<nettime> Heartbreak Hotel; machinic pattern recognition

["G.H. HOVAGIMYAN" <gh@popstar.com>]

Hi everyone,

I've enclosed a brief narrative about the CICV residency Peter Sinclair and I
did this summer. We are in the process of completing a new piece called
Heartbreak Hotel.  A formal proposal can be accessed at:
http://www.artnetweb.com/gh/heartbreak.html

Pattern recognition is one of the strengths and pleasures that is at the basis
of most art forms. Pleasure for the artist as well as viewer/ accessor of any
art work occurs when a pattern is perceived and also when new patterns are
created.  In Heartbreak Hotel, the latest work by Peter  Sinclair and G.H.
Hovagimyan the basis of the work is machinic pattern recognition.


"Peter and I started at one place and through the process of creating the work
came to a series of realizations.  The initial thought or theme for the work
proposed by Peter was *Cocktail Party*  .  Since part of what we do is use
synthetic voices reading text, the theme seemed open-ended enough to allow for
interaction between characters without the necessity for deeply articulated and
literate text. Part of our overall structure in previous works (Talker Talker,
A SoaPOPera for Laptops, Exercises in Talking, The Last Noel Avant L'An 2000)
has been to use media driven language. The abbreviated forms of pop song,
advertising copy or  soap opera become elements in an immediately recognizable
language pattern.  In a certain sense these media forms suffer a never ending
drive for uniqueness of expression.  The effect is often the reverse.  Media
language tends to be banal and repetitive because of its mandate to reach the
most people in the simplest manner.  Using such forms as material,  does
however create a sort of "ready-made" structure while undermining the idea of
the author's unique vision or expression through the text. The theme of
Heartbreak Hotel is of course lost love. The characters are generic types; a
male yuppie (dot.comer), a dumb blond, a female rock and roll goth, a
cowboy/survivalist, a male poet and a nun.  So much of modern society and an
individuals identity is filtered through media images that often a person
shapes their identity to fit the flattened icons of media. Heartbreak points
out this flattening.  In a process of removing the author Peter and I sought
to utilize computer programs to generate text .  In this way we could write
dictionaries of words and expressions specific to each character, input these
into the programs and generate the script.  Peter often remarks that much of
what we do is prepare the machines to be creative.  We agree however that the
opposite direction of self-obsessed artistic invention seems a lackluster
alternative. Heartbreak Hotel (Coeurs-Brises)  is partially fashioned using
computer programs. The basic structure is an object oriented programming
language called Max.  Two free text generators one for English (Janus) and one
for French (Corvophraseur) were downloaded from the internet.  Two different
voice synthesizers were used Mbrola for the French and Vocalwriter for the
English. Both were found and downloaded from the internet.  One of the
interesting aspects of the Vocalwriter software is its ability to use
synthesized instruments for voice generation. This locates the characters in a
cartoon-game media format rather than a mimetic natural voice presentation. 
One the French side Peter designed a special program to pitch track the output
of the voice synthesizer and tag the resultant notes to midi-synthesized
instruments.   On the English side Peter fashioned a midi recorder that reads
the inflections in a human voice and turns these into midi notes. The process
is one of transposition or notation rather than simple recording. The
underlying structure of Heartbreak is that of a database where the phrases each
character speaks are stored. They are tagged and quantified so that a pattern
matching search by the Max program will trigger appropriate conversations
between characters. The physical environment to present the work is a sound
deadened chamber in the form of a giant heart.  The public enters the heart.
In the center is a transparent table surrounded by eight loud speakers.  The
public is able to place statues representing the six characters on the table
and move them around. A video camera placed at the base of the table sees a
colored dot on the bottom of each figure. This causes a specific voice file to
trigger. The audience hears the characters carrying on sing-song conversations.
If the figures are moved around on the table, the corresponding voice traces
the same trajectory in the space via holophon sound spatialization software.
The effect is one of immersion into a hypertextual society.  This can be
likened to a holodeck environment that one sees on the television show Star
Trek Next Generation.  In the case of Heartbreak the holodeck simulation is
realized in its rudimentary form."


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