{"id":10711,"date":"2013-10-22T00:01:34","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T23:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dvblog.org\/?p=10711"},"modified":"2026-09-22T11:22:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T10:22:39","slug":"steven-ball-boundary-cyclone-transaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/?p=10711","title":{"rendered":"Steven Ball – Boundary Cyclone Transaction<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\n Boundary Cyclone Transaction (2013, 233 MB, 6:46 min)<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s an odd mixture, in varying quantities, of bone dry wit and
\na strain of almost ecstatic lyricism in the work of Steven Ball<\/a>.
\nThis is combined with an interest in formal governing devices
\n(how much they actually govern and how much it is part of the
\nexpressive character of the works that they should appear
\nto so do I don’t know)
\nSteven, I’m delighted to say, made this piece especially to
\nbe unveiled here on DVblog and it was something worth waiting for.
\nI append some of his notes to the piece.<\/p>\n

****************************************************************<\/p>\n

“Lists remind us that no matter how fluidly a system may operate,
\nits members nevertheless remain utterly isolated, mutual aliens.
\n Ontographical cataloging hones a virtue: the abandonment of
\nanthropocentric narrative coherence in favor of worldly detail.”<\/p>\n

“…ontography is a practice of increasing the number and density
\n [of things], one that sometimes opposes the minimalism of contemporary
\n art. Instead of removing elements to achieve the elegance of simplicity,
\n ontography adds (or simply leaves) elements to accomplish the realism
\n of multitude. It is a practice of exploding the innards of things.”
\n– Ian Bogost, Alien Phenomonology<\/p>\n

Imagine this as a premiss:<\/p>\n

the world as it appears is only as it appears to you
\nand perhaps
\nthe world
\nactually
\nappears in arbitrary order<\/p>\n

Boundary Cyclone Transaction takes Ian Bogost’s characterisation
\nof the ontographic list and uses it as a process by which to
\nauto-construct a picture of a non-human, which is perhaps to
\nsay alien, world, or at least one such as can be constructured
\nusing material found on or through the internet. As such it
\nalso presents a fragment of what might be considered as th
\ne consciousness of the internet as manifested in image, sound and text. <\/p>\n

The video consists of collections of image sequences, written words,
\nspoken words and sounds. The order in which each of those elements
\npresents themselves to the viewer has been determined randomly,
\ntherefore any juxtaposition of the elements is entirely arbitrary.
\nThe words used are nouns, i.e. they are things, objects, they
\nwere selected using a random word generator. The sounds consist
\nmostly of recording of environmental phenomena, such as weather
\nor recordings of cosmic energies, generally speaking non-human
\nsounds. The image sequences are all found online and consist of
\nlandscapes, insects, animals, images of microscopic organisms
\nand viruses, astronomical image, in other words also largely
\nnon-human. Both sounds and images were found through using
\nkeyword searches. It was important in the making of the work
\nfor the elements to be as removed from what I might customarily
\nintentionally select, for them to be as far away from the
\nfamiliarity of the (my) everyday, as possible.<\/p>\n

Alienation is a state arising from objects in the world, as they
\npresent themselves inevitably arbitrarily and without a coherent
\nnarrative. In this video the use of random processes aims to
\nmake coherence impossible, or as difficult as possible, while
\nstill, due to the linear and temporal nature of its reception,
\nwill still self-organise into a kind of self-coherent ecosystem.
\nThe longer term aim is for this video to be realised in performance,
\nto perform itself, using software to randomly order the playback
\nsequence of the discrete elements and media objects (images,
\nwords, sounds) for every iteration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boundary Cyclone Transaction (2013, 233 MB, 6:46 min) There’s an odd mixture, in varying quantities, of bone dry wit and a strain of almost ecstatic lyricism in the work of Steven Ball. This is combined with an interest in formal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,33,14,128,94,59,103,110,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-conceptual","category-experimental","category-formalism","category-network","category-newmediaart","category-processsystems","category-text","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10711"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11366,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711\/revisions\/11366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dvblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}