C.E.B. Reas answers Tori Tan's questions for XFUNS magazine #13

 

Please introduce some of yourself. (like your childhood, educational background, professional experiences, and current life.)

I grew up an a very inauspicious place. A small city called Troy in the state of Ohio in the United States. I stayed there for eighteen years, living in the same house at the edge of town. Ohio is a very interesting part of the United States – an even mix of agriculture and industry. People who have never been there can’t imagine what it’s like.

Like most people who end up like me, my favorite childhood activities were drawing and reading. These have been continuous interests throughout my life, but my relationship with computers is more complex. My first experiences with them was playing video games. When I was young, we had an Apple II and hundreds of cracked games on 5 ¼” floppies. For me, the computer was a space to explore and discover. At that time programming didn’t interest me because playing games was more fun.

I studied design at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. My professors were all trained in Basel, Ulm, or Yale and this has an enormous influence on my work. I moved to New York one week after graduation and have been moving around since: New York, Boston, Turin, Los Angeles. My first professional passion was graphic design, with an emphasis on designing books. I then shifted to information design and designed dense informational websites. In 1999 I ceased all commercial activity to attend graduate school at MIT and since 2001 I’ve been teaching and showing my work in exhibitions. The catalyst for discontinuing my life as a designer was learning computer programming.

With Cait, my fashion designer wife of eight years, I moved to Los Angeles nine months ago. I’m now teaching at UCLA, working on Processing, and creating materials for exhibitions.

Please reveal some current and future projects.

I’m most excited about the {Software} Structures project commissioned for the Whitney Museum of American Art by Christiane Paul. It explores the idea of software as art by making analogies to the work of the conceptual artist Saul LeWitt. I re-implemented three of LeWitt’s wall drawings, text descriptions of a drawing to be drafted directly on a wall, in software and made modifications unique to the software medium. This revealed some of the basic differences, both positive and negative, about working in software. A second part of the project involved writing three structures unique to software, implementing them, and commissioning three artists to re-interpret the structures in code. The interpretations by Jared Tarbell, Robert Hodgin, and William Ngan are very fascinating collaborations between my structure and their own ideas. This project has led me to a new kind of work, where I write program with drawings and English language before technically implementing the work on the computer. This allows me to break free of some constraints of working directly in precise machine languages and also gives the viewer an easier way to understand the work.

I currently working on a commission for a new W hotel which will be opening this Fall in Seoul. Through the bitforms gallery, Golan Levin and I are writing a series of software pieces that will be accessible within the rooms. The guests will have a touch screen that allows them to interact with the software, which are all enhanced drawing programs. This is a very unique opportunity and I’m looking forward to seeing how it is received.

What do you enjoy and endure the most during the vicissitudes of working process?

My two favorite moments are the beginning and end of the process. I love the moment of euphoria that comes with a new idea (usually 20 minutes later the realization that it was a mediocre idea sinks in, but that leaves room for more new ideas and more euphoric moments). At the end of the project I get very excited as all the parts come together and the piece then truly becomes more than the sum or its parts. Either the vision is revealed at this moment or it is crushed, but always the moment is amazing.

Please share the story of groupc.net. (Its namesake, catalyst, concept, objective, content, evolution, design solution and feedback... )

GroupC.net began immediately after I graduated from the MIT Media Lab. At MIT we all had a very strong identity and affiliation with John Maeda and the Aesthetics and Computation Group. Upon leaving, it becomes necessary for all graduates to re-invent their own identity. At that time I was totally obsessed with kinetic sculpture and I was moving to Italy. There were two well know kinetic sculpture groups in Italy in the 1960s called Gruppo N and Gruppo M. Inspired by these titles, I formed Group C where the “C” was an abbreviation for “cell”. I feel that eponymous websites are confining and I wanted the flexibility to exhibit work resulting from potential collaborations.
I’m continually frustrated with presenting my work on the Web. Many of my works are important to experience in person as I put a lot of thought into the relation of the work to the body. All of my work has a resolution (either in time or space) that the web can not present. When people see my work in person they are often surprised because it is an entirely different experience to looking at images and small movies on the Web.
I take a lot of pride in creating everything with my own hands, and GroupC continually suffers from lack of attention as I’m always very busy with other aspects of my life.

Please introduce your newest work 'TI' (e.g. the concept, the physicality and maybe interaction as an installation piece... ) Please also share the process of its evolution from Articulate (on the processing.org) to Articulate (on the groupc.net) to the current state of 'TI'.

TI is an environment of enigmatic growing forms. It is a software installation projecting images onto disks hovering above the floor and configured to encourage people to move through the space, stopping to look at the different images. I feel strongly that all software should have a method of presentation that is optimum for the concept. I’m very frustrated to show my work on standard computer screen using peripherals like a mouse or keyboard. These are abitrary physical objects which have no intrinsic relation to my work. My previous projects Tissue and RPM both also have interfaces built to relate to the software’s controls. In the future, I’m working to always integrate my software into objects and environments.

Please introduce your work 'MicroImage'. (Something very intriguing in your essay from www.aec.at ). Please also tell us how can a software be rendered on a medium (plastic or plasma screen?) of such a gigantic dimension (5 x 2.8 meters). Why did you make this conscious choice (what kind of quality of interaction do you expect here)?

MicroImage is the first piece of software I’ve built where the audience is excluded from physically interacting with the work. Instead of allowing the viewer to change the program, I’ve encoded my own preferences for how the software should be used. This was primarily an exploration into ideas of control and asking questions about the importance of interaction to the success of a work. I’ve since made other software including Articulate and Structures 000-003 which continue this paradigm. Within the last month, I’ve decided that for my work, a human body can make far better decisions about how to interact with software than another piece of software and I’m not building any additional generative work at this time.

MicroImage is also a good example of exploring a concept through diverse media. The core of all my work is the concept, not the implementation. I work in print to reveal the resolution of the system, I work with animation to have complete control of how the image unfolds over time, and I implement the structure in software so it’s possible to interact with it. The software implementation is closest to my actual concept, but the other media provide additional windows into structure.

In addition to the software, MicroImage is also manifested as prints and animation. There is a series of medium format prints and a triptych of large format prints of 5x2.8 meters which was commissioned by the Ars Electronica Center. We printed them at a commercial printer who usually prints enormous advertisements. The quality of the printing decreases tremendously at this size but the scale allows for a different experience of the underlying structure. To augment the software and prints, an 8 minutes animation was carefully scripted. The animation explores an image resolution not possible in software due to the processor’s speed not being able to draw as many lines as I want in each frame. For each different medium, I alter the software to enhance the qualities unique to that medium.

There are infinite and inexhaustible iterations, representations, materiality, media, and interaction loops... that the same code can be modified and manifest on. How to make the right choices? Please take 1-3 works as examples and share your precious experiences and ruminations in this regard.

I don’t think software is very different from other media in this regard. The space of potential creation always approaches the infinite. The difference is in the potential of the final artifact. My software works are systems describing the relationships between disparate elements. These systems can be used to produce myriad finite artifacts or can simply exists as an ephemeral electronic process.

All your software works elicit immediate and diverse interactive merits. But instead of having the audience interact with them, you are, usually, the person who interacts with them. And they are usually presented in their most literal incarnation: still images, which offers documentary, even diagnostic proof of something once ephemeral. (I mean the collapses of time and space yield the naturally rich tenacity belong to an still image.)
Why? You are taking more control because of what reasons? And are there any metrics in terms of what frames to be frozen and garnered (and how to set the boundaries, how to crop, what dimension to preserve, what to screen out... make me think about all those curious 'thumbnails' appearing on groupc and Processing site)? Do you add any more image-processing-touches to a still image (a vector?) freshly gleaned from a dynamic software?

Many people within the electronic arts feel that all work must be “interactive.” Various debates throughout the decades have brought about terms like “cybernetic”, “interpassive”, “responsive”, and “reactive” and debates typically end without satisfaction. I’m agnostic about the merits of “interactivity” and continually explore different qualities and quantities of “interaction” in my work. Sometimes I want to present the work entirely as I envision it and sometimes the work only exists when other people are using it.

One of your conceptual threads is 'digital image research'. So then, how do you define digital image anyway? Could you please illuminate us more using some of your myriad experiments including ORA, Mediation, code on the 'sketches' page of groupc.net, Processing learning examples, interesting collections of photos on your MIT site... (maybe RPM and Plane Modulation could be counted in too) (So you like flight404)?

I use a very simple definition for “digital image.” It’s an image comprised of a series of numbers corresponding to colors. Unlike photography with chemicals, digital images have discrete borders and distinct color elements. Furthermore, I think a digital image can only exist within a computer, meaning that when it is printed, it’s no longer digital. Digital images are always seen as elements of light on a screen or projected on a surface. A digital image is a wonderful set of data which can be re-presented in myriad ways rather than its intended order. My exploration into digital image research uses techniques such as showing the entire image one color at a time, revealing only one row of the image at a time and stretching it to fill the screen. In the future I’m going to clarify these decisions and increase the rigor with which they are executed.

After 'Cell' which comes from 'Edge', you works gradually evolved into a new aesthetic style. No more geometric shapes, just 'actions', intuitive and orchestrated, being 'painted', and more color gradients emerged. We may still say that all of your works represent a continuous flux. They prove one another's existence. Because you simply started to record the history of the locations of the cells in 'Cells 4' on time-based media. But is this right? Please talk about anything on your mind.

The new aesthetic that emerges after Cells was an attempt to completely remove aesthetics from the work. In Cells, geometry is applied to a software process. The form of two half-circles is imposed onto an abstract computational process. The subsequent work removes arbitrary formal decisions and used only lines which appear in the precise location of the software process. The firms is a more direct representation of the software structure underneath and the composition reveals itself through time. This new work compresses primitive geometric forms moving over time into one accumulative visual plane.

Why are you interested in making abstractions of the processes of the physical world? What's your notion of abstraction? Abstraction appears to bring a great sense of internal cohesion to your work. All aspects, even its raw material, coding, galvanize toward abstraction. Please say more.

I don’t think of abstraction as devoid of representation, but there are different levels of abstraction along the path from pure representation to pure abstraction. For example, there are the abstractions of landscape found in the work of Dieberkorn and the abstractions of Rothko which make no reference to our physical environment. In my work I create abstractions for the systems of the natural world, rather than the appearance of the natural world. The fact that people see recognizable forms in my work is symptomatic of how our brains work, but is inconsequential in understanding the my work. The works Tissue and MicroImage are based on writings of neuroanatomist Valentino Braitenberg. Because these software is derived from natural systems, sometimes natural visual patterns appear in their movement.

How do you understand 'emergent behavior' which is another major theme explored in your work? According to your words "simple layers of code combine to create the deceptively complicated behavior of these machines... ", coding environment is an emergent system too. Please say more.

The concept of “emergence” refers to the generation of structures that are not specified or intentionally programmed. Instead of consciously designing the entire structure, simple programs may be written to define the interactions between elements. Structure emerges from the discreet movements of each organism as it modifies itself in relation to the environment. The structures generated through this process cannot be anticipated and evolve through continual iterations involving alterations to the programs and exploring the changes through interacting with the software. My understanding of emergence was informed by the publications of scientists and journalists including John Holland, Mitchell Resnick, and Kevin Kelly.

We know that you are not a life-time programmer which is like most of our readers. Does this endow your work any unique traits? Please share some of your learning experiences with us too.

I’ve been learning about computer programming since 1998 when I was 26. I spent many years working with visual media before thinking about it in relation to writing code. I still hold many prejudices from this time and I think it allows me to not be consumed by the technology. In some ways I’m constrained because I don’t have the programming skills of some of my contemporaries, but it also helps me to put the focus on the work on the concept rather than technical innovation. I don’t accept programming for what it is, but instead think critically about how it can be improved for making visual and interactive work. Programming languages all developed for making precise calculating programs and this heritage can be very confining for people wanting to do different things with the technology.

Please talk about anything you'd like to talk as being a teacher in interactive arts.

People in my generation were the first to grow up using computers as toys. Most people I know who are creating interesting work today spend hours playing on their parents computers during their childhood. The new generation which is now coming through the university systems is even far more comfortable using machines and they have no fear for the technology and they don’t think about the time before the existence of the Web. My goal as an educator is to push them to not accept the current state of the digital arts as the only possible direction. I want to give them the conceptual and practical skills to invent the future.