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Top1. Introduction
uTurn was created as a tool to explore the interference of the software component in the photographic medium, in the context of an investigation into contemporary imagetics for DMAD — a PhD in Digital Media Arts1. It was, in its genesis, a way to mimic the ambiance of a cinematic screen, allowing an interaction component. This interaction had to encompass the need to follow the majority trend of the room. The projection of short films of about one to two minutes was mediated by a moment of selection, focused on a QR Code component — a mechanism which facilitated access to a voting process. Through this machine, the public chose between two random Vidbits. The most voted option would be exhibited. The digital art installation uTurn took place during the Artech 2015 in Óbidos, Portugal. This experiment was initially rehearsed in a workshop, in 2014, and later presented at the central exhibition of the Artech forum in Óbidos, at the José Saramago’s House. The digital artifact was the result of a collaborative and shared discussion and was materially formed by a voting mechanism (software) produced with Quartz Composer in MacOS environment, using also a PHP server, a QR Code associated with mobile phones, elements of mural and sound projection, scenic sculptural objects and video elements.
Top2. Creative Process: An Explanatory Review
The creation of uTurn was thought as a way to experiment concepts developed in the context of the PhD thesis. Some of these tests were related to identity and morphogenesis issues created by the link to the notion of Post-Image: the influence of the medium in the creation process, the conceptualization and exploration of the notion of borderline tools in Photography software and also the idea of aggregated existence in the form of digital information that puts the digital imagetics beyond the scope of classical representation that was established in physical visual surfaces. Kuk and Zylinska (2016) describe this process as photomediation — an hybridization between humans and machines. Also, this digital ground imposes a software dependency: i) images are influenced in various ways by the software creator; ii) there is a choice of software properties by the software creator; iii) software creators impose conditions over image software; iv) Post-images conform to software pre-conditions. The simulation paradigm by which software mimics historical processes is a characteristic that was pointed during the study, with software issues being a conscious outcome of choices made by development teams, which thus condition their properties — a definition that has been pointed in different terms by several authors, such as Manovich, Mitchell, Cubbit. Algorithms, artificial intelligence, bots, indexing — those and many other fields act as one visible face of the expressive structural configuration that emerges from today’s image capture, image analytics and imagery build up tools — the “Expression embedded in the structure”, mentioned by Arnheim in the fifties (Arnheim, 2004, p. 449).