While I was working on House In Bali in Berkeley, I had the thought that it would be a good idea to run some video signal through a steak. It was mostly the drawing I had made of the signal flow, and the name (“Steak Filter”) that I thought were so simple and adorably right. I am hard to dissuade when I insist something is right, even if I am clearly wrong; you might already know this. I got excited about it, and ended up not talking about much else for a day or so. I think I was pretty insufferable about it being a good thing to try.

Just last week, I finally got it together enough to just do a dry run, and I’m glad I did—somehow I never remember how easy it is to just throw something together, or how little I ever regret spending an hour or an evening to throw together a little test that will leave me with some digital or physical records to work with.

I meant to tell you about this sooner, because I liked the result. The actual mechanics of the filter worked really well, better than I thought, and it made for a nice contemplative couple hours, watching the steak (it was a roast, actually) cooking. Almost as soon as I put it up on Vimeo, I got an email from an editor at a food blog called “Eat Me Daily.” Not, if you ask me, a great name for a blog, but they had some cool work there. Raphael, the editor, asked me “exactly what’s going on here.”

This was exciting, because it was a chance to put an actual artwork into the world with a statement accompanying it. I’m glad I thought a bit ahead, though, and asked him to hold off publishing for a day or so while I got my website updated and generally cleaned house and prepared for visitors. Using Google Wave, Harlo and I co-edited the text of the statement and sent it off. Here’s the statement:

Hi Raphael, thanks for your patience – there’s now a (hopefully) more coherent web representation of the project online.

I think the >init< video is perhaps the most explanatory: http://vimeo.com/7491585 , although the green-and-red video you referenced does look a little nicer (both are from the same performance event). Quite literally, I am plugging composite video into a big steak, which is then cooked. The video signal going through the steak is the image of the steak cooking. Gradually, the steak loses moisture and signal can no longer pass.

With this performance I'm trying to get at the reflexivity of live video - the taut line between the space and the image that results. It's possible to think of almost anything that mediates as a filter of some kind...sort of a "the-map-is-not-the-territory" territory.

In this system, the filtered image is recursively processed in a feedback loop, allowing minute perturbations to ripple and echo across the screen long after the original impulse has ended.

Part of my interest in video lies in its exploded body; the signal is a ghost that resonates and deforms, trapped in our waveguides: when the system powers down the image fades into incoherence, leaving no corpse behind. Steak Filter gives body to this infinite recursion, making it real; incarnate. With this corporeality comes mortality: as the meat sputters and pops, we watch the cascade of images until finally, the steak is done.

This piece was a study for a performance series I might be doing at the Harvard Museum of Natural History this spring. I'd love to hear any thought/feedback/reactions, etc you might have - thanks!

After I sent that off, Raphael wrote back with some questions, which I’ll post verbatim:

Hi Raphael, thanks for your questions! I’ll do my best to answer these well but please feel free to push me for clarification or more details…

You write “the signal is a ghost” — is part of what you’re capturing the last remaining life of the animal, right before its consumption? Its “last gasp” so to speak. Is the meat itself a ghost?

It’s not particularly about the life/soul of the animal – meat is meat. For me, the ghost I mention is the fissure between the physical and virtual realms involved in the performance – a real space is abstracted, ghosted, into a temporal phenomenon (the video signal) that we see as a series of transient images onscreen. There’s no way to “catch” this live signal, but you can see its traces.

Was there a reason to use beef over other meats?

It was very important for this project not to be wasteful, both out of respect for the medium and due to financial limitations – I asked a couple butchers for spoiled/unwanted steaks, but nobody would provide any. Often, a title is one of the first elements I’ll start with when making a piece, and “Steak Filter” has a compelling ring to it. Also, I don’t really eat pork, and I was worried chicken or fish would not present an easily-readable image onscreen.

How will your upcoming performance series incorporate this study?

I’m not entirely sure yet, but I will probably be doing this performance, cooking a steak filter, while the audience explores the rest of the works on display. The smell, and the amplified sound of the sputtering of the meat, will provide an interesting ambient counterpoint to the museum’s usual fare of sterile, long-dead, never-changing objects. (There is no sound in some of the videos this time because I did not have the proper mic setup)

How did it taste?

It was delicious. I might experiment with different marinades, though, to see their effect on the image and palette. There is something special, though, to the simplicity of the current setup.

Have you worked with food before?

I have done a few poorly-documented projects in the past, like signing my name using a pen that dispenses a rapidly-solidifying “gummi” mix. I am working on a piece now that involves custom-molded chocolate circuitry, although it is too soon to tell if that idea will bear
fruit.

also, please confirm: the official name of the piece is “Steak Filter v0″ and should be credited to Noah Feehan / AKA MEDIA SYSTEM

Thanks for asking! This is version 0 of the “Steak Filter” series, so “Steak Filter (v0)” or “Steak Filter, v0″ would be fine. I’m Noah
Feehan / AKA. AKA MEDIA SYSTEM is a term I use to include any collaborators and/or participants, but this piece is pretty much solo.

I just couldn’t be more pleased with Raphael’s write-up here. I was a little worried when I saw the “is this about the animal’s soul” part, as it looked a little like a leading question, but it turned out fine—I think that by providing a strong set of responses and a clearly-written statement, it became easier to tell my story than to do the usual conjecture/opinion that often accompanies reblogged web art.

Raphael’s piece really took off after a few hours, which was super-exciting. First it was on kottke, then Gizmodo, then Lady Ada’s blog, then Today and Tomorrow. Overall, I got 14400 views in about 3 days. And this was a test shot, done on Friday night, more or less because I had nothing better to do.

The thing I learned is, this is the better thing that I have to do. The more I spend a couple hours doing a lil thing like this, or making Mylar Mountains, or making little chocolate circuitboards, the more something good is likely to happen.

I walked four times around the same place. Four loops. I was wearing binaural microphones. Even at the same place, the sound is never the same. But it is often familiar.

I geologged as I walked. The geologging and the recording were started simultaneously.

View Four Loops – 20090930 in a larger map

Special thanks to Kelly Snook from NASA for loan of the equipment.

I will tell you all about the trip to Ars Electronica, including: meeting people (Roman Stigner, Jeff Lieberman and Dan Paluska, Hayes Raffle, Ayah Bdeir, Julius von Bismarck), about bosner and fleischbrot, about the cruel tramdrivers, and some rules of tourism.

I will tell you about my secret little trip to California that has refreshed and energized me. About Berkeley and the insane strike we weathered, about working with Professionals and also with people in the theater.

I will summarize my talk at HEMBI and tell you how the open projects are going, including: the Dutty Artz terrain commission (tentatively titled “horchata”), the low-resolution hoodie connected to invisible dimensions, the Syncwalk interface, and whatever else I remember I’m working on.

I will tell you what I’m cooking this week, because I really missed not having my CSA and can’t wait to get back at it.

The contest was basically to take a gift bag full of Hallmark’s products (you know, those irritating song-cards, dancing snowman snow globes, glitter, and so forth) and add/subtract anything to make a cool new product that answered one of four core questions. I lost my list of questions, but they were all pretty vague and fit within the “making moments matter” sort of mindframe one would expect.

The middle idea was the winner, although I had way, way more fun making the bone-conduction headband and dancing around to my old Mousercise LP…

FAMILY DANCE TROUPE
A customizable set of characters that fit into the “Dancing Santas” snowglobes. Customization can be cartoon-like (think the Mii characters of Nintendo’s Wii game system) and configured by the consumer via a web or in-store interface; alternately, new 3-d technology like Microsoft’s Project Natal could be used to accurately scan a person’s face and be printed out as an accurate likeness.

CHRISTMAS CONSTELLATIONS
A system for extended families to share memories. Each star in the constellation is a special Christmas ornament that has both a camera and a display. When Grandma sends you a picture or message (through an easy web interface like blogger or flickr), your ornament will glow gently to indicate that Grandma has sent you a new photo. As you’re seeing it, you can turn the ornament around, snap a picture, and send it right back to her via a local wireless link.

SECRET DANCE PARTY
Silly cartoon “ears” that children can wear at a birthday party or other special event. It’s a great party favor because it gives the kids an activity: they all put the ears on and magically can all dance in unison, even though the parents don’t hear any music! The secret is the bone-conduction speaker in the headband, which plays music inside the child’s head that is inaudible to others. The headbands will be pre-loaded with 8-10 full-length songs (the kids’ songs can have instructions, a la Mousercise, that allow them to do dance moves in sync), and the headbands can easily keep sync by only transmitting/receiving cues (ie, “play track 1″) instead of streaming audio.

I was determined not to use Powerpoint and not to have too much text in my presentation, as I find both to be deadly boring and inelegant. As a result, showing you the images I prepared for my presentation will be of limited utility without my spiel going on over it. That is, I think, how it should be: images should reinforce my talk, and depend on it, rather than the other way around. I hope to refine this presentation style/approach more, as it is one of the few things I think I might actually be able to teach/help other Labbers with…as a whole, we’re not so good at presenting our work. This is sad, because so many awesome ideas come out of the Lab, and only a few result in equally awesome prototypes; of those few, it is sad to see visitor/sponsor enthusiasm lag in the face of a bad presentation of an awesome concept-and-demo…

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

If you just want the paper and no web documentation, it’s here. Please don’t re-post it anywhere, it’s not supposed to be in the wild yet—not sure why but I think it has to do with the conference being the first place it gets seen…