Abstrac of thesis

Soundscapes with Enactive Systems: Toward a Naturalized Aesthetic

PPG - IdA - UnB (University of Brasilia - Brazil

PhD candidate: André Luiz Gonçalves de Oliveira

PhD advisor: Dra. Diana Domingues

Abstract:

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the different application possibilities of the poetic perception arising from studies in different fields of study such as enactionism, cognitive science, ecology, psychology and phenomenology as philosophical approach. The all XXth century witnessed a growing interest in studies that explain perception and cognition using computational models.Such models, driven by rapid development of studies in digital computing, enabled a huge amount of new explanations for phenomena related to perception and cognition. These new explanations distance themselves from the Cartesian paradigm that sustained much of the procedures of creation and artistic production during the last century and have created a conceptual basis of new technologies for artistic creation. Thus the focus of this research is the quest for developing new poetics from new technologies in dynamic interactions with complexes systems to generate new aesthetic possibilities and the concepts to support it.  The main hypotheses raised here are two. 1) New perspectives in the study of perception, as in the cases of ecological psychology and phenomenology, can provide indications of specific procedures in artistic creation.2) In turn such procedures enable artistic experiences quite distinct from those offered by poetic supported by the Cartesian paradigm. Thus the thesis is organized into six chapters, which do not necessarily keep linear pretensions. The first chapter is to relate the art, science and technology with the very origin and development of human beings. The chapter presents the context in which it appears the proposed Enactive, which sets out the present research, as well as its direction to the possibility of a technological naturalized aesthetic. The second chapter specifically addresses some of the artistic experiences, particularly in the area of visual contemporary arts.  Chapter 3 has, as its primary intent, to locate Soundscape composition as a kind of artistic creation, linked to other artistic events as the happening and the installation, ongoing since the 1960s. In Chapter 4 it presents various compositional procedures that allow the proposal of a kind of Enactive Soundscape. It describes in detail the assembly Biocybrid Latin American Memorial to the Exhibition “TransFronteiras Contemporâneas”, part of the 29th. São Paulo Biennial, held in 2010. It is also described the workshop held for mounting of a work in Oncena Bienal de La Habana - Cuba in May 2012. Chapter 5 deals specifically with the development of the design of an installation called by Bicybrid Frog's Signature. There is a description of the different steps for each knowledge area involved, such as arts, music, electrical engineering, computer engineering, ecology, herpetology. In this chapter there is also forwarding propositions tests for moving the implementation of the installation.  Finally chapter 6 keeps space for discussion a little more conclusive from interviews with authors who guided the conceptual aspects of research, such as E. Couchot, A. Polli and S. Diamond. The interviews aimed to check with such authors as possible is the way toward what is called in this thesis by a naturalized aesthetic perspective.