"The poetics of the 'open' work tends to encourage 'acts of conscious freedom' on the part of the performer and place him at the focal point of a network of limitless interrelations, among which he chooses to set up his own form without being influenced by an external necessity"
Opera Aperta, Umberto Eco


During my early video performances ( 2003 - 2006 ) I had encountered the problem of interactive freedom. How to define my compositions before my performance, to leave big enough interactive space for improvisation. As I increase the openness of my visual structures, the number of possible outcomes is exploding exponentially. So the time I need later to tell the computer which one exactly I want to choose. Time is limited during a 'live act' so will be my compositional freedom. TIME vs FREEDOM

Despite these technological obstacles I nourished the idea of a platform allowing to generate moving images on-the-fly. Just like we are able to speak what's on our mind without massive preparations, we could do the same through the language of images. Imagine an age, when visual communication will mean hours long dialogues of generative shapes, colours and rhythms on a shared holographic screen. An instant information flow connecting our self-locked imagination and intellect in real-time.

I don't know, whether this will be possible in my life-time, or is it possible at all. But what I know there is a way better trade off between time and freedom, than with current softwares. In 2003 I started my own experiments and my wider research to find kindred endeavours in culture, philosophy and science. Soon I found myself in a prolific transdisciplinary net talking about the future of our intelligence and society:

• traditional live art forms: improvisational dance and music
• contemporary open art works: Umberto Eco - Opera Aperta
• cognitive models of art: Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach
• play element of culture: Huizinga - Homo Ludens
• abstract game of all arts and sciences: Hermann Hesse - Glass Bead Game
• cyber space: William Gibson - Neuromancer

It became clear there is not a single 'key' to open this paradigm. The solution lies in yet separated fields. First we need to understand and map the fundamental cognitive patterns of creativity, then invent new computer languages, that are able natively handling and manipulating these human structures. Secondly we need to develop and practice an open, live mindset. Visual content creation is traditionally a significantly longer process, than the length of its output (e.g it takes a year to produce an hour long movie ). Visual artist needs to learn the attitude of live musicians or musicians should try to extend their improvisation to visuals. Luckily all these transformations are already happening on many levels...

If we take a wider look to the field, we will realise this uninterrupted flow of information between humans and the tools of production not only revolutionary for video performances, but it is able to reshape our whole relationship to technology and accelerate the evolution of the collective human knowledge & communication.