| As a platform for my findings and proposals, octomat.com was formed in 1996 as entrepreneurial design research model. Octomat works to link the disciplines of industrial design, sculpture, multimedia, animation and cultural studies with a broad interest in game theories in order to contemplate the game as metaphor. The octomat logo is a brand-figuration of the spirit of speculation born out of the relationship between the calculable (scientific/mathematical) and non-calculable (mystical) in determining subject and motif for designs. The entertainment design platform for octomat works was outlined in a paper at the University of Nevada Reno’s 10th International Conference on Gambling in Montreal, Canada in 1997, following what, since 1995, became bi-annual pilgrimage visits to Las Vegas. |  |
The Architecture of Risk – Laurens Tan
As a platform for my findings and proposals, octomat.com was formed in 1996 as entrepreneurial design research model. Octomat works to link the disciplines of industrial design, sculpture, multimedia, animation and cultural studies with a broad interest in game theories in order to contemplate the game as metaphor. The octomat logo is a brand-figuration of the spirit of speculation born out of the relationship between the calculable (scientific/mathematical) and non-calculable (mystical) in determining subject and motif for designs.
The entertainment design platform for octomat works was outlined in a paper at the University of Nevada Reno’s 10th International Conference on Gambling in Montreal, Canada in 1997, following what, since 1995, became bi-annual pilgrimage visits to Las Vegas. The Silver City’s architectural and design history led to my thesis “A Cultural Architecture of Identity,” which proposed that the seemingly derivative and eclectic imaging style was spuriously used as a design template and, elsewhere, as shorthand to deliver a visual environment that gamblers and tourists expected.
The term “Vegascana”® and “Vegas Noir”® were used in the thesis to refer to this heritage. The essence of Vegas became an obsession in the research that followed—I was hoping to fulfill a sequel study of the urban design phenomenon in the footsteps of Venturi/Scott Brown/Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas. Vegascana was part of a series of conversations with Mike Newman, a Las Vegas writer and blackjack dealer at the Rio casino.
Since 1997, the Vegas investigation became a fundamental element for all projects, including several public art proposals carrying the urban entertainment theme and several other exhibitions and projects such as ESM, Aiya, Jack High (animation), Profile of a Counter (animation), Daze of Our Lives’, Game Theory I and including the octomat project. This last project culminated in a participation in the World Gaming Congress in Las Vegas in 1999 and also produced the website www.octomat.com. Octomat was a research partnership assisted by the Research Centre, University of Western Sydney and that produced several industry projects—a TV Commercial/Infomercial, slot machine interface designs, websites, games and other digital works. The project was supported by the University of California (Davis) with several multimedia/graphic design interns from the Faculty of Environmental Design and Landscape Architecture taking part.
Enterprising by design, octomat may be perceived as non-commercial or idealistic in its quest, primarily because of its playful curiosities in the kind of research it pursues—often appearing to be distracted by ideas that the academic and industrial fraternity would construe as impractical or as hedonistic. Octomat’s designs, programming and constructions revolve around entertainment design ideas fed by games and game-parlours—and it proposes these in various settings and under different guises.
Octomat’s “industrial explorations” pare the gambling theme down to more elemental concerns—especially involving Pythagorean numbers, number cycles, patterns and theories—the symbology of numbers and mathographics. A strong undercurrent of interest has been a fascination with luck and with symbols—historical analytical surveys are still ongoing—from eastern and western astrological systems to Von Neumann’s calculations in relation to risk.
A current theme development is “Risk-as-Pleasure”—lifestyle considerations informed by the doctrines of Epicurus and by the theories on risk by economist Daniel Kahneman. Forthcoming research projects will also consider the solutions surrounding problem gambling and aspects of addiction and immersion.
One of octomat’s prototypes is part of the exhibition “Gambling in Australia” at the Sydney Powerhouse Museum and a new installation based on propitious retail merchandising at the Casula Powerhouse, Sydney in 2007.
The Tactile and the Corporeal
Sheree Dietrich speaks with Laurens Tan
Sheree Dietrich: Although your recent work uses mainly virtual media, you still cannot deny the need to produce the physical object. What is it, do you think, that ties you to this?
Laurens Tan: These are two levels of spatial “adventures”—both are valuable and valid as experiences. The physical represents permanence and its tactility is testimony to our presence in the living environment. The virtual is more speculative and is part of the “dream.” In some ways, these two forms are “reality” prototypes that provide distinct responses—our existence is defined by the space that we occupy, the things that we touch (present and past) and also the things that we ponder and wish for (future).
Reality has a requirement to be convincing at different levels and at different times to different people: we are susceptible to imaginings in various ways depending on need and desire. The other aspect is the challenge of design and construction such as the industrial designer’s process in which a three-dimensional design works as well in the flesh as it does on the drawing board (or in the mind’s eye). Objects in the flesh also provide speculative platforms for further creation—conjuring new relationships in space experienced to a different extent than in the virtual world.
SD: What new advantage does virtual media give to the artist as communicator and to an audience’s desire to engage with the artwork?
LT: As a construction in imagined space, an improbable situation can be persuasive or convincing. In creating scenarios, “story-telling” subjectivities are imbedded in the camera angles, the arrangements and placements within the environment. Simple sequences can emote information in subjective ways—they can unleash a sense of promise, fulfillment, despair or delight. The passion of the modeller/animator/story writer/set designer, etc. can often be shared by the audience in an oeuvre or two. For example, PlayStation and interactive movies.
SD: How close are we to relying upon the virtual alone? Do you think a virtual work is believable?
LT: The filmic experience has led the way for our thirst for the hyper-real—we are conditioned to demand more—uglier monsters, more beautiful angels, faster vessels, deeper space. What we avoid in our daily lives we expect as prerequisites in our entertainment. Virtuality is often said to be believable in the way that it can effect younger audiences, in the way that it is used in bank-holdups (Ocean’s 11) or in the way that they satiate the romantic desires of some. The cross between the imagined, the virtual and the real has been a source of great debate in the theories of psychoanalysts.
How and what the mind perceives as real is the basis of our fascination with and immersion in the things that appear on our screens (Virrilio, Baudrilard) and, earlier, the interpretations of socially acceptable forms of believability (Jung and Freud). These are fascinations that often eliminate any reason for me to distinguish between entertainment and art.
About the Author
Dr. Laurens Tan is a sculptor, installation and new media artist working from China and Australia. Earlier this year, he was awarded a Doctorate in Creative Arts in the Department of Media and Communication, University of Technology Sydney. He is expanding further his new thesis on ‘The Architecture of Risk’ into a co-publication with Professor Felicia Campbell of the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
Dr. Tan serves on the Artists Advisory Group for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney; is one of the longest serving members on the Board of Directors for the Asian Australian Art Association, Sydney and also now serves on the Board of Directors of the Wollongong City Gallery in his hometown in NSW Australia.
He has exhibited internationally since 1987 and his focus is in the development and research in Art and Design. As academic, he has been engaged at the University of Wollongong (1987-91), Sydney College of the Arts (1989-93), University of Western Sydney Nepean (1992-2003) and the University of California Davis (1998 & 1999).
He has been awarded the Australia China Council artist-in-residency in Beijing at Redgate for a second time for 2007, to develop his research on the civic architectural sculpture in China and on new sculpture technologies. He is visiting professor at the School of Contemporary Art, Tianjin Academy of Fine Art (current) and the Hebei University of Technology (2007).
