Q & A with Diana Domingues on Hybrid Images and Data Landscapes

This isn’t the first time that Diana Domingues, a pioneer of media art in the continent, attends Havana Biennial. During the seventh edition of the event, she exhibited Trans-e: My body, my blood, an installation in which technology already represented a fundamental auxiliary tool to articulate her artistic discourse. Nowadays, art books that contain the experience of the last fifty years describe this piece as one of the first examples of technologic art. She participated in the eleventh edition of Havana Biennial with a trans-disciplinary project of LART (Laboratory of Art and Techno-science from the University of Brasilia), which once again included technology. What did project Ouroborus Biocibrido: Geografismos del Extasis en Bioarte y reingenieria del sensorio involve?

Technology has been a frequent tool in my career since the very beginning, in late 1970s and early 1980s. At that time people were talking and debating on what technology represented and how to use it to make art. These matters have presently become more complex.

When the Organizing Committee invited me to participate in the Eleventh Havana Biennial, the first thing I tried to do was to related, from a thematic point of view, my present work with the one I showcased during the event’s seventh edition (1999-2000). In those days I was focused on the study of the trance experience and Afro-American rituals. In those days I conceived Trans-e: My body, my blood, a piece that remains alive and could be displayed once again in the Biennial, precisely because technology, in my case, has always been an auxiliary mean and not a result as such. When I created that artwork I counted on cutting-edge technology and I could use sensors to facilitate the interactivity through neuronal networks. It was a very complex installation and it has been included in the books on art. Even Edward Lucie Smith mentions it in Latin American Art of the 20th Century (2004), published by Thames & Hudson.

For the eleventh Biennial, I have gone over the trance again, but this time I have taken it through the interactivity as an interface of expanded sensoriality, denominated enactive systems. I was also interested in tackling the reengineering of expanded senses. The project I’ve brought to Havana, a result of the work I carry out in Brazil, has its origin in a research that tries to involve not only art, but technology. Techno-science is a new field to be studied by art that provides different tools and approaches. The main aspect of this relation is no longer about distinguishing what are the new means for art and how to use them, just as it was during its initial development stage. It is now all about sharing knowledge with scientists and maintaining mutual influence to benefit both disciplines. That’s the reason why there is a “platform of Los Nuevos Leonardos”, a space that gathers artists, scientists, humanists, who try to systematize and synthesize Leonardo da Vinci’s knowledge and work style.[1]

Arte y Tecnociencia is the name of the group we have in Brasilia (where we created the project we have brought to Havana), and it follows premises “The reengineering of life”, “The reengineering of nature” and “The reengineering of culture”. I work there with engineers, musicians, technicians and artists who study topics related to the human body, sound, biodiversity phenomenon, landscape problems, as well as technologic requirements to detect biological signals (micro-sensors). This trans-disciplinary group came to Cuba to create an office and collaborate with Cuban specialists during the Biennial period.

When we arrived in Cuba, we established our office at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) and worked for three days with the people that had signed in to join this collaboration experience. The first meeting was identified as a reconnaissance phase and environment sensitization. Afterwards, we identified the place where we would develop the project (this kind of work requires an oroborica perception, which means that your body must establish a dialogue with the environment. James Gibson, a specialist that has theorized a lot on this matter, proposes the concept of ecological perception for this kind of experience).

Each of us contributed with a different element, Andre, for example, is a musician and worked with sonorous landscapes; Carine, artist and researcher, dealt with corporeal problems and relations with the environment. Adson and Cristiano, doctors and scientists on biomedical engineering, gave conferences. Adson talked about the creation and operation of the sensors we use. He even handed out several microprocessor boards for Cuban engineers to continue the research in this field. Henrique, the other scientist and computer specialist that studies the processing of signals and data visualization, an emerging research field, also gave talks.  Although we were working at the ISA, we also included students from other centers, such as Cuba’s University of Computer Sciences (UCI).

The project I brought to Havana Biennial forced me to rethink artistic concepts and the entire creative work. We actually obtained the integration of educational and cultural systems with our proposal: art schools, the University, the embassy of Brazil, they were all cooperating. It was a very complicated mission.

How do you insert your artistic work within the framework of such a trans-disciplinary group?

I began to work with this group in 2009, when I moved to Brasilia. In those days, the Brazilian government opened a scholarship for pensioned researchers and circulated the category of National Visitor Researcher. These adjustments to the labor system allowed researchers to continue their projects and open new lines, even after they were sixty years old. In those days I put on the table an idea for the engineering area of Brasilia University, where there were several specialties: software, electronics, automobile, aerospace and energy. My proposal tackled the possibility of merging those engineering specialties with artistic work and humanistic disciplines.

Concept “The reengineering of life” came out of that project, which targets the modifications introduced in our lives by the technological development. This reengineering has three main areas: reengineering of sensorium (that was the one we developed in Cuba within the framework of the Biennial); reengineering of nature (deals with matters of the ecosystem and biodiversity), and reengineering of culture (studies our relation with the contemporaneity through different social networks).

My project obviously didn’t conceive the banal and innocent use of technology; it proposed a reflection on how our perception of the world has been transformed by that technology. There has been a lot of research improvement ever since, for instance, we have suggested two classifications to define the way subjects perceive their environment and their relation with it: “suitable body”, it means that they have an enhanced perception, and “inapt body”, present weakness, deficiencies, therefore, they can need a supplementary perceptive condition. So as to diagnose those bodies and take care of them, we have developed different sensor devices: micro-corneal, infrareds and robotics, as well as motion capture systems, eye tracking, cameras... Through all these devices we can obtain and translate physiological variables into images. They are, in essence, sensors for sign intake and communication that follow the principle of electricity. We put these sensors on the body and they measure the electric potential, through the breathing, muscular activity or biological waves of heartbeats that become electric signs. This is possible because when you are alive all of your senses are connected, it’s a semiotic principle: the whole body works as a system. This issue isn’t new for art, but thanks to the potential developed by some sciences we have the capability to turn those biological signs into computer data, a dialogue between body and machine. That was when the Oroborus idea came up.

Oroborus is also the name of one of the most ancient myths; it alludes to concepts such as the eternal return, the perpetual, and the infinite. What is the relation between this myth and the essence of the project?

Oroborus myth speaks of a snake that surrounds Earth and devours its own tail. It feeds from itself, destroys itself and self-generates. It’s like a metaphor of the cyclic nature of universe. That was the reason why we named this project Oroborus Biocibrido. “Bio” because it is biological, but it doesn’t require physic human presence, the existence data is enough. And “Cibrido” from “cyber”, refers to biological data captured and processed through sensors and turned into images. This process creates an existential continuum. That’s the reason why most of the ideas we develop not only entail an interaction with the two-dimensional screen, because when we are surfing the web your sensations don’t have any influence on the website; but it is different when you are interacting with acquisition and communication sensors, because your biological data do influence the signs. It’s all about feedback.

Project Oroborus obviously takes human body as the main research material, since it allow them to study and map the emotional behavior of an individual that is involved in exceptional events or situations (such as the interaction with nature or the Internet). So they reintroduce the ritual practice, as it somehow subjects the body to an extraordinary experience. In the history of art, the ritual has represented a remarkable important focus of attention, especially since the avant-garde and the anthropologic interest of modern artists in getting to know Amerindian, African and Oceanic cultures. From what perspective has these groups taken the phenomenon of rituals and what’s the relation with technology?

During the meetings we held at the ISA, within the framework of the Biennial, we talked a lot about Mesoamerican and African rituals, since we are interested in the sort of relation these practices suggest with nature. We believe that men experience the ecstasy in these rituals. As they go through this state, the body has the awareness of being alive and dominates the language used to express. Mediums, for instance, don’t experience the ecstasy, but trance: they feel how their minds leave their bodies, how they get isolated. When we participate in a ritual we go through different phases: from trance to ecstasy.

The dance professor that works we us at Brasilia University has intensely studied the process of rituals. And she thinks that sounds play a leading role to take men into that state of ecstasy, through the sounds of nature or those that have been created by using instruments.

We have also worked with the theory developed by Laban, an Austrian choreographer. He thinks that men repeat in their daily life the same movements they do while they dance. For Laban, those movements can have different objectives: to rehabilitate damaged areas of the body or train it so it becomes more aware of those movements and their meaning.

People who visited our “office” in Havana were invited to let their bodies follow the sounds. When they totally followed the sound stimulations, they obtained a connection with the cosmos. We were able to capture and visualize biological signs emitted by their bodies during this ecstasy state, through the micro-sensors we put on the subjects. That was how we created a zone of interactivity between body, technologies and environment.

When you mention the interactivity you refer to that state of exchange, connection and, at the same time, feedback, and this term you use is strongly related to the concepts that have been stated by theoreticians of the new means.

Yes, sure. Everything is related. But there is a huge difference between the concept of enactive systems and interactivity. Both concepts describe a kind of relation with the environment mediated by the computerized system; but the first one conceives that relation as a biological body, entails a mutual link among system, life data and environment, and creates a connection among them to expand our sensorial and cognitive capabilities. In this case, environment and system act on the body, but the biological data emitted by this one can also transform them. They affect each other. According to Maturana and Varela, there is a structural connection. That is why we talk about “Biocibrido” in our project, because these life data are transferred from the body to the machine and become image, but they affect all the elements involved in the process.

This issue has points of contact with other authors, periods and trends within the history of art. The interactivity displayed by this work has been, we could say, a constant element for some creators and theoreticians…

Yes. Futurists, for example, believed that the principle of life was electricity, and this one was expressed in the movement. They tried to reflect it in the works, to involve viewers. During the 1960s, Julio Le Parc tackled important aspects with kinetic art. The same happens with Jean Tinguely, or Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, who studied the sensoriality and environment. Jackson Pollock’s action painting is one of the examples of what I see as a gesture, as a way to transfer energy from the body to the canvas. There are other cases out of the world of art, such as toys and fantastic machines, electric stimulation for dancers, medicine and domestic electrotherapy.

Project Oroborus includes artists, biologists, engineers, scientists, specialists on information and automation technologies... These disciplines meet one common purpose, in spite of their different subjects of study. One of the objectives of this joint work is the possibility to generate interactive environments. Taking into account the role played by the artist and art over the history, art’s research methods, its constructive procedures, its strategies to intervene in the reality; what do you think is the role played by the artist, the main pillar of creation, in this multidisciplinary venture?

Artists are scientists in Oroborus, in terms of their capacity to contribute with knowledge and experience. That’s why we talk about “Los Leonardos”. We, creators, take science to other levels of debate. We use, for instance, the rituals from serious researches (such as Laban’s, the Austrian choreographer I mentioned), which show different ways to study the body and its interaction with the environment …. But anyway, that’s to be studied by other disciplines, not mine. That’s in interesting point in joining a trans-disciplinary team: you don’t have to master what other person already knows. There is a Brazilian theoretician, Ivan Domingues, a philosopher of trans-disciplinaryness, who has written a lot on work method of these “offices”. He says that they are ignorance zones: you don’t have to know about sign processing, because that’s a scientific matter. We can have common research subjects, but we don’t share the same knowledge or strategies to fulfill the research. Sciences have to lose their authoritarian sense in these groups, and art has to relinquish its aura, all of them have to dialogue and come together in one system without any hierarchy. It’s very interesting to see how an artist or a theoretician can set out problems for other sciences.

I believe that artists shouldn’t be so concerned about technical issues and focus their attention on the “role” they play, which I think is to humanize that technique. Just software for software isn’t art. The creator that works with new means has to be capable to create art with a computer program. He is the one to qualify the means, and that’s the reason why they say: “the means are innocent.”

For example, there was a teacher who had one extremely-shy boy, but when she used computer terms in her dialogue the boy became uninhibited. Another MIT teacher has developed the concept of “affective computation” to study the communication. That’s the target of bringing different sciences and disciplines together. The objective of merging them is not to debate questions on electric potential, but to connect approaches and contribute with new perspectives. Each discipline deals with the issue from its work platform, but compares it with the rest of the team. It’s necessary to join these communities, to aim our knowledge and experience at developing a team. It’s not only about creating art, but art and science should influence the extreme problems faced by mankind. It shouldn’t be a demagogic art, but art integrated to the society, to contribute with information and knowledge.

All this technological development has a correlate the fact that human experience is presently more visual, it’s even more “visualized”, just as theoretician and Professor Nicholas Mirzoeff would say. The visualization of data that isn’t visual as such has turned out to be very common. An example is what you mentioned on the reception of biological signals and their translation into electronic and digital data. Information technology has shed light on a reality that was invisible to our eyes and has offered new perspectives on the visual. In a world where visualness represents the main platform –not the only one– that mediates in communicative processes and knowledge transference; what should be the role of art, since it’s one of the main producers of visualness?

Nowadays, most of scientific images are post-photographic, which means that they are images that weren’t so before; they were just data, but they become images after having read those data, having processed that information (that’s the so-called data visualization). That data creates images. It’s all about a new iconography that is dominating and penetrating the contemporary imaginary. Some years ago, we didn’t accept digital images; we preferred analogical images. When the photography came up in the 19th century, there was a dispute between theoreticians and art critics on its status as art. Those changes always take place in the history of art. Today we have images that aren’t photographic, video-graphic, or movies, in the traditional sense of these terms. They are hybrid images, the result of data transformation, of signals that are read and processed. It’s not about synthetic computerized images or reality simulations. They are born from natural phenomenon, the world. Nowadays, mothers can see their babies before they are born, and what they see are just sonorous data that have been turned into images, that’s what an ultrasound scan is all about.

For instance, in Havana Biennial we showcased images of the states of mind that can be reached by men during a ritual. It’s the visualization of data from emotional systems of bodies that were monitored by sensors. And this is a milestone in the history of image. Our contribution would be to show what is presently called new abstractionism, or data visualization. We have brought data landscapes of bodies during a ritual dynamic. We could say that these are drawings of what those bodies were feeling. Our mission as artists is to collaborate when it comes to visualizing data. How? That depends. It could be done by receiving the biological images emitted by the body during a certain state of mind and turning these signals into images to enhance the way we exist and perceive the existence. But it can only be done by using technology in a creative way.

[1]This is the so-called Los Nuevos Leonardos (The New Leornards) organization, ISAST: a platform for scientific researches, chaired by astrophysicist Roger Malina. It’s an international movement based on the different possibilities to merge art, science and technology, thus combining the knowledge of creators, scientists, along with the experience of trans-disciplinary collaboration practices.