Topological Media Lab

The Topological Media Lab (TML) was established in 2001 by Sha Xin Wei as a trans-disciplinary atelier-laboratory for collaborative research creation. In 2005, TML moved to Concordia University and the Hexagram research network in Montréal, Canada. Its projects serve as case studies in the construction of fresh modes of cultural knowledge and the critical studies of media arts and techno-science, bringing together practices of speculative inquiry, scientific investigation and artistic research-creation practices. Current application domains include: realtime video, sound synthesis, embedded sensors, gesture tracking, physical computing, media choreography, active textiles, and wearable or soft architecture.

Fields of inquiry

Topology is a field of mathematics concerned with the non-metric (non-numerical) properties of space and the continuous, dynamic relationships through which space is constituted. The Topological Media Lab approaches topological research as a creative endeavour that cuts across disciplines and fields of experience. The TML self-describes its atelier research as studying processes of “subjectivation, agency and materiality from phenomenological, social and computational perspectives”.

TML researchers investigate how people build, inhabit and use sensate or active matter. Philosophically, TML research draws inspiration from the phenomenology of the Merleau-Ponty's later writings, the questioning of representation and meaning by Wittgenstein, the philosophy of technology of Simondon, and ethico-aesthetic sensibilities of Guattari amongst other sources. The TML is both an atelier and a research laboratory for research in improvisatory gesture and movement from humane but also non-anthropocentric perspectives. Projects conducted in the atelier draw on and inform research in the areas of performance, music, media arts and embodiment theory. The topological experiments also contribute to ongoing research in the computational and natural sciences, seeking to understand the dynamic interplays of social, psychical and material space.

Major research themes

The Topological Media Lab-atelier develops projects through the creation of responsive environments generated in order to investigate particular phenomenological research questions. The TML explores gesture and movement in the presence of active materials and media that respond to changes in the environment. To realize its experiments, the TML creates technologies of performance (rather than representation). Research can be loosely categorized according to three major themes. (1) Calligraphic Video (2) Gestural Sound and (3) Active Materials.

1. Calligraphic Video is fields of video approached as textured light that varies according to movement or gesture. Movement from cameras or other sensor data are treated “as palpably as water, smoke, or other continuous media to accommodate painterly gesture”. Calligraphic video is developed as a concrete means of supporting dense visual “interaction” leveraging our pre-verbal bodily intuition, allowing for the exploration of intercorporeal and affective experience. Experiments with calligraphic video also leverages advances in computational physics and GPU-based or parallel hardware processing, exploring impact of such advances for corporeal experience and the ways in which bodily relations are felt and understood.
The IL Y A project is an exemplary case study in calligraphic video. It presents a double-sided video installation that comes to life only when at least two people look at each other through its membrane. The project is an investigation into the material and architectural substrate of sociality.

2. Gestural Sound means spatialized fields of sound that are shaped in realtime by the movements and activities of the inhabitants of a given environment. Again, the emphasis is on continuous, unanticipated movement that may be improvised freely by those within the conditioned space. Software instruments map continuous spaces of movement via feature extractors and mapping logics to the synthesis systems, including granular synthesis, filter models, physical models analogous to the realtime video models, and "learning" models. The development and experimentation with performative technology for mapping sensory data from one modality to another, scaffolds the exploration of sensation and aesthetic experience.
An exemplary project involving gestural sound research is “Frankenstein's Ghosts”, which is a creation-research project to build a hybrid critical discussion and performance work inspired by Mary Shelley's novel. It is a collaboration between the Blue Rider contemporary music ensemble, choreographer Michael Montanaro.

3. Active Materials are materials that change in concert with movement and activity. The Topological Media Lab has done projects involving active textiles and wearables and is currently working on research concerning active materials in architectural environments.
An exemplary project involving research in active materials is the “What You See is What You Get” project, named from the era of the graphical user interface. The project created a suite of jewelry-like, scarf-like, or blanket-like fabric objects that can be used for improvised play. The custom-designed digital instruments embedded in the cloth sample movement to transform ambient body movement and freehand gestures into new sounds or “voices” associated with a player or transmitted to other players in the vicinity. The research project therefore targets the creation of a series of devices – some made from soft material – that will react in different ways to proximity and contact, movements, noise characteristics, and the progress of the game itself.

Affiliates

Since 2001, over 65 artists, researchers and students have resided at the TML, from diverse backgrounds, including electroacoustics, computer graphics, design, computational media, dance, theater, architecture, philosophy, applied physics, carpentry, and plant biology.

Recent affiliates include: Sha Xin Wei, Michael Montanaro, David Morris, Harry Smoak, Jean Sébastien Rouseau, Michael Fortin, Morgan Sutherland, Timothy Sutton, Navid Navab, Edward Umbach, Laura Emelianoff, Patrick Harrop, Josée-Anne Drolet, Laura Boyd-Clowes, Saulo Madrid, Mark Sussman, Erik Conrad, Zohar Kfir, Lina Dib, Jennifer Spiegel, Olfa Driss and Adrian Freed.

Related Organizations

• FoAM in Brussels, Belgium
• The Hexagram Institute for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technologies at Concordia University
• The Technoculture, Art and Games group at the Hexagram Institute
• Matralab at the Hexagram Institute
• Lab Xmodal at the Hexagram Institute
• XS Labs at the Hexagram Institute
• The Input Devices and Musical Interaction Laboratory at the McGill Music Technology Area
• The Shared Reality Lab at the McGill Centre for Intelligent Machines

Selected publications

• "What's At Stake: the Poetics of Performative Space," AI & Society London, 6 October 2008. ("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/AIS_WhatIsAtStake.pdf" PDF)
• Sha Xin Wei, "http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/Ethico-aesthetics_T*_spaces_TRG.pdf" Ethico-Aesthetics in T* Performative Spaces," in On Transient Realities and Their Generators, ed. Kuzmanovic and Tim Boykett. Maribor, Slovenia: Kibla, 2005, pp. 22-39. To be recast as prospectus for book: A Genealogy of Topological Media. (Describing some of the technical and ethico-aesthetic aspects of the TGarden family of responsive play spaces: TGarden 2000 through FoAM’s trg 2005.)
• Sha Xin Wei, " "http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/Modern%20Drama/Sha_TGardenPerformResearch.pdf" The TGarden Performance Research Project." Modern Drama, 48.3, Fall, Special Issue: Technology (2005): 585-608. ("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/Modern%20Drama/Sha_TGardenPerformResearch.pdf" PDF with color images,"http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/Modern%20Drama/Sha_TGarden_ModernDrama_48.3.pdf" Published article )
• "Differential Geometrical Performance and Poiesis," in Configurations, Vol 12, Number 1, Winter 2004, pp. 133–160. ("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/DiffGeomPerf_Config04.pdf")
• "Resistance Is Fertile: Gesture and Agency in the Field of Responsive Media," in Makeover: Writing the Body into the Posthuman Technoscape, Two-Part Special Issue of Configurations, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Part 2: Configurations, Vol 10, Number 3, Summer 2002.

("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/Configurations/Resistance_Is_Fertile.pdf" PDF)

• "Speechpainting - An Architectural Medium," E-Zine, 15.10, Oct 2001. ("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/Speechpainting.pdf" PDF, "http://www.msstate.edu/Fineart_Online/Backissues/Vol_15/faf_v15_n10/text/review01.html" HTML)
• Sha Xin Wei with sponge, "The surface that holds the image is unstable," ec/Arts #2, September 2000. ("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/ecarts.pdf" PDF, "http://sponge.org/pub_gallery/ecarts_01.html" HTML)

Computational science

• Sha Xin Wei, Michael Fortin, Navid Navab, Tim Sutton, "Ozone: Continuous State-based Media Choreography System for Live Performance," ACM Multimedia, October 2010, Firenze ("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/ACMMM10/acmmm2010_art06601-sha.pdf" paper). Sha Xin Wei, Michael Fortin, Jean-Sebastien Rousseau, "Calligraphic Video: A Phenomenological Approach to Dense Visual Interaction," ACM Multimedia, October 2009, Beijing ("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/ACMMM09/art1231-sha.pdf" paper, slides.
• Sha Xin Wei, Doug Van Nort, David Gauthier, Marcelo M. Wanderley,"Extraction of Gestural Meaning from a Fabric-Based Instrument," ICMC 2007. ("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/vannort_etal_icmc07_final.pdf" PDF) Sha Xin Wei, * David Birnbaum, * Freida Abtan, Marcelo *M. Wanderley, "Mapping and dimensionality of a cloth-based sound instrument," Sound & Music Computing, 11–13 July 2007, Lefkada Greece. ( "http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/SMC07_BirnbaumAbtan_etal.pdf" PDF)
• Sha Xin Wei, and Satinder Gill, "Gesture and Response in Field-Based Performance," 5th conference on Creativity & Cognition, ed. Ernest Edmonds, London: ACM, 2005, pp. 205–09. ("http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/CreativityCognition2005/Sha-Gill_CreativityCognition2005.pdf" PDF)

Scholarly spaces

• "http://topologicalmedialab.net/xinwei/papers/texts/MediaWeaverBologna.pdf" Cathedral, Tool or Framework? MediaWeaver As a Distributed Scholarly Workspace" in Augmenting Comprehension: Digital Tools and the History of Ideas, ed. Dino Buzzetti, Giuliano Pancaldi, and Harold Short, (London: Office for Humanities Communication, Kings College London), 2004, pp. 101–112

Artist statements and presentations

• http://www.topologicalmedialab.net/public_2006/tgarden/video/ars2001/ars_talk_06sep2001.mov

Playspaces, TGarden foam and sponge, Ars Electronica talk, 2001.

• "Motion Capture," Interface Montreal 19 October 2005, Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT).

"http://montrealstateofmind.com/2009/02/pecha-kucha-montreal-10/"

• What are the stakes? Pecha Kucha, Montreal 18 February 2009, Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT).

" "http://www.interfacesmontreal.org/en/speakers/sha-xin-wei-2009"

• Games Beyond the Wii ," Interface Montreal 10 March 2009, Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT).