Notes from the Molecular Golem Workshop 30th September 2019 at KHIO
The Molecular Ballet & the quest for the Ultrahieroglyphic.
The Molecular Ballet project is an ongoing experiment intended to create a language of creative expression for our time. The raw material of the project is a set of 256 collected artworks along with corresponding text snippets. Each artwork is produced as a collage of found material by invited contributors from a wide array of different fields. We call them «Tots».
The artistic study of the "Tots”, has inspired different methods of interpretation and transmutation. To carry out the work, a series of imaginal characters have emerged, The Dancers. Each dancer represent a particular set of operations that the whole set of 256 Tots must undergo to reach their final form as the Ultrahieroglyphic Language. There are 8 such primary Stages - and each of them have both an internal function in our symbol-distilling work - and an external function - as catalysts for real life intentions to be materialized as concrete projects in the world.
Stage 1: Silens
Contemplating the Tots and their texts in silence - and interpreting them as 256 meditations to make the experience of silence available to everone.
Stage 2: Tazen - Autonomy & the Elementa UN project
Setting up a physical infrastructure for our work on the Tots - and interpreting them as 256 strategies to make real autonomy and dignity available to every being.
Stage 3: Information Psychology
Digitizing the Tots - and interpreting them as a collection of 256 ways to live with integrity alongside advanced Technology and Artificial Intelligence.
Stage 4: Lövaman & the Elementa UT project
Bringing the Tots into Nature and Nature into the Tots - and interpreting them as a series of 256 projects to help restitute an honourable relationship to nature.
Stage 5: The Axioman
Opening up for anyone who would like to contribute to the work with the Tots - and interpreting the set of Tots as 256 conversations to open hearts.
Stage 6: Nefer & the Elementa INN project
Expanding the visual dimension of the Tots - and interpreting the set of Tots as the 256 pages of a special book teaching the Language of Patterns.
Stage 7: The Signal Workers
Exploring the sound-dimension of the Tots and interpreting them as 256 evolving musical pieces to open new dimensions of musical appreciation.
Stage 8: The Molecular Ballet
Bringing each of the above interpretations of the set of 256 Tots together - in a dance practice, The Molecular Ballet - and making any benefit from our process available to each sentient being.
Towards the Ultrahieroglyph
The work of the Molecular Ballet has evolved since 2010 and is in its 10th year. The plan is to collect all the artworks (the “Tots”) within 2019 - and to fully develop the 8 Stations of Transmutation within next year, 2020 - and to present initial renderings of the “Ultrahieroglyphic” - the final form of our living symbol language, within the first half of 2021.
You can follow (and even contribute to) the work at:
www.studioaoa.no
www.elementa.no
www.instagram.no/elementaoslo
www.instagram.no/molecularballet
Producing the Molecular Golem
An overarching goal of the present experiment in spontaneous collaboration, is to produce your own Dancer / agent (put to life in the form of a series of animated GIFS), modelled or inspired by the Dancers of the Molecular Ballet.
This Dancer/Agent should - in some way or another - have the potential to:
Help forward - and even perhaps transform - aspects of your own particular work with your Master degree.
Help the world forward in some way, relieve suffering, resolve conflict or just bring some joy and beauty to fellow beings.
A third potential to keep in mind - and this rests upon your wish to do so - you can let the creature be an interface to the evolving universe of The Molecular Ballet - and to the work of Elementa.
The Golem of Prague
During the workshop, 4 virtual anthropomorphic beings were put together as collages, made from «Tots» - along with some rough sketches of what their agency could be about.
In the story of the Golem of Prague, the maker of this legendary creature had to put a note with the word EMET (alif, mem, Tau, first, middle and last letters of the Hebrew alphabeth) - on the tongue of the clay creature to make it come alive.
Emet means Truth. For the creature to have any agency and relevance as a companion in your work, you are going to have to animate it. And the key to do so, will be to invest it with Truth. That is the truth about what really matters for you. What is really important?
Your consignment will be to produce the following setup
Put together a collage & name for your Dancer-Golem
Define a singular question to feed into it.
It will very quickly produce 256 short replies. (could be 8-16-32,64 or 128)
Choose the replies that answer your question.
Produce GIF memes expressing the answer in text and an animated picture
Animate and render as a GIF in one of the following ways:
Classical stop motion film
As a physical paper puppet
Using animation software
Or any other technique
"An inability to respond to "naive questions" is a serious weakness for a scientist or anyone else.” - said Richard Feynman
Animated GIF
"An animated GIF is an image encoded in graphics interchange format (GIF),which contains a number of images or frames in a single file and is described by its own graphic control extension. The frames are presented in a specific order in order to convey animation. An animated GIF can loop endlessly or stop after a few sequences."
An animated GIF can be produced from any short animation or sequences of animations. The trick is to make it quite short, expressive and snappy (often somewhere between 1 and 6 seconds). Looping animations are often a lot of fun. It could consist of anywhere between 2 and 100 frames.
Should it live online on a website (and in an SMS for example) - it is a good point to try and keep the size down - ideally under 1-2 MB - and in no circumstance more than 5-6 MB. This can be accomplish by setting a low framerate, controling the numbers of colours and of course the length of the animation.
An excellent app for mac users is GIF brewery, with which you can easily turn a film into a GIF - and fully control amount colours
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gif-brewery-3-by-gfycat/id1081413713?mt=12
It is also possible to make it in programs like Photoshop and in After Effects (for the quick learner - or those who are specially interested). If you want to go deeper into the field of animation, there are also other products in the Adobe suite like Adobe Animate - and Character Animator, which allows you to map yourself real time to your character with the computer camera.
Here is one tutorial among many online - about making animated GIF’s in Photoshop:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-create-animated-gif-quick-tip-ht
God speed!