Workshop / AutonomX – Light and sound with complex dynamical systems

Inscriptions open: https://kenes.eventsair.com/isea2022/workshop4

• Abstract: autonomX – Light and sound with complex dynamical systems is a workshop that proposes to experiment with life-like computer processes to generate dynamic, emergent, and self-organizing patterns and express them through light and sound. The workshop offers participants to engage with autonomX, a new open-source application developed by lab Xmodal based at Concordia University in Montreal that can create life-like behaviors in media in an intuitive way. Through practical manipulation, the workshop focuses on generating and experiencing the felt sensations (Gendlin 2010) and vitality effects (Stern 2010) that emerge from temporally dynamic digital processes. In a sensory ethnography fashion (Howes 1991) oriented toward sharing the sensible (Laplantine 2015), the workshop will bring together software manipulation, artistic creation, ethnographic observation, and group discussion to engage with the effects of those digital processes on our human senses. The workshop will be centered around the software autonomX that allows for intuitive artistic creation with complex dynamical systems such as neural networks and cellular automata.
  
  autonomX – Light and sound with complex dynamical systems is structured around a series of experiments exploring the relation between machine expression and human perception. During 3 sessions of 1.5h each, participants are invited to manipulate, observe, describe and discuss their experience with three different dynamical processes (Spiking Neuron Network, Cellular Automata, Game of Life). Those processes produce actions expressed in light and sound that can generate striking audiovisual experiences. Each session of the workshop thus intertwines Artificial Life presentation, creative experimentation, ethnographic observation, and group discussion. The day will start with a 1h introduction to the topic and methodology of the workshop, and end with a common 30min discussion.

• Biography: Alexandre Saunier is a multimedia artist and PhD Candidate at Concordia University. His research addresses the intersection between artistic creation with light, autonomous systems, and sensory perception. His artistic work is regularly presented in international festival such as Mutek, Bcn_Llum, Impakt, and Festival de la Imagen.
  
  Chris Salter is an artist, full professor of computation arts at Concordia University in Montreal and Co-Director of the Hexagram network for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technology, also in Montreal. His work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale and Barbican Centre among many others. He is the author of Entangled (MIT Press, 2010) and Alien Agency (MITP, 2015). His new book Sensing Machines will appear from MIT Press in March 2022.