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Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

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Sun, 2010-11-28 07:17

Thomas McDermott Thomas McDermott's picture

Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

Hello and pleased to meet you. This is my first post in the Eclipse Phase forums and I wanted to introduce myself. I am Thomas (Tom) McDermott. I created this account and named my avatar after my real name, in the spirit of post-human ideology. After all, an avatar can be considered its own little 'sleeve' under the right avenue of thinking, right? So, how did I come into contact with EP? I was reading through the ENnie Awards online and I spotted it under an award category there. When I found the link to the website, I looked through it - I was hooked after reading the synopsis. When I was in college, I studied art - minored in psych. I became an artist (yeah I work to pay the bills too [need money for these books, ya?], but I still make art - have a studio in down town LA). One art form I got into a lot while I was in college was performance art. During that time I built up conceptual works around performance that questioned documentation - and thus turned the 'document' (the copy of action/record) into an art piece. For instance, I once did a performance art piece, in front of a Xerox art collage on the wall in the studio - which was made of old performance art documents- while documenting that performance, xeroxing the images of those documents and having them placed on the wall with the Xerox collage, while the performance continued on. So you had the performance and the copies interacting together! All of this was meant to create discussion that questioned the idea of copying the self. Is a picture just as valid as the experience? Why, or why not? It was with this conceptual art background in my mind that I encountered, and gravitated to Eclipse Phase. In a way, reading through all of these notions of transhumanity have given me a lot of inspiration when I have needed it, to continue on in the harsh critical world of conceptual art. A form that many people think is 'high-art' trash. So, here I am. And that is who I've been.

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cosmic microwave background radiation is awesome!

Sun, 2010-11-28 07:47

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

What kind of art would you do if you had access to Eclipse Phase technology?

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Sun, 2010-11-28 08:43

Thomas McDermott Thomas McDermott's picture

Re: Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

I would most likely try to break the system of resleeving one's self - as a claimed 'performance art' piece. I would try to do this by making copies of copies of copies (etc.) of the self. Each successive copy may not exhibit a flaw when perceived right away, but maybe when compared to the original it would. In copying a copy, the process would 'expand' the flaws of the resleeving process. Or, at least that's what happens when you make a copy of a copy via a Xerox machine. Actually... I did do a project similar to that where I made a pointillism ink drawing of a cloned bull whose name was 'Second Chance'. I did a copy of a copy trick on that drawing and burned out the image in that fashion - relating it back to the story of how Second Chance was different than his original (Chance). Second Chance gored his owner at a given point. Chance, the original bull, never harmed a soul. Here is the web address to the 2nd Chance Drawing/Xerox project: http://www.thomas-mcdermott.com/2010/01/decomposition-processes.html

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cosmic microwave background radiation is awesome!

Sun, 2010-11-28 10:20

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

Thomas McDermott wrote:
I would most likely try to break the system of resleeving one's self - as a claimed 'performance art' piece. I would try to do this by making copies of copies of copies (etc.) of the self. Each successive copy may not exhibit a flaw when perceived right away, but maybe when compared to the original it would. In copying a copy, the process would 'expand' the flaws of the resleeving process. Or, at least that's what happens when you make a copy of a copy via a Xerox machine.

Interesting idea. I can certainly see this happening as an art project - the risk by 10 AF is that it "has already been done". But someone was first with it. There is also an interesting ethical issue here: the project creates potentially damaged minds. They might be versions of you and you-before-the-project thinks it will be OK, but some of them will be broken and could rationally say they did not want to participate (they find it worse than you-before-the-project thought it would be) or even lack the capacity to protest, yet would do so if they could. While this might be morally bad it also makes the project a touch more edgy - what rights do the copies of copies have? Doing it with beta forks is of course completely legal, but could still reach the same interesting uneasy situation. At present we have the odd situation that you don't need ethics approval for art projects, even when they can be quite risky (sculptures in the stomach, suspensions using hooks through the skin, crawling on glass etc.) while there are tough restrictions on what can be done in the name of science.

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Sun, 2010-11-28 20:21

Thomas McDermott Thomas McDermott's picture

Re: Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

Arenamontanus wrote:
Thomas McDermott wrote:
I would most likely try to break the system of resleeving one's self - as a claimed 'performance art' piece. I would try to do this by making copies of copies of copies (etc.) of the self. Each successive copy may not exhibit a flaw when perceived right away, but maybe when compared to the original it would. In copying a copy, the process would 'expand' the flaws of the resleeving process. Or, at least that's what happens when you make a copy of a copy via a Xerox machine.
Interesting idea. I can certainly see this happening as an art project - the risk by 10 AF is that it "has already been done". But someone was first with it. There is also an interesting ethical issue here: the project creates potentially damaged minds. They might be versions of you and you-before-the-project thinks it will be OK, but some of them will be broken and could rationally say they did not want to participate (they find it worse than you-before-the-project thought it would be) or even lack the capacity to protest, yet would do so if they could. While this might be morally bad it also makes the project a touch more edgy - what rights do the copies of copies have? Doing it with beta forks is of course completely legal, but could still reach the same interesting uneasy situation. At present we have the odd situation that you don't need ethics approval for art projects, even when they can be quite risky (sculptures in the stomach, suspensions using hooks through the skin, crawling on glass etc.) while there are tough restrictions on what can be done in the name of science.

Well if the technology was available, the idea would be there. If I couldn't do the project until AF10, then yeah - as with all art projects, some ideas are just waiting for someone to think about them. A typical challenge with idea based art forms. Originality becomes like a race between those seeking it. Ethical issues are not something new in the art world at all. Almost any recognition is good recognition, barring things that are just blatantly wrong of course (i.e. murder as art?). I heard about one project done by Vitto Acconci where he masturbated under a ramp in an art gallery while vocalizing fantasies about spectators in the gallery from his hidden position. That show got shut down. I also heard of a group of artists who used dead things as their pieces and even heard about an 'artist' who did a performance where he/she (?) had sex with a dead body (speaking of things that are wrong). Hell, my old professor created a 'transboarder immagration tool' as part of an art/activist project for Mexicans crossing the boarder. The tool is a recycled cell phone that delivered boarder crossers poetic texts and led them to sources of water. Republicans jumped on that fast. The art world is friend to controversy, they are very old friends. Of course a good project creates tension (which may be followed by controversy) while asking questions about why it is a point of tension or a point of controversy.

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cosmic microwave background radiation is awesome!

Mon, 2010-11-29 07:17

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

Thomas McDermott wrote:
Of course a good project creates tension (which may be followed by controversy) while asking questions about why it is a point of tension or a point of controversy.

Sounds like a good definition of a good project. I wonder what points of tension there are in Eclipse Phase worth pursuing? One obvious is the responsibility for the Fall. While most people prefer to point fingers at various groups or even claim it was just an exogenous event (some alien virus making the TITANs go mad, say) the truly uncomfortable truth is that it was largely due to human actions. Art that makes people realize their complicity in bringing about the Fall would likely be *very* interesting... but probably too controversial anywhere (just think about how most Americans react to things complicating their view of 911 - an even that was microscopic compared to the Fall) Another tension is likely that many have been thrown into a posthuman future unwillingly. If the Fall had not happened, maybe humanity would have gradually moved from orto-humanity to transhumanity on its own. But in the Fall anybody who didn't want to upload, accept radical personal transformation or escape to the limits of the solar system died. There are many, many people who now suffer profound existential angst due to what they have become. In time they might adapt and reconcile themselves with their lives, but right now there is plenty of tension between the realities of life and what people still think about bodies, souls, identity, humanity and nature. The copy-of-a-copy artwork does link to this in a good way. A third tension might be the presence of the truly alien. There are uplifts, AGIs and real aliens around. Not to mention exhumans and exsurgents. For the first time mankind is not alone, yet our relationship with the other entities is pretty complicated.

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Mon, 2010-11-29 08:02

Thomas McDermott Thomas McDermott's picture

Re: Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

Arenamontanus wrote:
Thomas McDermott wrote:
Of course a good project creates tension (which may be followed by controversy) while asking questions about why it is a point of tension or a point of controversy.
Sounds like a good definition of a good project. I wonder what points of tension there are in Eclipse Phase worth pursuing? One obvious is the responsibility for the Fall. While most people prefer to point fingers at various groups or even claim it was just an exogenous event (some alien virus making the TITANs go mad, say) the truly uncomfortable truth is that it was largely due to human actions. Art that makes people realize their complicity in bringing about the Fall would likely be *very* interesting... but probably too controversial anywhere (just think about how most Americans react to things complicating their view of 911 - an even that was microscopic compared to the Fall) Another tension is likely that many have been thrown into a posthuman future unwillingly. If the Fall had not happened, maybe humanity would have gradually moved from orto-humanity to transhumanity on its own. But in the Fall anybody who didn't want to upload, accept radical personal transformation or escape to the limits of the solar system died. There are many, many people who now suffer profound existential angst due to what they have become. In time they might adapt and reconcile themselves with their lives, but right now there is plenty of tension between the realities of life and what people still think about bodies, souls, identity, humanity and nature. The copy-of-a-copy artwork does link to this in a good way. A third tension might be the presence of the truly alien. There are uplifts, AGIs and real aliens around. Not to mention exhumans and exsurgents. For the first time mankind is not alone, yet our relationship with the other entities is pretty complicated.

Well, points of tension are not the only focus of art but they are always something to ponder when they are encountered. Another thing I notice about art is that most people will look at a piece and critique it with, "there should be more". "More" meaning, make it bigger, make it more excessive in whatever way that piece can become more excessive, or drive home the point more by doing x. more more more. Usually its, "this would be cool if it was even bigger". Anyway... Activism, art, how does it all exist in EP? EP is a game based around horrific, sci-fi, post apocalyptic adventure. But it is cool to wonder, what would an alien think of art? What would an AI think of art? What does that mean? The thing that is most inspirational to my own conceptual interests has been the idea of the post-human, because I am interested in documentation as an art form. So, in a way, you could say I have already been interested in the idea of post-humanity. I wonder what the art galleries are like in AF10. I bet they have a lot of nanite art :) Heh, I just got back from painting at my studio, so its kind of funny to be talking about this now.

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cosmic microwave background radiation is awesome!

Mon, 2010-11-29 09:05

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

Thomas McDermott wrote:
Anyway... Activism, art, how does it all exist in EP? EP is a game based around horrific, sci-fi, post apocalyptic adventure. But it is cool to wonder, what would an alien think of art? What would an AI think of art? What does that mean?

There is certainly art around, not to mention plenty of activism. Just look at the discussion we are having in the Carnival of the Goat thread - that habitat is filled with interesting and problematic artists (and criminals, crazies and got knows what else), or my gallery-cum-restarant Khymos. The apocalyptic aspect is setting, but the games played do not need to revolve about that. In fact, a campaign set in the art world of Eclipse Phase might be truly interesting. "Yes, I am a Firewall agent. I have fought against literally mind-searing monstrosities and alien conspiracies. But let me tell you, that is nothing compared to the strangeness I get from my day job as a gallery owner in Elysium. Let me tell you about the time when Yi Wengdo wanted to exhibit antimatter..." AI art can be quite odd. One of my favourite examples is from Scott Westerfeldt's novel "Evolution's Darling" where the protagonist is an AI art dealer. While he is not too alien, the scene where he is eating *abstract food* was really inspirational (it inspired Khymos above). AI artworks can involve parts that become parts of the viewer (hmm, maybe that is how the petal drugs started) or change the viewer to fit the artwork (the disposable aesthetic systems of Greg Egan's "Diaspora") "Sorry, but I am not much into painting, graphics and most sculpture. I grew up equipped with t-ray and ultrasound sensors, so I am used to see the inside of everything. I prefer to watch living biomorphs instead... do you know you have a statuesque heart?"

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Wed, 2010-12-01 08:45

Thomas McDermott Thomas McDermott's picture

Re: Introduction; from a Newly Sleeved Poster

Sweet! Intellect-food! I love the links you provided, its definitely an inspiration reading through both of them. And I'll have to look more into Evolution's Darling... that sounds really interesting too. Reading through both of the links, it seems that art really is important in EP - which is actually very exciting to me! One thing I have been thinking about is how I can relate a post human experience to something going on right now, all around us. I had a dream the other night - a couple of weeks ago. In the dream a friend, who had passed away many years ago, appeared to me in the form of a white wolf. She was trying to keep me away from an enormous black bird, an extremely tall black bird, maybe 8 feet high. I was intrigued with this awkward, monstrous bird, and the white wolf lunged at me to keep me back. This got me thinking about how people pass things on to you, things that shape you and who you are, even after they are gone. It made me wonder if this old friend of mine lived on in me in a way that I hadn't realized. So, I began assuming there was some current solution to becoming post human without all of these advances in technology. Mere culture, passing down our tongues, our knowledge, our description of the world - these are impressions. If you pass something to someone, that is of yourself - are you becoming a post human? In EP, the endeavor of uploading consciousness assumes that this digitized upload is creating an immortal out of a given person, but who is to say that each upload is the same person? A common philosophical question is asked, where do we divide who we were and who we are - a question we can grapple with even without the notion of immortality. Is there something similar to immortality and post humanity in passing on culture or interacting with another - even when considering that there is a definitive divide between the physicality of the self and what could be considered the after-self, the post human self, the bodiless self that exists as an impression in our relatives and friends? Abstractly, I think of another way to view the things we pass on to one another, subtleties we give one another about the way we perceive the world, suggestions we give to another person's brains that guide the direction of synaptic growth through inspiration - trafficking information in our mind as if building upon an intended direction. Do we live on in another place, where our arms and legs are made of another person's thoughts of us - maybe we are the host of the old ones and we don't even know it, until they dance in our dreams. Or maybe there is more to it than that... Dreaming and culture as a post human endeavor has become an interesting idea to me though... now, I have to think of ways to convey this artistically! :) All your ideas you wrote above are inspiring things I want to do when I run EP btw, thanks!

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cosmic microwave background radiation is awesome!