Artist’s Statement

Why I Love AmericaEver since I was a kid I’ve enjoyed making collages, playing with tape recorders and taking pictures. Arranging and juxtaposing sounds and images to find hidden meaning, or just plain silliness.

Nowadays, my work is informed by investigations into Chaos and Emergence. Using the tools and lenses of culture and technology, I investigate the emergent order that unfolds at the intersection of my perception, my will, and the physical world.

Since my own philosophy is constantly reformulating, I hope the following randomly generated paradigm will serve as my artist’s statement. To paraphrase Marx(1): These are my principles, if you don’t like them then click here, I have others.

Even before thought, it is sound that divides our experience into space and time.

The logic is circular, but such an autopoietic epistemology is fitting and self-similar to the subject matter.

Along the 4th dimension, matter descends, as energy expands, through concentric strata (geosphere, aquasphere, atmosphere, nöosphere, ideosphere, kaosphere) along a vector that radiates from the fractal heart of now…

No complex system can be understood in isolation.

My video work is represented by V-Tape
1Groucho that is.
Author Profession: Comedian
Nationality: American
Born: October 2, 1895
Died: August 19, 1977

Retroflective Video Installation: Hands and Faces

Retroflective Video Installation: Hands and Faces
1979-1985-2023
10″x10″x12″
video, mixed media
$3500 contact steev@steev.ca
On view at Gallery 1313, Toronto, October 11 to 22, 2023
Article in ARToronto
Catalogue of The 40×40 Show at 1313 Gallery


Retroflective Video Installation: Hands and Faces. The artist reflected in the piece at the exhibition at Gallery 1313Retroflective Video Installation: Hands and Faces is a literal reflection of OCA students from the early 80s. It is a concatenation of several works spanning four decades. The 10” internally mirrored cube was built in 1979, but never exhibited for technical reasons. One surface of the box is a partial mirror, revealing an interior view that gives the impression of a tesseract, or hypercube. Modified consumer electronics provide a display and a point of view. Viewers can look through their own reflections to view the interior, or control the camera’s point of view, using a touch screen outside the box. Glimpses of the users’ hands and faces are mingled with the layers of mirrored video.

For this exhibition, the video playing is Hands and Faces, a portrait of a group of students taped in the halls of OCA’s Stewart building in 1985. Music by Peter Gmehling and Steev Morgan. Depicted in no particular order are Bruce Hefler, Ania Szado, Lynda Surjik, Roxanna Bikadoroff, Jane Huggard, Catherine Orfald, Alex Mascus, Mariela Borello, Dada Axis (Ix Uad), France Boucher, Guy Lafayette, Mai Gulbrantson, Oliver Kellhammer, Jan Levis, Anne Cooper, Ken Vincent, and George Van Bussel.

The purchaser of the piece can choose any number of videos from the artist’s collection to display in the box.

Steev Morgan is a multiple scholarship recipient and graduated with honours from both Algonquin College Fine Arts (’80) and Ontario College of Art, Photo Electric Arts Department (’85) as an inter-disciplinary artist working with video, installation, interactive multimedia, and performance.

He went on to work as a technician in the Film and Animation Departments. By 1992 Steev was teaching a number of courses at OCA including Film and Video Production, and Basic Multimedia Production, while continuing to make films, videos and interactive multimedia installation works. In 1997 Steev advocated for, and taught, the first Web Design courses at OCAD.

His videos have screened in Canada, Japan and several European festivals. They have also been broadcast on Japanese television, as well as the CBC and TVO. In the 1990s Morgan exhibited a number of interactive installations, both solo and in collaboration with other artists. He participated in Welcome to the Electric Skin and Toronto Cybercity, two intercontinental telepresence installations with his pieces Iterative Environment for Video Robot and CyberCity Hall. In 1995 and 1997 he curated and exhibited in two group shows of Canadian new media artists at the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City (Net@Works and A Life of Its Own – Una Vida por su Cuenta).

Often using iterative techniques such as looping, rescanning and feedback, Steev Morgan’s work frequently explores the reflexive nature of reality; the cybernetic bootstrapping process whereby consciousness emerges from mere perceptions and thoughts, which in turn begets reality.

Steev is represented by V-tape and he continues to make physical and digital works in various media. His most recent projects can be seen here at steev.ca

Catalogue of The 40×40 Show at 1313 Gallery

Open Book

Drag Link (Tie Rod) Ball Socket Repair for Lawn Tractor using a Hose Clamp

Not everything I do is art. I like fixing and hacking things. There is no greater joy than fixing a $100 part with a $1 hack.

I recently had a drag link (tie rod) pop off its ball joint on our John Deere L120. After over 500 hours of mowing on rough terrain it was bound to go sometime. A lot of the fixes I found on the web required welding or brazing which I am not set up for. Besides, that would burn off the grease on the ball joint. I saw a hack using a double wire hose clamp, but they are hard to find and rather pricey on Amazon.

This is my version using a common band clamp, and it should work on just about any Rider Mower’s Drag Link, and it looks like it could last for years.



Cold Comfort

Cold Comfort - video by Steev Morgan
Camera and Editing by Steev Morgan with Sound Samples from the Free Sound Project by – shorzie – wjoojoo – patobottos – nhaudio

Talk to Someone: A video about teen mental health

Talk to Someone: A video about teen mental health by Steev Morgan

Talk to Someone: a video about teen mental health
by Steev Morgan in workshops with:
– YAK (Youth Action Kommittee of Perth and District) Skills Link Program https://YAKyouth.ca
– Lanark Highlands Youth Centre https://lhyci.yolasite.com
– TYPS (Take Young People Seriously) Almonte https://typsyouthcentre.org
– Carleton Place CORE Youth Services & Youth Centre Skills Link Program https://cpyouthcentre.org
– SFDCY (Smiths Falls and District Centre for Youth) https://sfdcy.ca

Made with the support of:
– The Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Sport: Healthy Communities Fund
– United Way Lanark County
– Lanark County

© Steev Morgan 2013

Spectacular Sunset

Spectacular Sunset - video by Steev Morgan

An abstract video sketch. A bit of an homage to Man Ray and David Lynch. The image was created by speeding up a video of the shadow cast by the setting sun through a pair of spectacles, and then superimposing the result in four layers at right angles. The audio is the sound of a kettle being heated to the boiling point, in reverse.

Home with Gerry Smith


Music by Gerry Smith. Video by Steev Morgan

Version one. A video interpretation of a song from Gerry’s song cycle entitled the Waters of Enoch. The series of songs follows a young boy’s growing understanding of the world around him as he discovers his natural surroundings, and how they parallel and conflict with his social and family environment.

Fort Goof the Endtimes: 1988

Fort Goof the Endtimes: 1988
The Fort was approached by a back alley and was up on the second floor. There was a small deck at the top of the fire escape. There was a formidable pile of bikes and parts almost reaching up to the deck.

Inside the barricaded door was kitchen and beyond that was a warren of lofts and cages where people slept. Everything was covered with graffiti.

Crazy Steve lived there, also Kirkie (Maddog) and Filthy Sean. Lots of people crashed there: travelers, touring bands and some who just couldn’t make it home or had nowhere better to go.

I hung out there a lot; it was a pretty reliable place to get a beer after hours, and all manner of artists, musicians, and Kensington Market characters could be counted on dropping by.

In March of 1988 the Goofs were moving out to a new Fort, on Oxford I think. It was the end of an Era and all the regulars were notified. They planned to remove some of the wood to build spaces in the new place, so there was going to be a little Demolition Party.

At the time I worked as a technician in the OCA film department so I procured a 16mm camera to record the proceedings. Andrew O1 was my production assistant.

The walls were painted black to prevent the graffiti squad from making any connections. Steve, Kirkie and Sean did most of the destruction.

Eventually I cut this footage to a couple of songs from Fringe products release “Carnival of Carnage and Chaos” posted them on https://youtube.com/teeveesteevee.

Music in this video is Bunchofuckingoofs recorded live at the Rivoli in Toronto January 4 1991 by Steev (TeeVeeSteevee) Morgan with a Sony Walkman Pro hooked up to the board. Some video of those original performances is also be available at https://youtube.com/teeveesteevee.

Film rescanned and cut together in 2011.

What is a Pentacle?

This essay was part of the presentation of “BANISHIT: Believing makes it So”. It appears on the PentaclePower website representing KaoTek, the company that distributes BANISHIT!.

As you can see in the WikiPedia citation at the bottom of the page, and the pictures to the right, pentacles come in many forms. Why, you might ask, have we gone with the five pointed star or Pentagram for BANISHIT!.

Well, there is more on that elsewhere on the site. Here we will address some general information about pentacles. They are tools for focusing the will. In the past they were worn around the neck to protect one from outside forces, or beings, whilst performing rituals, or in day to day life. It derives its name from the same roots as the word “pendant”. A crucifix is a perfect example. It is the Christian Pentacle.

Of course the symbolism of a pentacle is important. The pentacle is, in many ways, a microcosm of the practitioner’s world view. The saying goes “As Above, so Below”.

To take the Crucifix as an example: the vertical bar represents the spirit on its axis between heaven and hell. The horizontal axis represents the physical plane. And so the Crucifix is a symbol physical incarnation, the long dark night of the soul, the descent of the sun at the winter solstice. And of course it reminds us of Jesus, impaled at the nexus of flesh and spirit.

“As Below, so Above”. A symbol like the Crucifix fosters a certain world-view. Its linear and dualistic nature can lead to an obsession with absolutes; a linear, terminal view of time and a reductionistic tendency to fundamentalism and literalism.

These are the very traits which have led to today’s plethora of intolerance, ill will, and the institutional curses against which BANISHIT! is designed to protect.

The five pointed star is also seen as representing the spirit incarnate, but rather than a fixed two dimensional state with a beginning and an end it is depicted as a cycle of endless evolution.

St. Augustine of Hippo (AD 343-430) first wrote of a linear history going from A to B and condemned the traditional Pagan theory of cycles, or circuitus temporum as: “…those argumentations whereby the infidel seeks to undermine our simple faith, dragging us from the straight road and compelling us to walk with him on the wheel…”

It is because of this that the Pentagram has been vilified and the true meaning of the “Bringer of Light” has been obscured. Unfortunately Augustine’s concept of time has evolved into a self fulfilling Apocalyptic Prophecy.

It is for that reason that we turn to a Pentagrammatic Pentacle to repel this reductionistic world view.

The BANISHIT! pentacle combines the Pentagram with an Alphabet of Desire inspired by the Great Chaos Mage, Peter Carroll. These glyphs encompass the range of human existance and their use is more fully explained in his book “Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic”.

Wiki says: The Oxford English Dictionary gives the history of the word “Pentacle” as obscure, but suggests an apparent derivation from the Greek prefix penta- (five) combined with the Latin suffix -culum (diminutive). An Italian word pentacolo appearing in 1483, is used to refer to ‘any thing or table of five corners’.[15] Mixed formations like this are not uncommon in medieval Latin.

The Oxford English Dictionary also offers an alternative possible derivation from the Middle French word pentacol (1328) or pendacol (1418), a jewel or ornament worn around the neck (from pend- hang, à to, col or cou neck).[15][16] This is the derivation the Theosophical Society employ in their glossary:

…it seems most likely that it comes through Italian and French from the root pend- “to hang,” and so is equivalent to a pendant or charm hung about the neck. From the fact that one form of pentacle was the pentagram or star-pentagon, the word itself has been connected with the Greek pente (five).[17]

A current draft Third Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary gives only the derivation penta + culum, and defines it as a pentagram, especially enclosed in a circle; a talisman inscribed with such a shape; or any similar magic symbol; pentacle and the Middle French pentacol are considered separate and unrelated words.[18]

Read more at WikiPedia

BANISHIT! “Believing Makes it So”

BANISHIT! Believing Makes it So - video by Steev Morgan

Do you feel cursed? Research indicates you probably are. Aside from the day-to-day curses of your spouse, neighbors and co-workers there are the institutional curses, such as fatwas, papal bulls and of course the biggest one of all, the Apocalypse. BANISHIT! provides instant relief from all manner of curses using a unique blend of ancient and post-modern technology. Get yours now at PentaclePower.com! It’s FREE!

Starring:
Tom Leonhardt
Ursula Pflug
Tim Wynne-Jones
Rowan McCulloch
Morgan McCulloch
Rowan Orfald Morgan
and narrated by Hugh McCulloch

Completed in Jun 2, 2009 for the IMAGES festival in Toronto during an Artist’s Residence at Charles Street Video.

This smut has some redeeming qualities!

Originally published in the Toronto Star across from a picture of Nigella Lawson:

With this cool damp weather, our modest little vegetable garden is even more humble than it might have been. We tend it just the same though, what little morsels we can, a few beans, tomatoes, some huge cabbages. We are still pretty new to the game so there are always some surprises.

The corn has not been great, but I went looking for ripe ears the other day and discovered the dampness had fostered a real nasty growth on one big cob. Distended gray-blue kernels like ghostly babies’ fingers tangled in the silky hairs. When I touched it, a digit dropped off revealing the blackness within. Scary!

It was a fungus called “corn smut” (Ustilago maydis), probably the bane of many corn farmers in weather like this. After I regained my composure, and while I was trying to gross out the kids with the mutant cob, my lovely wife reminded me that this was probably the very same fungus we had enjoyed in fine restaurants in Mexico. There it is treasured as a delicacy known by its ancient Aztec name “Huitlacoche”(it sounds a bit like “wit la coach, eh”). You can buy it in cans at Mexican specialty shops.
A quick google of the Web confirmed this and gave the additional fact that the Aztec name translates as “raven’s excrement”. Too much information perhaps, but all of a sudden “corn smut” didn’t seem like such a bad name after all and it almost sounds like fun compared to the French “goitre du mais”.

Of course I had resolved to eat it! Now, if you are grossed out at this point you probably haven’t put a lot of thought into what your regular mushrooms grow on.

Online recipes suggested sauté-ing with onions, garlic and chilies to fill tortillas or tamales (corn dumplings). These “Mexican truffles” have a rich subtle mushroom-y flavour and this was my first chance to taste them fresh, I thought more than a taco was in order!

I was inspired by the optimism of the rampant squashes that are making the best of a bad situation and escaping from our composter. The result was the tasty appetizer below. It was a bit labour intensive but I felt like I was turning lead into gold.
Oro del Filosofo
(Stuffed Squash Flower Fritters with Huitalcoche and Goat Cheese)

(serves 4)

-1/2 red. Onion, chopped fine
-3 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
-Several sprigs of fresh oregano
-1 small fresh hot pepper
(If your pepper is not hot enough supplement with whatever you’ve got, I used a dried, smoked pepper, soaked overnight in vinegar and oil, and then chopped)
-Approx. 1.5-2 c. huitlacoche (gently cut from cob and separated gently from silk and corn)
-1 egg
-(2 Tbsp.) of soft goat cheese (or cream cheese or other soft cheese)
-1/2 c. cornstarch
-1 t. baking powder
-1/2 c. flour (non-wheat if desired)
-3 t. milk (non-dairy, if desired)
-Salt, to taste
-4 large fresh squash blossoms stems attached (picked the morning of serving, when open. Store loosely in a large covered bowl in the fridge until needed)
Sufficient oil to float the stuffed blossomss

Chop onions and garlic and sauté until translucent.

Toss in peppers and oregano, as well as coarsely chopped huitlacoche (some other fungus like oyster mushroom would also work).

Let mixture cool.

In morning, pick squash blossoms.

Stir goat cheese in with huitlacoche mixture.

Carefully spoon mixture into squash blossoms.

Fold tips of blossoms over into a pear shaped package.

Scramble egg with milk.

Mix cornstarch, baking powder, salt and flour in shaking bag.

Gently roll stuffed squash blossoms in egg mixture, and then fluff them gently in flour mixture. Set on drying rack (like a cookie rack).
Let sit for 10 minutes, then repeat;
Keep cool until ready to serve, gently turning. Dust with flour again if egg soaks through.

Just before serving make sure oil is good and hot
Deep-fry one at a time until golden-brown, turning regularly.

Dry on rack or paper towel for 5-7 minutes, serve hot.

Applying Chaos Theory to Artistic and Cultural Practice

At first it may not seem obvious how developments in mathematics have affected the direction of the arts and the evolution of our culture, let alone how they can influence our own practice and how we contextualize our work. I, for one, used to wonder in school how math could be relevant to my life.

A brief look at history reveals a deep underlying relationship between the inspirations and aspirations of mathematicians, scientists, and artists. For one thing, we are all trying to explain the world around us.


The Greeks thought the true nature of the universe was to be found in ratios of numbers. Pythagoras1 saw all things as relationships defined by the void between them 2, in the same way that the spaces between beats in a piece of music determine its rhythm and tempo. This is where we get our concept of “rationality”.3

The “Golden Ratio” was particularly cherished by the Greeks and can be defined as a rectangle that is constructed such that the removal of a square equal to its height from one end will leave a smaller rectangle of the same proportions.

Architectural historians have identified the use of this ratio in the design of the Acropolis, and so mathematicians refer to this proportion by the first letter of the name Phidias (Gr. Phi, or phi ), as he is the architect of the Athenian Temple complex.

Further popularized in Luca Pacioli’s 1509 book Divina Proportione (which was illustrated by Da Vinci and includes the famous picture of the Vitruvian Man, see animation). This “Golden Ratio” was rediscovered during the Renaissance by artists as a guide to producing works with pleasing proportions. It has been seen as emblematic of the ideals of rationality. Ironically, phi is also an irrational number.

Filippo Brunelleschi' mirror experiment

Studies of perspective in the early 1400’s by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) produced a  geometrical formula for two dimensional representation of the three dimensional world that became the standard model for the realistic depiction of space from the Renaissance onward.

The development of calculus by Isaac Newton gave the finishing touches to the Copernican heliocentric paradigm and bequeathed a powerful set of tools to astronomy and physics. This emboldened society to believe that, if these laws could be mastered, the universe could be controlled.

With the earth removed from the center of the universe, the church lost its monopoly on science and art. Armed with a new mechanistic world-view and with a set of mathematical tools that seemed to have unlimited predictive powers, the western world entered what was called the “Age of Enlightenment”. This was an echo of the Renaissance and of the Golden Age of Pericles, during which Phidias had worked. The “Enlightenment Thinkers” believed in the perfection of mankind through accumulation of knowledge.An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby

So we see that, for each of these time periods, the cultural understanding of mathematics had both a direct and an indirect influence on the culture’s self-expression, providing practical tools, useful paradigms, and areas for further endeavor.

What is the mathematical metaphor that dominates us in the post-modern age? How will the math of today affect our cultural future?

I propose that the Science of Complexity, also known as Chaos Theory, provides many concepts which help to give insight into the context and direction of contemporary culture, as well as providing new technologies, methodologies, and metaphors for the production of valid work and theory.

What tools can it provide us, both practically and intellectually? Perhaps we should first ask what it is that we look would look for in such a paradigm.

A useful paradigm for artistic discourse should fulfill a few basic requirements:

Dada Manifesto

It should contextualize our work in history: It should provide a historical and geographical overview of cultural phenomena which is inclusive of the diversity of human experience. It should provide tools for understanding society; past and present, and it should contextualize current trends and indicate future developments. It should help make some sense of apparent paradoxes, contradictions and disparities.

It should give direction to movements and to individuals: It should provide motivation and direction to groups, individuals and specific works, just as ideals rooted in mathematics have, throughout the ages, inspired people to believe in the power of Art to elevate and enlighten.

Camera Obscura

It should provide tools and technology: It should enhance or provide new avenues of expression and distribution. Just as the mathematics of optics provided optical devices that allowed painters to analyze what they saw and lead to the eventual development of the cameras and the scanners we use today.

It should provide metaphors and tools for critique and analysis: It should provide a language for understanding new concepts and relationships , just as the science of optics has given us the concepts of “focusing our attention” and “getting things in perspective”. It should also have the capability of self-analysis 4 .

It should open significant areas of endeavor: It should provide areas for artists and critics to direct their investigations and their works, in the same way that modernism opened the door to the study of contemporary life and ultimately art itself.

The Mandelbrot Set

Chaos theory is the study of simple iterative formulae that produce complex, unpredictable results. In common usage the word “chaos” implies disorder or randomness but this sense it means an underlying, unpredictable order from which patterns emerge over time.

Those patterns are called fractals and they have a number of special attributes which make them different from Euclidean geometrical shapes.

One unique aspect is that their borders are infinitely convoluted, so that it is impossible to predict if points in the vicinity are inside or outside of the shape. This complexity means that fractals occupy fractional dimensions (they can occupy a dimensionality between 2 and 3D for example) (Burger/Starbird 507).The Mandelbrot Set Zoom 1

Fractals also demonstrate self-similarity at different scales. Patterns may be contiguous or have many elements that are not connected. Their patterns display infinite with infinite differentiation.

The equations that create fractals do not generate patterns in a linear fashion, as in Euclidean geometry where adjacent points are determined successively. Patterns emerge chaotically, so that it is impossible to predetermine if subsequent iterations will generate points which will fall within the shape or not.The Mandelbrot Set Zoom 2 The final outcome of many iterations is radically affected by tiny changes in the initial conditions.

Chaos theory doesn’t espouse a deterministic, Newtonian idea of linear causality, but one of emergence. As such, “things” can be regarded, on one level, as structures and on another level as processes (Young 5).

Complexity theory also denies the concept of the objectivity, or separation of the observer from the observed (Young 11).

How can an understanding of Chaos be helpful in a cultural analysis? Culture is a non-linear dynamical system. The development and propagation of ideas is an iterative process. The repetition of concepts, both verbally and concretely, forms the evolution and the canon of our culture. This process has accelerated since the development of reproduction technologies like the printing press, and it is now increasing exponentially through digital information technologies. It is reasonable to expect a massively iterative system such as this to produce complex, non-linear results. How best to understand this complexity? I believe Chaos theory meets the criteria set forth earlier:

Rally round the Flag

It contextualizes our work in history: The contemporary practice of referencing the distant and recent past in the forms of irony, parody, homage, reruns, remakes, takeoffs, mash-ups, outtakes, rip-offs, revivals, samples, loops, cover versions, re-mixes and reissues etc. is one of the defining features of Post-modernism. We have inherited this practice directly from the Modernist mandate for self-analysis, which has been multiplied by the subsequent proliferation of industrial technologies for image making, replication and distribution. Fractal models help us understand the post-Internet de-centeralization of expertise, authority, and distribution in all realms of expression.

tiananmen

It gives direction to groups and to individuals: The open source movement, wikis, and distributed computing, are new forms of massively collaborative endeavor that are best understood as non-linear dynamical systems. Democratized distribution like YouTube and peer-to-peer file sharing circumvent the traditional top-down distribution models, and allow the appearance of “viral memes” and other emergent phenomenon. Complex systems like these are subject to the Butterfly Effect”, i.e. final outcomes are critically dependent on tiny changes in the initial conditions. This means that all of society can be affected by the actions of individuals and small groups.

Rally 'round the Flag

It provides tools and technology: The tools of chaos are those that allow us to produce, reproduce, alter, sample, loop, feedback and distribute information. Computers, whose sole function is to cycle thousands of times per second and store millions of iterations of ones and zeros are ideal, but so are cell phones, wireless devices, smart appliances, and samplers to name a few others. Chaos algorithms are used to create realistic textures to 3D animations, encrypt sensitive data, and cut down noise in transmissions.

Jackson Pollock painting at different magnifications

It provides metaphors and tools for critique: Unlike the Newtonian Paradigm, Chaos theory and cybernetics 6 integrate the concept of circular causality. Simple loops where A causes B, and B causes A are found throughout the art world. For example, the relationship between artist, critic, and audience, between inspiration and work, as well as perfomative and improvised scenarios all have these kind of “chicken/egg” relationships.

The fractional dimensionality of emergent phenomena and the uncertainty of their border regions suggest what socio-cyberneticist TR Young called “fractal facticity”; meaning that more than one thing can be true simultaneosly depending on one’s point of view in time and space. This approach helps us to understand, in a holistic fashion, the postmodernist de-centeralization of cultural discourse from the various perspectives of post-colonialist / post-structuralist / Marxist / feminist /queer / etc. theory.

A complex analysis of works would be done done with an eye for self-similarity at different scales, rather than looking for linear connections and Euclidean constructions with their connotations (“right” angle, “golden” rule, getting “straight to the point” etc.). For example, Pollock’s paintings have been been interpreted in terms of their fractal properties (Peterson). Emily Zants has used complexity theory to study French literature’s evolution in relation to cinema (Zants)7.

Ironic Self-reference

A phenomenon like the replication, distribution and display on the Web of the self-similar frames in a QuickTime video over millions of hard drives and screens can be viewed as a vast fractal distribution intersecting both cyberspace and real space/time.

It opens significant areas of endeavor: Aside from the use of fractals for their 2D and 3D graphical properties there are many applications where iterative systems can be applied.Image generated by David Rokeby's Sorting Daemon Artists who produce work that demonstrates emergent behavior, like David Rokeby and Norman White, exploring complexity and chaos creatively.

Artificial intelligence, massively collaborative on-line virtual spaces, ubiquitous computing and image recording with democratized distribution; these are all chaotic systems.

The convoluted fractal boundaries between doing and being; between the real and the imagined; between the idea and the art; between the artist and the viewer; between the public and the private; these are areas of infinite richness to be explored, and what better tools than the Aesthetics of Chaos to navigate them?

Bibliography

Burger, Edward B. and Starbird, Michael The Heart of Mathematics: An invitation to effective thinking
Key College;2 edition (August 18, 2004)buy it at amazon.com
Peterson, Ivars Jackson Pollock’s Fractals 1999
https://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_9_20_99.html

Rokeby, David Installation Artist
https://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/home.html

White, Norman The Normill
https://www.normill.ca/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreanism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus

Young TR CHAOS THEORY AND HUMAN AGENCY
https://www.critcrim.org/redfeather/chaos/chaosindex.html

Zants, Emily Chaos Theory, Complexity, Cinema and the Evolution of the French Novel
1998 Edwin Mellen Press ISBN13: 978-0-7734-8789-5buy it at amazon.com
1 – Pythagoras (c. 580-500 BCE), the Greek philosopher/mathematician who is known for the theorem explaining the relationship between the lengths of the side of a right triangle, also originated some profound ideas about the nature of space and time which influenced thinkers from Plato on for many centuries.

phi  square root of 2

2 – Aristotle (384-322 BCE) (wiki/Pythagoreanism) explains the Pythagorean concept of how Form emerges from Void by creating relationships in space and time.

The void distinguishes the natures of things, since it is the thing that separates and distinguishes the successive terms in a series. This happens in the first case of numbers; for the void distinguishes their nature.

3 – So much did the Greeks cherish their rationalism that legend has it that when Hippasus discovered that the square root of 2 could not be represented as a ratio of two natural numbers, and was therefore irrational, he was drowned at sea and the information was kept secret by the Pythagoreans.

4 – Clement Greenberg wrote in the 1970s that Modernism was the culmination of a social project of self analysis. He said it started with the empiricism of Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant and manifested as a science-like self-analytical approach in the arts that culminated in Post Painterly Expressionists, like Morris Louis, who avoided the intervention of the brush by simply pouring paint on the canvas. But by then postmodernism was already underway.

5 – This effect discovered by Edward Lorenz in the 1960s. When he re-ran a computer weather simulation, after rounding the initial parameters off to 2 decimal places from 3 or 4, he got radically different results, leading him to say it was as if the flapping of a butterfly’s wing in the forest had caused a hurricane on the other side of the world.(Burger/Starbird 490)buy it at amazon.com
6 Cybernetics is the study of communication and control systems in machines and nature and important area of research is into positive and negative feedback where complex and unpredictable results are produced by self-limiting iterative systems.

7 – In the introduction of her book Zants states:
“…novels developed techniques and structures such as fragmentation, doublings, flashbacks, or metaphorical representations that are cinematic because they engender a sense of spatial and temporal simultaneity, whereas the traditional novel is condemned to the linearity of words.(Zants)”buy it at amazon.com

Embracing Chaos: A strategy for the next millennium.

Abstract of a talk given at ISEA98 on Sept 6, 1999 in Manchester.

We are approaching the end of the age of reason. Science has matured as a philosophy to the point where it recognizes the existence of the unknowable. No longer labouring under the naive Newtonian assumption that all the universe can be measured or predicted Science turns to the study of Chaos in an attempt to gain insight into the inner workings of the world.

Communications technologies allow culture to instantaneously encircle the world and feedback on itself. Sampling and looping its way into the next millennium, the iterative nature of post-modern humanity makes it impossible to predict. Artists can embrace Chaos as a tool for deciphering and forging the new world disorder.

Emergent robotic behavior, genetic algorithms, and fractal mathematics are just a few of the approaches being taken. After more than 2000 years of living under Euclidean rule our head space is changing. The shortest distance between two points is no longer a straight line but a point of view.

Just as Euclid planted the seeds for an age ruled by logic, we are inoculating a culture of intuition. Try to imagine the world after one or two millennia of Chaos. What happens when feedback is produced as DNA starts to sample and manipulate itself? When an idea is as easily spread to the whole race as it is to conceive? When personal experience is not tied to the body?

Revolution becomes evolution and thought becomes reality. We become Meta-human and culture moves into the Noosphere.

More on this subject…

A Life of It’s Own – Una Vida por su Cuenta

Introduction by Steev Morgan


For many years the clichés of Hollywood and science fiction have formed the popular conception of robots. HAL of Kubrick and Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey typifies the persona: autonomous and intelligent, sometimes malicious and often possessed of their own agenda. These modern embodiments of the Frankenstein myth usually prove to be the nemesis of their creators.

On the other hand the industrial reality of robots offers a rather more prosaic image. These robots are entirely predictable and dependable.

They are capable of performing dangerous or repetitive tasks quickly and tirelessly without end. The only threat they pose is to the jobs of assembly-line workers and the only thrill is for those who monitor the bottom lines of corporate ledgers.

The most interesting applications by artists in this field use robots more as a means than an end. The artist, being unconcerned with mere functionality or plot-line, is free to create complex systems and set them in motion to observe the emergent order that manifests itself.

Norman White has demonstrated that artists can create devices imbued with sets of functions which might be seen as abilities or freedoms rather than restrictions. If these functions are tuned carefully and allowed to run free, then the robot can develop what may be described as behavior. Unlike the actions of a simple mechanical devise, these behaviors are often unpredictable. These in turn can often be seen to tell us a lot about ourselves, and our relationships with each other and our machines.

In this exhibition White brings together a number of works which attempt to shatter some of the clichés generally held about automata and expand the commonly held preconceptions about artists and their relationship to their works.

At their simplest these works demonstrate the order to be found within chaos. The more complex pieces display, through a juxtaposition of function and limitation that parallels will and vulnerability, the emergence of rudimentary personalities.

Artists included in the show included:

Facing Out Laying Low
Norman White
autARKy
Steev MorganCatherine Orfald
Sticks
Doug Back
Fingerprints from Birth of Essence
Erlich, Robert T.
The Wanderer
David Rokeby

NAFAA HOME || ALOIO HOME || EXHIBITION

AutArky

AutArky was a cyborganic installation exhibited in “A Life of Its Own/Una Vida por Su Cuenta” , a show that I curated at the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City in 1996, of Toronto Cybernetic Artists, whose work displayed Emergent Behaviour.

Micro-switches translated the movement of mice living in the “Computer” to voltages controlling the distribution of water from the aquarium “Monitor” through the “Coffee Maker” onto the seeded soil “Desktop”. The water supply in the aquarium was replenished automatically from the nearby Water Cooler. The piece grew for one month, and the security guard took home the mice as pets for his kids at the end of the show.

Made in collaboration with Catherine Orfald.

 

 

Curators Notes: Net@Works, Mexico Oct. 95

Net@Works, Mexico Oct. 95

To find the pieces for this show I did not have to search far. The artists are all members of a group that shares a long history. They have been friends, lovers, mentors, acolytes, and collaborators for a period spanning, in some cases, two decades.

The works chosen for this exhibition are representative of this history and of the direction we are headed in as individuals and as a group. Despite a shared history, these artists represent a diversity of viewpoints and approaches from the raw metal and visceral harmonics of Victoria Scott’s “Coil Room” to the subtle responses of David Rokeby’s “Very Nervous System”.

One of the challenges faced when creating and exhibiting these types of works is a reluctance of the main stream art media to deal with them. Artists working in the field of new media often get the feeling of working in a vacuum. The only thing worse than a bad review is no review at all.

It seems to me this lack of coverage is due mainly to two factors. The first is perhaps a perceived ignorance of the technology and issues being dealt with. Art critics are reluctant to comment on works they feel they don’t fully understand.

I believe these works should be judged by the same standards as are all works of art. What makes something a piece of “art” is that, in addition to having craft and content, it provides context — a new way of looking at the world.

Of course an understanding of the crafting of a piece can allow the viewer a deeper appreciation of it. However, if one does not understand the techniques involved in the construction of a work, then one must attempt to look beyond this to the other aspects of the piece. Just as photography could not be accepted as an art form until the novelty of the medium wore off, so too these new media must lose their “Gee Whiz” appeal and be judged for their ability to convey a deeper meaning.

I am optimistic that, as the new technologies permeate our everyday lives, an acceptance for this kind of work will grow. Conversely, I also believe that an appreciation for the non-conventional uses of these technologies will help prevent us from becoming slaves to the machine.

These pieces are not “avante-garde” in the same sense as the revolutionary art of the turn of the century. That tradition exposed us to the irrational impulses underlying a staid and rigid society. The Dadaists, for example, perhaps as a reaction to the industrial revolution, applied mechanical processes to images and words. Their works revealed the often frightening under current of the subconscious mind. Quite the contrary, I think the pieces in this show apply organic, human methods to machines and by so doing attempt to make some sense of and give hope to an increasingly irrational world.

Another explanation for the reticence of the mainstream media to deal positively with technology-based art is that the dissemination of communications technology to the people marks the end of the media’s long standing monopoly on the mediation of information. The invention of movable type threatened the powerful hold of church and crown over the spread of ideas, allowing pamphleteers to publish the last words of radical thinkers from the steps of the gallows. The industrialization of the press and the development of broadcast technologies eventually put that power in the hands of the industrialists. They would rather divert us with pretty images designed to stimulate consumption and distract us from the fact that there are actually some things very wrong with our society. The catalytic power of the modem, the fax machine and the PC have already proven themselves in Czechoslovakia, the former USSR, and China. The powers of the West are misleading themselves if they think it can’t happen here.

These technologies were originally created as just another bunch of consumer goods, but I see them as a Pandora’s box. No matter how much the media warns us of the dangers of playing with the Promethean fire of unregulated, uncensored communication, the misfortunes cannot be contained. As in the myth, hope remains behind even though the gods are always angered when humans become more free.

Another positive aspect to this change is the fact that it is an evolutionary process. It reinforces my faith in human nature that at this time when the planet is no longer able to sustain the rabid material consumption that we have been raised to expect, society is spontaneously moving toward an economy based on information consumption.

As I mentioned earlier I feel that the pieces in this exhibition attempt to put a human face on the new technology. Each artist comes to terms with their chosen medium on a personal level. To best give specific examples it is convenient to divide the exhibition into three parts along the lines of similarities in style, theme and medium.

Net@Works
(A Show of Interactive Computer Installations)

Interactive works require the participation of the viewer to be complete. It can be argued that, like the tree that falls unheard in the forest, they are not fully art until they are seen and heard. The demands of the works in this show range from the mere presence of spectators to actual aerobic exertion.

Perhaps it is the nature of this interaction that fascinates these artists, because the pieces in this part of the show are also about the interconnection between individuals and crowds, their physical surroundings and their cultures.

We came up with “Net@Works” as a name for a show that was at the same time about our own community and about expanding and connecting with other communities. The word “network” is both a noun, meaning a system of interconnected people or computer systems and a verb, which means the act of creating or connecting networks . The process of building networks produces a series of nested self referential systems not unlike iterative nature of fractals. As such, it is a good metaphor for a type of work that looks both inward and outward of it’s inspiration and it’s expression.

The Gathering Space by Steev morgan and Tom Leonhardt - Steev Morgan began his artistic career in the early eighties as a video and performance artist and gradually gravitated toward interactive computer works as computers became more readily available. His works have been exhibited in Canada, Europe and Japan. He presently teaches a course in multimedia production at the Ontario College of Art and programs CD-ROM based presentations for both artistic and commercial distribution. Although long time friends and associates, "The Gathering Space" is Morgan and Leonhardt 's first artistic collaboration. They were inspired by the struggle of the Toronto new media arts community to establish itself, but wanted to make a statement that reflected the broader milieu of urban Canadian life. From the artists' statement: "We are establishing a network of collaborators and gathering a body of pictures and sounds which depict people and places in their social contexts. The participants were solicited from all quarters in and outside of the arts community. The media we are gathering is being compiled and stored in a computer format for use by presentation software at the exhibition site. The installation will be in the form of a dynamic, projected video and audio collage containing the contents of this database. The tempo and order of juxtaposition within the collage will change constantly in response to audience activity, somewhat like a mirror reflecting a parallel world."
The Gathering Space by Steev Morgan and Tom Leonhardt

Three of the pieces deal with the dynamics of individuals and communities. Mary Alton’s CD ROM “Critical Mass” takes the viewer on a journey from within the self and looks at the crowd as an organism unto itself, greater than the sum of it’s parts and superseding even the will of the individual. “The Gathering Space” by Tom Leonhardt and myself invokes the common denominator of humanity which unites all people at all times.

Graham Smith’s “Welcome to the Electric Skin” involves the actual creation of a new virtual community. “Cyberspace” has been described as “the place where a telephone conversation takes place”. If that is true then Graham’s piece is an attempt to colonize that space in the classic pioneering tradition.

Nancy Paterson’s “Bicycle TV” seems to warn us that too much fascination for this Brave New (Virtual) World can lead us to neglect the real physical world that our bodies must still inhabit. Though no substitute for the real thing, one can still enjoy the illusion of a bicycle trip through rural Ontario. This type of interface must surely be more natural than the usual computer mouse.

“Very Nervous System” by David Rokeby springs directly from his frustration tools the industry has given us it interact with our computers. Keyboards are a very unlike the voices they replace and the mouse is good for pointing and not much more. When all one can do is point ones expression is necessarily objective. David has spent many years perfecting an interface which is capable of responding to the subtlest and the broadest of physical gestures.

Northern Lights
(A Show of Holography)

Toronto has one of the largest and most active communities of art holographers in North America and perhaps the world. This is due largely to courses taught at the Ontario College of Art and facilities maintained by collectives and artist run centers such as The Photon League of Holographers and Fringe Research. This show consists of pieces from four artists, all of whom work in other media as well. In these pieces they have used holography as part of multimedia works and thus taken the medium beyond the mere representation of three dimensional objects.

I have often heard holographers criticized for not producing art but merely making interesting 3D pictures of sculptural maquettes–holography for holography’s sake. This is due partially to the aforementioned “Gee Whiz” phenomenon and it is true that sometimes even the artists themselves fall under it’s spell. All of these works are exceptions to that generalization. They integrate traditional media and use holograms to utilize properties that cannot be reproduced in any other way.

A common theme which seems to link all these works is “life”–its beginnings, its tenaciousness, its transience, and our resistance to let it pass.

Catherine Orfald’s work, invokes creation myths and goddesses to pay tribute to the beginnings of life.

“The Mother of Songs,
the mother of our whole seed,
bore us in the beginning.”

Fused in light the bodies of Father and Mother, Mother and Child bear witness to the duality and the unity of the family and of life.

Bruce Evans’ “Puddle” juxtaposes nature and civilization using objects, sounds, and images. Our entry into the space provokes a play of light that transforms a pot hole into a living pond.

“The Sappho Project” interplays light, music, and representations of the ancient poetess with translations of her words. Mary Alton has chosen poems which capture the elusive passage of time and the impermanence of temporal existence.

Tonight I’ve watched the moon and then
the Pleiades go down;
the night is now half gone; youth goes
I am alone in bed

The urge to write and create images is, in itself, a reaction against that ceaseless change.

To expose a holographic plate takes a very brief time, measured in millionths of a second. In that time the image is recorded over its entirety in such a way that it can be broken into pieces and each piece still holds the entire image. In this sense the hologram is sometimes used as a metaphor for how the brain stores memories. In “The Eternal Nanosecond” Laura Kikauka preserves a sentimental memory of herself, taking that brief moment and making it last forever.

“I Sing the Body Electric”
(A Show of Kinetic And Robotic Sculpture)

Ever since the first primitive tools were invented the machine has been an extension of the human body. Conversely the state of the art of any age has given its contemporaries a new mirror in which to view themselves and their surroundings. Take for example the model of steam technology which parallels Freud’s imagery of the mind as made up of compartments building up pressures and venting into and displacing one another.

This era dominated by telecommunications, computers, and robotics is no different. The artists in this show have all spent plenty of time bending and welding metal, designing and soldering circuits, and programming computers. One can clearly see in the humor, ingenuity, and beauty of these works that the artists share a fascination for, even a love of things electronic and mechanical. They give us works which speak about some of the important issues of concern to our age. Do machines have too much influence over our lives? Do they intermediate our interaction to the point of threatening the family and the human relationship as we know it? Are machines destroying and replacing nature as our habitat?

Doug Back’s “Small Artist Pushing Technology” is a simple, clear analogy for the plight of the new media artist or for anyone who has to work with technology. A little bit like a modern day Sisyphus, the tiny figure pushes the medium and at the same time pushes his whole world.

Simone Jones reconciles the organic and the mechanical in her piece “Transformation #1” By distilling forms and movement from natural phenomenon and translating them into motor driven sculptures she pays homage to nature and points toward a beauty hidden in unexpected places (like a field of oil derricks or the concerted movements of a factory assembly line or automated tortillaria).

Victoria Scott’s “Coil Room” redefines the female principal not in the traditional sense of passive as opposed to active, but as a cyclic as opposed to vector based energy. If the gun or the rocket can be seen as technologies representative of maleness, Scott sees the A/C motor, the oscillator, and the ones and zeros of the digital world as paralleling the rhythmic nature of female energy.

Norman White’s “Helpless Robot” turns the tables on us, reversing the traditional roles of man and machine. This robot has the ability to learn but rather than “artificial intelligence” it might more accurately be described as “artificial stupidity”. It can learn but it cannot do for itself. The more help it gets, the more it demands. It cannot escape its dependence on humans to get what it wants. Could this be a metaphor for our growing dependence on technology?

Steev Morgan, July 22, 1995, Toronto

The Gathering Place

Although long time friends and associates, “The Gathering Space” is Morgan and Leonhardt ‘s first artistic collaboration. They were inspired by the struggle of the Toronto new media arts community to establish itself, but wanted to make a statement that reflected the broader milieu of urban Canadian life.

From the artists’ statement:
“We are establishing a network of collaborators and gathering a body of pictures and sounds which depict people and places in their social contexts. The participants were solicited from all quarters in and outside of the arts community.

The media we are gathering is being compiled and stored in a computer format for use by presentation software at the exhibition site. The installation will be in the form of a dynamic, projected video and audio collage containing the contents of this database. The tempo and order of juxtaposition within the collage will change constantly in response to audience activity, somewhat like a mirror reflecting a parallel world.”

Bunchofuckingoofs “Total Breakdown”

Bunchofuckingoofs: Total Breakdown
Music from BFG CD release “Carnival of Chaos + Carnage” from Fringe Products. 16mm film shot with the assistance of Andrew O1 on the last night of “Fort Goof” (Saturday March 26 1988); the deconstruction party. Shot recorded and edited by (TeeVee) Steev Morgan.

The 16mm film has been rescanned to HD at Film Rescue International in Indian Head, Saskatchewan and re-cut for the launch of Jennifer Morton’s book Dirty Drunk and Punk.

Dirty Drunk and Punk on Goodreads
BFG group on Facebook
Film Rescue International™

Bunchofuckingoofs “Alcoholiday turned Alcoholocaust”


Music from BFG CD release “Carnival of Chaos + Carnage” from Fringe Products. 16mm film shot with the assistance of Andrew O1 on the last night of “Fort Goof” (Saturday March 26 1988); the deconstruction party. Shot recorded and edited by (TeeVee) Steev Morgan. The 16mm film has been rescanned to HD by Greg Miller at Film Rescue International in Indian Head, Saskatchewan and re-cut for the launch of Jennifer Morton’s book Dirty Drunk and Punk.

El Dia de los Muertos


Ancient stones and timeless rituals link people and their spirits to the land. Time is a god to whom we must all make sacrifices, but, after passing through the fire, each ending is a new beginning.

Shot in Super 8 in Guatemala and edited on VHS in 1987 at OCAD. Exhibited as part of an installation of the same name in a group show called “Dinosaurs” at Gallery 76 in November of that year.

“Have a Good Look” by Perfect World


Music by Perfect World, film shot by Chris Terry, edited by Steev Morgan. This video received the Heinz Award, Best Canadian Music Video at the Video Culture Festival (1985) in Toronto.

Perfect World provided the music for Chris’s film “Leave Only Footprints” and most of the footage in this video came from the same reels as that film. Shot on 16mm film, I edited it old school, on a Steenbeck flatbed.

Members of the band were Diane Bos, Brian Skol, and Andrew Zealley.

Hands and Faces

Hands and Faces

Friends and fellow student artists of the Ontario College of Art, Stewart Building 1985.

Video/Music: Steev Morgan
Music: Peter Gmheling
Depicted in no particular order:
Bruce Hefler
Ania Szado
Lynda Surjik
Roxanna Bikadoroff
Jane Huggard
Catherine Orfald
Alex Mascus
Mariela Borello
Dada Axis
France Boucher
Guy Laffyette
Miai Gulbrantson
Oliver Kellhammer
Jan Levis
Anne Cooper
Ken Vincent
George Van Bussle

a bird flew in my window… i had to do something.

a bird flew in my window... i had to do something.

A Banishing Ritual.
It was a hot summer night in a small cramped apartment. A bird flew in my window and I had to do something to avert the omen.

Video and sound by Steev Morgan 1984.
Shot on VHS. Audio recorded with analog loops at the OCA sound studio.

concept/feeling


An internal debate about the ever changing landscape of concepts and feelings in my head and how to choose a particular view to depict.

Video and sound by Steev Morgan 1983
Shot on VHS.

Smoke Omen

Smoke Omen - video by Steev Morgan
Video and sound by Steev Morgan 1980-81
Video: shot on 3/4 inch reel to reel
Sound: vocal improvisations on 2×1/4″ “Frippertronic” tape loop configuration (two machines, one loop)

Fur-lined Cubic Pinky Ring

I originally enrolled in Fine Crafts with the intention of becoming a jeweler and cutler. As I became more attracted to media arts, and realized I wasn’t up for a career working craft shows and making production work, my jewelry became less practical and more conceptual.
This 1979 fur-lined cubic pinky ring was inspired by Meret Oppenheim’s 1936 “Object”.
Stirling silver, cut and polished quartz crystal and rabbit fur. In the collection of the artist’s wife.

Navoo Dada/Navoo Davoo Posters

Navoo DadaFrom 1978 to 80 I was the Xerox monitor at Algonquin College, and I started to experiment with scanning and rescanning drawings and photos. I postered the school and the downtown streets of Ottawa.

This became a campaign involving collaborators Adly Gawad, Bruce Hefler, and Dan Tippins under the names Navoo Davoo/Navoo Dada. The first poster is a drawing from superimposed photos, Xeroxed and stenciled. I was impressed by the fuss that arose when I plastered the school and surrounding area. From there we started making posters that were under the group name, IDed only by our SIN numbers (which I have distorted, because that really was a bad idea).

Truth MachineTrick or Treat Real as DeathPersistent Predators Media BullshitThere are not spectatorsI'm Bored#1 ComputerlandThank-youNavoo Mama WarshipsNavoo AstroAh be na moon? We ba Artsoo