Memory Association Machine:An Account of the Realization and Interpretation of an Autonomous Responsive Site-Specific Artwork

Candidate: Ben Bogart
Type: Master of Science (MSc), School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Date: June 27, 2008
Senior Supervisor: Dr. Thecla Schipohrst, Associate Professor
Thesis: Download Thesis Document

Abstract

In the domain of site-specific art the artist creates an artifact whose meaning is dependent on the locality, that which makes its place in time and space unique, of the artifact. In conceptual art the artistic idea is the artwork, where the artifact is but a trace of the existence of the concept. The techniques used in interactive and electronic media artwork allow artists to create artifacts that can respond to the viewer, and operate autonomously. How can these methods be used to create an artwork that relates itself to its context without the artist predetermining that relation?

``Memory Association Machine'' (MAM) is an autonomous responsive electronic media artwork which is an attempt at an answer to that very question. How the artwork relates to its context is developed through a study of four areas, artistic practice, unsupervised connectionist artificial intelligence and Liane Gabora's conception of creativity. The method of relation is based on three main processes, perception, the integration of new sense data in terms of previous sense data, and the free-association through that field. The former process is implemented in the form of a Kohonen Self-Organizing Map, and the latter the author's simplified computational implementation of a theory of human creativity developed by Gabora.

This thesis is an account of the realization (the making real of) and interpretation (the making meaningful of) MAM. The process of realization and interpretation of the artifact, and all the work that has informed it, is the research. The artifact is a snapshot of the research at one moment in time, and this text is a document of that process to date. A model of (a way of thinking about) the creative process is discussed which has been formulated through this research process. This model and the methodology of artistic inquiry are combined into a creative practice that braids the areas of art practise, theories of creativity, and artificial intelligence.

Where are they now?

Ben has been awarded a Canada Council grant.