#22(1-7): MetaCartography – The Iterative Mind Installation
johnny 5 was a moron but people still respected him
#5Thursday, March 4th, 2010 Happiness is a Choice – Respecting Moronity Happiness did an experiment tonight. We have a lot of fun. We call ourselves scientists, and we call our shows experiments. We say we’re not doing improv shows– we’re scientists conducting experiments, and sometimes we employ improvisation as a tool for our experimentation. It’s […]
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STATEMENT
Meta-Cartography is a new medium through which we believe it will be possible to experience infinity and the loss of self, to lucidly transfer memories and meanings amongst members of the human species based on any finite period of time and space.
The current working hypothesese for those following along in your lab manuals are as follows:
1) We should be able to source a number of new meanings from decade-old memories by asking our participants to answer a series of questions regarding a collection of video artifacts.
2) We should also be able to provide our participants a better user experience this time thru the use of flowcharting and physically mapping and directing the user experience via signage as they enter the space.
Stay tuned for the release of more detailed experimental data and a brand new Happiness Lab Manual this year!
↪ Happiness is a Choice ↩
We attempted to calibrate this map for the first time on September 12th, 2015, and then again on October 10th of that year. We believe that it will take at least 10 iterations to find an authentic degree of accuracy at this installation.
HIAC Experiment #22.1. September 12th, 2015. It has now been over a decade since I set out to create the map of my mind that I hoped would lead me out of adolescence and into adulthood. My aim at age 24 was to take a finite sampling of time, geography, and documentation–say 10 days in 2004 with a camera and a journal in Europe–and map my confused and unfocused moment-to-moment consciousness over it to illuminate a path towards clarity. In reality, I got back to the States after those 10 days, had no idea what to do with the footage, got a job, and put the map on hold indefinitely–along with the half-dozen other projects I had taken on as a documentary filmmaker that I “wasn’t ready to process yet.” Here in 2015, at age 34, my aim was, in a sense, to draw a map back to my adolescence–to chart how the events of these 10 days made me who I am today, and what these moments, places, and emotions could mean to other people. I no longer believe in a singular map or meaning. It is now my belief that as a human species, we are able to take any finite period of history and geography and source an infinite well of meaning from it. This is the theory, anyway, that we will be testing in this series of installations, calibrations, and colaboratories with the performance science of Happiness is a Choice.
HIAC Experiment #22.2 was less of an installation and more of a mad scientist co-laboratory. Practitioner Mi conducted an analysis of SYSTEMS, analyzing visualized results of the first iteration, and testing a new hypothesis that is currently forming, which is that in order to construct a more complete MetaCartographical Instrument, a Comprehensive Media Database (C.M.D.) is needed. This C.M.D. would then need to be integrated into a Complete Synchronized Asset Database (C.S.A.D.) in order to create a FULLY functional, templatized, and socially relevant MetaCartographical Instrument. This will likely be the work of iterations 21.5 – 21.9, but at this point, that’s only a hypothesis about a hypothesis. The ideal side-effect of Experiment #22.2 occurred: a more comprehensive media processing workflow.
HIAC Experiment #22.3 was a media-making co-laboratory / co-gallery space, a presentation of dystheatre’s VAIL: Visible and Invisible Light, the third iteration of our mind-mapping installation calibration, and our first public call for art. “Give us your sounds!” There were LISTENING and VIEWING stations at which we screened several works-in-progress and asked for feedback. The theme was AUDIO if you need a theme. But it was a loose theme. Practitioner Mi also be helding an open discussion regarding HIAC’s FULL SYSTEMS ANALYSIS of SYSTEMS, Media Asset Management, and progress tracking on M.A.P.P.IN.G.S.
For more information on MAPPINGS, listen to podcast #1 of MEM from January 8, 2016: https://soundcloud.com/michael-ferstenfeld/make-every-media-episode-1
For more information on AUDIO, listen to podcast #2: https://soundcloud.com/michael-ferstenfeld/mem002
Or just go ahead and subscribe here via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/make-every-media/id1073223081
Or here via the soundcloud feed:
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:20895325/sounds.rss
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HIAC Experiment #22.4. At this point, the C.M.D. has taken a bit of a backseat to a hypothesis about the process of developing the process. This new meta-hypothesis is that in order to achieve maximum satisfaction, whatever we’re working on, we should do it in a healthy, moderately paced and balanced, positive way. This is the true hypothesis of Experiment 22.3, which is why it is also a party.
HIAC Experiment #22.5 was a media-making co-gallery / flowstate / feedback / co-laboratory space. It is a presentation of dystheatre’s VAIL: Visible and Invisible Light, the fourth iteration of our mind-mapping installation calibration, and an ongoing call for public discourse on artful strategies for enacting change in one’s self and one’s community, for finding meaning, strengthening memory, and balancing proactive productivity with emotional well-being. Basically, we just love to get feedback and talk about making stuff. Surveys = SCIENCE!!
The current working hypothesese for those following along in your lab manuals are as follows:
1) We should be able to source a number of new meanings from decade-old memories by asking our participants to answer a series of questions regarding a collection of video artifacts.
2) We should also be able to provide our participants a better user experience this time thru the use of flowcharting and physically mapping and directing the user experience via signage as they enter the space.
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HIAC Experiment #22.6, Friday July 29th, was a collaboration with CHURCH OF THE CENTURY KID (COTCK). METACARTOGRAPHY #6 was an experiment in INDUCED TIME TRAVEL. “Journey from Age 0 to Age 100 in the span of 20 minutes. Do it all again. And again. Communicate with past and future selves. Actively experience the multiverse through music, entertainment, ceremony, science. Our SIXTH iteration of METACARTOGRAPHY and our first collaboration with COTCK. METACARTOGRAPHY is a Time/Mind/
HIAC is currently in the process of creating a neural network of memories, meanings, and media artifacts that will be preserved in a virtual space. METACARTOGRAPHY is a way to recontextualize and revisualize the endless data we receive in life, to help us reinvent ourselves with new meanings found in the patterns and memories of past and future selves.
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HIAC Experiment #22.7.1-4. FINALCON.