Chuck and Mote (v_0.01)

I would like to propose the creation of a world.  This world is inhabited by two kinds of organisms, motes and chucks.   These organisms are similar in many respects, but different in fundamental ways. Motes can see their world.  They explore, learn and understand their habitat principally through sight.  Because of this, they privilege their eye, they hold it high, they reach to see further.  But they are also aware that their eye is precious.  So their engagement with the world is re-mote, they are distant, cautious.  Chucks on the other hand lack vision.  They understand their world through embodied experience.  They scour across surfaces and develop a worldview through the experience of tumbling, falling, tipping.  They are robust, low and armoured.  They are explorers...

chuck v_0.01

I initiated this project at a recent wii-hacking workshop held at Hexagram (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada). The project is in early developmental stages. The initial concept follows with a few images of the project to date...

Original Proposal

I have a confession to make:  I have never played Nintendo.  I don't even know if that is how I should make such a confession -- does one play Nintendo?

Given this and my general disinterest in screens, I would like to propose the creation of a world.  This world is inhabited by two kinds of organisms, motes and chucks.   These organisms are similar in many respects, but different in fundamental ways. Motes can see their world.  They explore, learn and understand their habitat principally through sight.  Because of this, they privilege their eye, they hold it high, they reach to see further.  But they are also aware that their eye is precious.  So their engagement with the world is re-mote, they are distant, cautious.  Chucks on the other hand lack vision.  They understand their world through embodied experience.  They scour across surfaces and develop a worldview through the experience of tumbling, falling, tipping.  They are robust, low and armoured.  They are explorers...

In the context of the workshop I would like to explore the feasibility of developing multiples of the two organisms described above.  I would like to test the experiential boundaries and potentials that arise when one takes the properties of Wii-motes and Wii-Nunchucks literally.  By juxtaposing world views of a predominantly visual culture with a more embodied approach to experience I would like to see what forms of participation emerge.  Drawing on artists such as Bill Vorn, Ken Rinaldo and Jessica Field’s Semiotic Investigation into Cybernetic Behaviour.  

I will explore how differing modes of experiencing influence behaviour by bringing into one space the writing of Braitenburg and Susan Kozel.  I anticipate the evolution of a novel world that critically engages the ideas of sense, experience and control.

Gallery

chuck v_0.01

mote (3 poses) v_0.01