20th March 2009

Alexis, Glenn & Wyn at Artstation.

Alexis likes the idea of moire' becoming a central concept within the project.  He agrees that it fits very well - even the history of the word moire' is itself a moire'! 

What Alexis likes about the idea more than anything is its relevance to translation studies.  Translation, according to Alexis, has not really been theorised.  The study of translation, like many other disciplines in the West, is still dominated by "the limited lexicon of the Middle Ages".   When asked to expand upon this he explains that, essentially, a binary system of rhetoric continues to dominate Western thinking.  This "binary system" originated within ancient Greek philosophy (Plato's "ideal" versus "reality"), later it was developed within Christian philosophy (Heaven vs. Earth, Angels vs. the Devil, etc.).   This pattern is replicated within the context of translation: Text A is translated into Text B, one is the original and another a copy, the first is pure and the second is impure.  

Using the concept of moire', however, within the context of translation studies, represents a new rhetoric.  Grid A is placed on top of Grid B, but because of cultural differences, they are not perfectly aligned.  As a result a moire' pattern is created.  The cultural interference is made manifest, it can be perceived, discussed and analysed.  The two grids are in both a symbiotic and a dynamic relationship to each other; what is created goes beyond the sum of its parts.  One cannot be "reduced" to the other, their relationship has been made complex.  The moire' concept thus offers a model of irreducibility.  

Our discussion lead naturally to metaphor.  Glenn's notes used the word unproblematic-ally, but for Alexis the term is problematic.  Metaphor, in common parlance, continues to be imbedded within a binary system of rhetoric.  Reality vs. an image of reality.  Alexis prefers the term user language, a term borrowed from cybernetics, which we used within the Paperwork articles.  A user language does not claim to be anything more than a useful term within a particular context, at a particular moment of time.  It does not claim to have a directly equated with reality.  The term metaphor can be seen to be imposed from above (meta), whereas user language comes from below, it can be said to emerge organically from conversation.  However, Glenn claims that metaphor, as used with cybernetics, is different, is more complex, but needs to expand upon this. 

The concept of moire' introduces tapestry as a key concept of understanding and analysis.  Rather than using metaphor or an image to describe phenomenon, we can use tapestry.  The fact that moire' patters are sometimes experienced as moving, also captures the dynamic-ness of cultural changes.   We begin to move away from fixed images and embrace the ever-changing-ness of life.  In speaking form the tapestry, one could say, the project will be engaged with inventing a new rhetoric.  (We are aware that when writing the AHRC application, it will be necessary to tone down our grandiose claims!)  

20th March EXTRA NOTES

On the Moire and Interference
Etymology of the term Moire is fascinating keep in mind our search for new rhetoric in respect of migration - the migratory linguistic history of the term moire:

From the Wikipedia:

The term originates from moire (or moiré in its French form), a type of textile, traditionally of silk but now also of cotton or synthetic fiber, with a rippled or 'watered' appearance. The history of the word moiré is complicated. The earliest agreed origin is the Arabic mukhayyar (مُخَيَّر in Arabic, which means chosen), a cloth made from the wool of the Angora goat, from khayyara (خيّر in Arabic), 'he chose' (hence 'a choice, or excellent, cloth'). It has also been suggested that the Arabic word was formed from the Latin marmoreus, meaning 'like marble'. By 1570 the word had found its way into English as mohair. This was then adopted into French as mouaire, and by 1660 (in the writings of Samuel Pepys) it had been adopted back into English as moire or moyre. Meanwhile the French mouaire had mutated into a verb, moirer, meaning 'to produce a watered textile by weaving or pressing', which by 1823 had spawned the adjective moiré. Moire (pronounced "mwar") and moiré (pronounced "mwar-ay") are now used somewhat interchangeably in English, though moire is more often used for the cloth and moiré for the pattern.

Here we see migrants as undesirable artifacts !:
[edit] Pattern formation Moiré patterns are often an undesired artifact of images produced by various digital imaging and computer graphics techniques, for example when scanning a halftone picture or ray tracing a checkered plane (the latter being a special case of aliasing, due to undersampling a fine regular pattern).

The drawing on the upper right shows a moiré pattern. The lines could represent fibers in moiré silk, or lines drawn on paper or on a computer screen.


THIS IS NOT PREDICTABLE ...
The nonlinear interaction of the optical patterns of lines creates a real and visible pattern of roughly horizontal dark and light bands, the moiré pattern, superimposed on the lines.[1] More complex line moiré patterns are created if the lines are curved or not exactly parallel. Moiré patterns revealing complex shapes, or sequences of symbols embedded in one of the layers (in form of periodically repeated compressed shapes) are created with shape moiré, otherwise called band moiré patterns. One of the most important properties of shape moiré is its ability to magnify tiny shapes along either one or both axes, that is, stretching. A common 2D example of moiré magnification occurs when viewing a chain-link fence through a second chain-link fence of identical design. The fine structure of the design is visible even at great distances. The moiré is also related to effects seem as imaging through various types of display

The term shadow mask and tension mask attracted me to:

Aperture grille
The Wiki again: Aperture grille based CRT in close-up Image rendered by aperture grille

An aperture grille (tension mask) is one of two major technologies used to manufacture color cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer displays; the other is shadow mask.

Fine vertical wires behind the front glass of the display screen separate the different colors of phosphors into strips. These wires are positioned such that an electron beam from one of three guns at the rear of the tube is only able to strike phosphors of the appropriate color. That is, the blue electron gun will strike blue phosphors, but will find a wire blocks the path to red and green phosphors.

The fine wires allow for a finer dot pitch as they can be spaced much closer together than the perforations of a shadow mask, and there need be no gap between adjacent horizontal pixels. During the display of bright images, a shadow mask will heat up, and expand outward in all directions (sometimes called blooming). Aperture Grilles do not exhibit this behavior - when the wires heat up, they expand vertically. Because there are no defined holes, this expansion does not affect the image, and the wires do not move horizontally.

Frequency fluctuations - different from Moire..
The vertical wires of the aperture grille have a resonant frequency and will vibrate in sympathetic resonance with loud sounds near the display, resulting in fluttering and shimmering of colors on the display. To reduce these resonant effects, one or two horizontal stabilizing wires are welded across the grille wires, and may be visible as fine dark lines across the face of the screen. These stabilizing wires provide the easiest way to distinguish aperture grille and shadow mask displays at a glance. The stabilized grille can still vibrate but the sounds need to be loud and in close proximity to the display.

Additionally, aperture grille displays tend to be vertically flat and are often horizontally flat as well, while shadow mask displays usually have a spherical curvature.

The first patented aperture grille televisions were manufactured by Sony in the late 1960s under the Trinitron brand name, which the company carried over to its line of CRT computer monitors. Subsequent designs, either licensed from Sony or manufactured after the patent's expiration, tend to use the -tron suffix, such as Mitsubishi's DiamondTron and ViewSonic's SonicTron.

While many considered aperture grille technology to produce superior images, advances in shadow mask and hybrid technologies since the 1990s have made people's preferences more a matter of personal choice or specific application. The arrival of inexpensive liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors and other flat-screen designs now challenges both aperture grille and shadow mask CRTs' long reign as the dominant technology behind display screens.

On metaphor - the work of G Pask and Cybernetics.
On Information, conversation and communication theory.

Paper: Cybernetic contributions to a theory of communication : the cases of Donald M. MacKay and Gordon Pask by Dr Albert Muller - Department of Contemporary History in University of Vienna.
albert.mueller@univie.ac.at

Paper for the Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies. Cybernetics and Systems
Volume 1 - 2008 - Robert Trappl - editor

... discusses how Claude E Shannon's 'A mathematical theory of communication' of 1948 deals with second law of thermodynamics through Ludwig Boltzmans findings on entropy phenomena and the reliability of signal transmission. In the 1980's Shannon became a kind of cult author amongst post-modern media theorists. Muller shows how the work of MacKay and Pask build on deficiencies in Shannons work - Mackay bringing semantics and meaning into discussion ... " Pask concentrated additionally on the characteristics of actors or participants and provided an overall framework of communication by embedding special situations into an observer related system"...

This Moire interference project may be developed to be consistent with Shannon, MacKay and Pasks differing conception of communication.

Notes by GD

18th March - Moire and Metaphor

Research notes: The matter of migration and metaphor

In 2002 Artstation created the user language ‘suspension’ whilst in residence at the Le Petit Chateau, Asylum Seekers' Reception Centre, Brussels. The concept encapsulates the life of those who are in suspension of every aspect of their lives. The work was distributed though various high level and public events and is the subject of two academic papers available through: www.artstation.org.uk where the term 'user language' is discussed further.

Subsequently, in establishing the new project about eco migration, we have recently became aware of suspension used as metaphor in Gaijin-San's Mr Foreigner performance theatre (covered 14th Feb); we also assume this is probably wide spread.

In thinking about the way in which metaphors are used in describing migration and how these are created and distributed and become quotable, the question of forming new contemporary language to engage with the subject is raised. (Alexis will discuss later the binary history within terms currently in use and defend a rejection of metaphor )

The subject of cultural material is evoked in the work of Proboscis' Urban Tapestries project. (Probosics website: http://proboscis.org.uk/. Urban Tapestries website: http://urbantapestries.net/). This seminal work establishes a range of metaphor and processes on which we may build.

The tapestries in Proboscis' case are those woven across urban landscape as people act within the network of communication that they live within. The tapestries become visible in objects and processes like Story Cubes (proboscis.org.uk/storycubes). The Urban Tapestries project establishes the metaphor of cultural fabric.

Our proposal is to build meta-objects from the cultural fabric of migration - a way in which local entities combine, magnify and oscillate as frequencies. (Meta-object is a term borrowed from computer science, and can be defined as 'en entity that manipulates, creates, describes or implements other objects'.) This technique is to be used on specific words and text, creating new compound artifacts in both language and pattern. The work created will be disseminated as images, as media forms and as critical texts, allowing maximum impact on the culture.

The meta-objects are produced within a moire' pattern – a signal to ground disruption. Pattern is generated by the material weave of culture. If such a pattern is passed across itself, in self-intersecting feedback, signals create interference, thus a moiré is transmitted which can be interpreted by our perception.

Moire - A new conceptual space and (metaphor) for thinking about migration...

Pattern is generated in the material of such tapestries by secrets, gossip and rumour within, or at the level of, the veil. Objects we wish to extract are expressed as keywords/concepts, which capture and embody communicable experience of the group.

Tapestry gives a range of metaphor - a cultural material weave, a moire', and also aperture grille.

GD

17th of March

Glenn and Wyn meeting at Wyn's place.

As part of the process of attending the Beyond Text workshop, Alexis has written a 300-word statement outlining the project.  Glenn and Wyn met to discuss it.

Discussion turned towards the term "moire'", which Glenn has been using in reference to the Creole piece, where it occurred as two texts crossed each other.  In that process new words were suggested, which can be described as moire' patterns.  We looked the term up in the dictionary (and later on-line) and thought it most apt as a metaphor for migration, for cross-cultural interchange. (Wikipedia definition:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moire_pattern.)

The history of the word itself is quite interesting - how it has criss-crossed cultures, been translated/mutated from one language to another, making it particularly relevant within the context of migration.  The Morie' Effect, for example, could be a possible title for the project.

We also talked more about our particular functions within the project and the idea that each of us, from our respective disciplines/roles, is "translating" what the others are doing.  Metaphors surrounding moire'(tapestry, weaving, braid, etc.), in this way, can be embodied into the very fabric of the team's structure.  More work on our roles is required, as well as a diagram to visually represent how we will inter-relate during thecourse of the project.

9th of March & Evelyn Welch

Meeting at Alexis' office, Cardiff Uni, with Margaret and Rachel.

We discussed the idea of organising a research workshop to be held at Cardiff Uni on Friday the 24th of April - times yet to be finalised.  The session would be open to both students and staff.  Other Cardiff Uni, outside of European Studies, were also mentioned as people who should be invited: the European Centre for Research, Newport, and also colleagues from the School of Journalism, Cardiff ('Post-colonialism, Ethnicity, Visuality and Cultural Politics').  The aim would be to present some of the ideas surrounding our project.  It'll hopefully be beneficial to participants and also to us as a team, re clarifying our ideas and giving them a public airing.  We envisage the workshop would include: Glenn presenting his Creole images; Glenn & Wyn on Paperwork; Alexis on his translation studies work; and maybe Wyn on his Continental Drift project.  Plenty of space will be provided to talk about our current proposal.

We also discussed the Beyond Text funding application, picking Margaret and Rachel's brains on the matter, as they themselves are also currently preparing a proposal for the same funding scheme.  They were very generous with their comments and advice, e.g. telling us about Beyond Text Small Grants workshop at Queen Mary University, London, on the 25th of March.  

We agreed that this funding scheme seemed appropriate, although the deadline of the 7th of May was very tight.  Alexis agreed to play the role of Principal Investigator (PI) and to push ahead with the bid.

After the meeting Wyn spoke to Evelyn Welch, who is the scheme's Programme Director.  She thought our project did sound as if it fitted in well with the scheme, but would need to be tweaked somewhat to play down its migration aspect (because this theme had been covered by a recent AHRC funding scheme), and play up its visual translation aspect, iconography, the transmission of memory through time and place, etc.  In the light of these recent discussions, it could make sense to break down our project into two distinct phases:

• Phase One: Creating the art work (large photographic prints & film), to be funded by Beyond Text.  Dissemination could include: journal article and an art installation at a local venue, e.g. Welsh Assembly Building.  In some ways this would function as a pilot project for Phase Two.  Research questions evolving around visual translation; and maybe broadening out the theme/subject to include devolution, democracy, education?
  

• Phase Two: Brussels Conference and accompanying art installation at the European Parliament building.  This would could more specifically narrow down the theme to focus primarily on migration.  Same art work could be used, or tweaked to accommodate the new environment.  To be funded by a different scheme.

Evelyn stressed the importance of our research questions tying in closely with the questions outlined in the Beyond Text guidelines.   She also indicated the importance to them of backing projects that had a "big impact".  The European Parliament art installation was mentioned, but because of the 7th of May deadline, it seems highly unlikely that we would be able to confirm a booking by then!  Phase Two, and its big impact on an international level, can be alluded to in the application, but Phase One itself would also need to have a big impact.

Wyn will aim to attend the 25th of March workshop at Queen Mary's.  The three of us will also aim to meet up with Evelyn in the near future for a face to face chat, to help tweak the proposal, and ease us all into the enchanting mysteries of AHRC applications!  

Funding details:

http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/BeyondText.aspx

Thurs 26th of Feb, 09

Meeting at Gwdihw cafe. Glenn brought the AHRC's Beyond Text: Performances, Sounds, Images, Objects Programme, to the table as a potential funding avenue. Also, he showed us work he had done last year for MA Fine Art student, Adiola, consultancy work funded by the Welsh Arts Council. The work was done as a way of helping her articulate the key themes in her art work and consisted mainly of photographs of her superimposed by text, specifically the word Creole. All the images played upon differing relations between 'figure' and 'ground', between individual and cultural identity. They also included some moving images consisting of blocks of texts moving across each other, in such a way as the word Creole indicated a surprising wealth of other words or suggestions of words (ole, ecole, cre, etc.).

We all agreed that bringing these new images into the frame helped enormously to re-focus our project, and seemed to represent a physical/visual break with Paperwork (which has undoubtedly cast its shadow over this project to date). Alexis: having just seen this work, I could write several articles!!

We also discussed Tuvalu, an island state in the Pacific Ocean, which is in serious danger of being reclaimed by the sea. Its entire population may need to re-locate. There is talk of the island being re-created, so to speak, online, as a way for them to keep their memories, history alive. This is an interesting example of new migration - with a new media as well as an ecological dimension. To find out more about the impact of global warming on the islands: http://www.tuvaluislands.com/warming.htm

Fri 13th of Feb, 09

Meeting at Artstation studio.  This week's discussion very much focused around funding.  Alexis had discussed our project with the Research Office at Cardiff Uni, where he was surprised that they said they were only able to help with the conference side of our project, but not the art/film aspect.  We started discussing funding the two aspects of the project separately and thought about ways of funding the art installation, e.g. various EU schemes, through Euclid, the Churchill Fellowship, going to speak to the British Council, Yvette at Wales Arts International, etc.  But both Glenn and Wyn keen not to separate the two strands - the two-pronged approach is central to the idea - ideally the project should be funded as one package.

After Alexis left we set up the blog.  This helped raise our spirits somewhat, which were a little low following our discussion re funding!