani on the concept behind SkylAR

SkylAR by Marko Ciciliani

                             I will be reborn

               I am being reborn

I have been reborn

 

My heart now beats in double-dotted crotchets.

No more feeble triplets.

 

With poignant impulses

Five liters of red are pumped in units of cups

Across my tender carnal soil, feeding zillions.

 

pa’boom, pa’boom, pa’boom, pa’boom, pa’…

thus goes my rhythm-machine

The calming pulse in my ears.

 

What’s the weight of blood against water?

What’s the weight of demisemiquavers against triplets?

 

This is the text integrated into one of a total of five augmented reality compositions that make up the main component of the SkylAR project. These pieces, conceived as miniatures, are accessible via individually designed posters that are displayed in public spaces. Each of the posters features a QR code that can be scanned with a mobile device, leading to a website where the augmented reality (AR) composition can be launched.

My starting point of SkylAR was the use of comic motifs from the 50s, specifically motifs from the science fiction comic genre. Characteristic of this period was a pronounced techno-optimism, the belief that technological progress will not only lead humankind to a better future, but also to self-realization. The rationalism anchored in technology thereby represents an ideal of humanity and a path to power: the power to overcome all conceivable barriers as, for instance to be able to travel to distant galaxies, but also to dominate other threats and cultures through military superiority, like rebellious aliens on newly discovered planets. The conviction to be on the "right side of history" can be felt in science fiction comics of the 1950s from the USA in an almost unfiltered and unreflective way, which is the reason why I chose them as a foregrounded reference point for the SkylAR project.

My intention was to place the motifs of the comics in a context that dissolves that dissolves this ideology and instead describes states of re-discovering and re-constructing one’s self. This self-discovery takes place through the exploration of one's own body and sensory organs, which is depicted in the poems integrated in the skylAR project. In these poems, bodies are often described as new landscapes and sensory systems as fluid in their capacities of perception.

Now my tong rolls backwards.

With its bifurcated tips it enters the eustachian catacombs

That lead to the tympanic cavity.

A quick drum-roll – now retract before the hammer can strike!

Sassy

 

Such a state is characterized by a sensitivity to the environment, and an awareness of a non-dualistic interdependence of it and as such it proposes a responsible and response-able approach to our planet. A basic understanding of interconnection is outlined here, which at first seems to be simple and obvious, but due to the development of Western culture, for many - myself included – this is anything but self-evident or easy to achieve. It stands in stark contrast to the state of mind of the self-assured technophile and potent pioneer of space travel of the 1950s. Instead, the rethinking that the time of the current climate crisis demands from people involves – as described by Elena Pulcini - "a radical operation of rediscovery and reconstruction of the self by highlighting aspects repressed or devalued by rationalist and patriarchal culture such as vulnerability and dependence"(2022:41). The protagonists in all of the five AR experiences of the SkylAR project are in precisely this process of reinvention and rediscovery.

 

The “Rediscovery and Reconstruction of the Self”

Body parts that have given up their original function and now discover other possibilities for action…

Sense organs that have altered sensibilities…

Asymmetries and imbalances between paired organs that allow them to develop special characteristics…

One's own body that is discovered and explored as an unknown landscape…

These are some of the motifs used in the texts of the individual miniatures, describing the process of radical self-discovery and reconstruction of the self described above.

The sound that meets my left ear

comes lilting out of the right one.

Wobbling and bumping the spectrum over brain lobes.

 

The sound that meets my right ear

comes roaring out of the left.

A slingshot in the head, trajectories through the auricle.

 

Two ears, duplicates of forms.

No more echoing each other.

Stuck in continuous mutation.

Monomerizing augmentations.

The texts are displayed in speech bubbles typical of comics, which are assigned to characters taken from the science fiction comics of the 50s. These characters all appear under the name SkylAR - two women, two men and an iguana-like creature. The texts are also audible as spoken or sung texts, some produced with real and others with synthetic voices. I chose the name SkylAR because it is not assigned to any particular gender. The fact that it contains the word "Sky" fits the science fiction theme. I capitalize the final two letters "AR" to refer to the augmented reality through which the compositions are experienced.

 

Historicity

In addition to the texts, a number of other types of material play a recurring role in the compositions.

·       To each part of SkylAR an animal is assigned, which on one hand refers to the tradition of Renaissance portraits, in which animals were often depicted to symbolize an additional trait of the portrayed. On the other hand, the animal also refers to Donna Haraway's idea of companion-species (2016:9-29), the encounter with other forms of being as “radical alterities” that “invite a specific analysis of the present … as manifoldly layered and complexly interwoven with past and future” (Hoppe 2021:233).

·       The AR is depicted against a background of historical panels from encyclopedias. The panels show animal species related to the one assigned to each AR. These panels, mainly from the 19th century, attest to a time when nature was studied and categorized in a systematic manner, with the aspiration to cover all living things. 

·       Fragments of ethnomusicological recordings on Edison Phonographs from the Berlin Phonogram Archive from the early 20th century are used, a reference to the colonialism actively practiced at the time, which was part of the Western "acquisition oriented Cartesian character" (Pulcini 2022:41). At the same time the recordings also a reference to other non-Western forms of culture, native knowledge, and a different relationship to nature than that of Western culture.

·       Sounds from the early days of space travel, mainly signals from Sputnik and early Apollo missions. This includes rudimentary synthetic signal sounds or unintelligible speech against loud background noise.

·       Various composed and synthetically generated sound textures. Since both the recordings from the Berlin Sound Archive and those from the early days of space travel have a strong connection to the past, which is conveyed by the quality of the recording and the artifacts of the media typical of the time, I process many of the synthetically generated sounds with various plugins that simulate retro equipment to make them blend with the other sounds in a more homogeneous way.

The constellation of these groups of materials appears in almost every one of the AR miniatures, forming a recurring character and structural feature.

Both visually and acoustically, the use of historical material thus plays an important role. A historicity is conveyed, and reference is made to pioneering attempts of the past to acquire knowledge and collect data whereby science often legitimized ethical questions to be disregarded. This phase of science often used the method of collecting, structuring, and categorizing diverse phenomena, whether through the recording of animal species or collections of ethnomusicological recordings. At the same time, unknown regions or continents were systematically explored, which found a continuation in the exploration of space in the 20th century. The referenced material is therefore fraught with a multitude of ethical issues, many of which can be deemed highly problematic. Instead of resolving them and taking a clear position, in the project SkylAR I decided to present the multifarious references as a heterogeneous web that defies any easy resolution.

 

Posters in Public Space and a Performance

The SkylAR posters are put up in public space and are therefore available to a general public. Furthermore, they are accessible while people are going about their everyday activities. The foregrounded use of motifs from comics is suitable to appeal to a broader audience, thus opening up the project to people unfamiliar with experimental art forms. As part of the Zagreb Biennale 2023, the posters are distributed throughout the city already two weeks before the beginning of the festival. As a complementary event, a one-hour performance takes place early in the festival, where the visual and sonic elements from the various AR-compositions are performed live in an audiovisual concert, performed by Jennifer Torrence (percussion and performance) and myself (electronics, visuals and performance). Various projections, live-streaming and a heterogenous multichannel sound system are used, the latter utilizing prototypes of spherical loudspeakers that were specially developed by the IEM-Graz (Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria).

 

Ethical remark

Internet traffic is responsible of 2% of the global CO2 emissions.[1] I have created a work that relies on the use of the internet in order to be experienced and thereby it contributes to the pollution of the planet. In order to keep the caused data traffic to a minimum, I avoided all unnecessary data transfers. I kept the file sizes of sounds and images small even if it sometimes leads to noticeable low resolutions. Although I am using cookies in some of the ARs, they are only tracking whether that particular AR has already been visited, in order to provide new experiences on repeated visits. No other data is stored other than a single number associated with that AR. No personal data are accessed or stored.

The SkylAR AR has been created with the open source JavaScript library MindAR by HiuKim Yuen.

References:

Haraway, Donna: Staying with the Trouble – Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Durham: Duke University Press, 2016

Hoppe, Katharina: Die Kraft der Revision – Epistemologie, Politik und Ethik bei Donna Haraway, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2021

Pulcini, Elena: "Feminism and Convivialism" in: Frank Adloff and Alain Caillé (Ed.s) Convivial Futures - Views from a Post-Growth Tomorrow, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2022