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Becoming Animal: Minimaforms

Becoming Animal: Minimaforms Becoming AnimAl Minimaforms Suffolk, England, 2007 tephen and Theodore Spyropoulos’s design practice, Minimaforms, engages issues of social and cultural performance that play out through its abiding obsession with both the possibilities and pitfalls of our digital era. Their work is inherently interdisciplinary, given that Theodore is formally trained as an architect while Stephen has degrees in fine art and interaction design. They attempt to render in both 2-D image and prosthetic form the perpetually elusive qualities of information itself, engaging what Norbert Weiner prophesied in the 1950s as a future human experience defined by the dynamism and contingency of information networks. As such, their work can be seen as perpetually suspended between the virtual and the actual as it seeks to define architecture not in terms of its physical traits, but rather in terms of its capacity to promote new forms of communication and, by extension, social and cultural exchange. Becoming Animal is an interactive performance piece commissioned by and developed for the experimental sonic performance festival, Faster than Sound, in 2007. The project explores the story of the mythical three-headed beast, Cerberus, guardian of the underworld, through a participatory installation that encourages dynamic interaction with its users. An interactive prosthetic device worn on the head allows the user to interact with digital models of Cerberus, which in turn are projected into the space of the gallery. As such, the project can be seen as an interface between the virtual (digital model and projected image) and the actual (human body and physical prosthetic). Becoming Animal promotes new forms of exchange between its users. By obscuring facial recognition, the prosthetic encourages its users to “behave in an uninhibited manner” and become “performers in a theatrical system,” producing what Minimaforms calls “collective playfulness.” Additionally, Minimaforms sees this project as an experiment in communication that investigates the tendency of humans to project life into form, referring to cyberneticist Valentino Braitenberg’s description of a “vehicle” as a form of behavior-based artificial intelligence in which an artificial “agent” exhibits its own autonomy. The prosthetic device in Becoming Animal can be viewed as a semi-autonomous “vehicle” through which humans and machines exchange new forms of social and cultural information. Becoming Animal, at Faster than Sound festival, Suffolk, England, 2007. Courtesy Minimaforms: Theodore and Stephen Spyropoulous. S  PAJ 109 (2015), pp. 28–29. doi:10.1162/PAJJ_a_00238 © 2015 Performing Arts Journal, Inc. MINIMAFORMS / Becoming Animal  29 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art MIT Press

Becoming Animal: Minimaforms

PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art , Volume 37 (1) – Jan 1, 2015
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Publisher
MIT Press
Copyright
© 2015 Performing Arts Journal, Inc.
ISSN
1520-281X
eISSN
1537-9477
DOI
10.1162/PAJJ_a_00238
Publisher site
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Abstract

Becoming AnimAl Minimaforms Suffolk, England, 2007 tephen and Theodore Spyropoulos’s design practice, Minimaforms, engages issues of social and cultural performance that play out through its abiding obsession with both the possibilities and pitfalls of our digital era. Their work is inherently interdisciplinary, given that Theodore is formally trained as an architect while Stephen has degrees in fine art and interaction design. They attempt to render in both 2-D image and prosthetic form the perpetually elusive qualities of information itself, engaging what Norbert Weiner prophesied in the 1950s as a future human experience defined by the dynamism and contingency of information networks. As such, their work can be seen as perpetually suspended between the virtual and the actual as it seeks to define architecture not in terms of its physical traits, but rather in terms of its capacity to promote new forms of communication and, by extension, social and cultural exchange. Becoming Animal is an interactive performance piece commissioned by and developed for the experimental sonic performance festival, Faster than Sound, in 2007. The project explores the story of the mythical three-headed beast, Cerberus, guardian of the underworld, through a participatory installation that encourages dynamic interaction with its users. An interactive prosthetic device worn on the head allows the user to interact with digital models of Cerberus, which in turn are projected into the space of the gallery. As such, the project can be seen as an interface between the virtual (digital model and projected image) and the actual (human body and physical prosthetic). Becoming Animal promotes new forms of exchange between its users. By obscuring facial recognition, the prosthetic encourages its users to “behave in an uninhibited manner” and become “performers in a theatrical system,” producing what Minimaforms calls “collective playfulness.” Additionally, Minimaforms sees this project as an experiment in communication that investigates the tendency of humans to project life into form, referring to cyberneticist Valentino Braitenberg’s description of a “vehicle” as a form of behavior-based artificial intelligence in which an artificial “agent” exhibits its own autonomy. The prosthetic device in Becoming Animal can be viewed as a semi-autonomous “vehicle” through which humans and machines exchange new forms of social and cultural information. Becoming Animal, at Faster than Sound festival, Suffolk, England, 2007. Courtesy Minimaforms: Theodore and Stephen Spyropoulous. S  PAJ 109 (2015), pp. 28–29. doi:10.1162/PAJJ_a_00238 © 2015 Performing Arts Journal, Inc. MINIMAFORMS / Becoming Animal  29

Journal

PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art – MIT Press

Published: Jan 1, 2015

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