The Virtual Step

Virtual Reality enables the audience the ability to not only witness an artists work, but to visually engage into the work itself. Everything seen in the computer is (in a sense) is part of the virtual universe. The term is used for a three-denominational experience in which the user can 'step' into the virtual environment, with the use of specialized equipment such as body suits, eye covers, and gloves.

Since 1990, The Legible City made my Jeffery Shaw, allows an individual to explore a virtual world by simply riding a mounted bicycle. The viewer is expected to encounter buildings, signs, roadways, and more along the expedition. The work was said to predict what the future may hold for this line technology as progressing forward. People are said to become more familiar with the concepts of virtual reality, as much as they are now with modern television, telephones, computers, tablets, and other means of modern technology. We are already seeing this now with the introduction of virtual reality games that have recently been provided to the common public.

The Cave in 1992 was a virtual environment of stenographic computer graphics which interacts with the movements of the user equipped with stereo glasses, this allows for users to spot other users present in the same area. For every second, images are played out through the projection.

So.So.So. Somebody, Somewhere, Sometime by Maurice Benayoun enables users with VR binoculars to enter an environment of panoramic spheres that display images of people engaging in various activities at different times. Users create a new reality based on the pre-existing one when focusing on elements from different scenarios.

Artist Micah Ganske made his attempt at AVR with his project; Ocular EVA Pod - Augmented VR Project. In addition to the virtual reality provided through the Ocelus Rift, the created a six-foot tall sculptural cockpit which was 3D printed. The user is meant to feel as if he/she was piloting through a virtual environment created by Ganske. The user finds that the cockpit is replaced virtually in an enclosed glass EVA vehicle. The airlock doors open as the pod enters space and finds one of Ganske's alternate projects, an assemblage of spacecraft sculptures combined in the form of a humanoid figure. His work revolves around what he refers to as "Asperational Technology" which details what our future could have been and what he believes could still be.

Cinematic Installation

Contemporary artists have worked to produce participatory works of art, which goes beyond the simple premises of computer interactions. Viewers of the work become an essential part of the works's fiction.

Bill Seaman created an interactive triptych installation titled Passage Set/ One Pulls Pivots on the Tip of the Tongue  shows three projections that have highlighted text for present viewers to press, doing so will display a spatial poem that reflects the layering or collision of psychological spaces which allows for sequential reading, much like reading a poem or staring at a painting.

Paul Garrin's White Devil revolves around more social issues. When walking through a neighborhood, a dog suddenly chases after the viewer, seemingly so.

Ken Feingold's Childhood/Hot and Cold Wars (the Appearance of Nature), touching the clock will flood the viewer with images that represent 1950-1960's culture. The flow of the images can be controlled by the viewer.

Galápagos by Karl Sims shows off multiple abstract shapes in the form of 'genetic' organisms which viewers can grow their own. The work was inspired by Charles Darwin's famous theory on Natural Selection. 

Sims had also explored this concept through his other work, like Evolved Virtual Creatures, Evolution Simulation, 1994.

Holography

The very idea of art made from holograms would often be thought of something found out of science fiction.  But as artists work on exploring and expanding on three denominational forms to this day, the idea has never been so far fetched as one might think (speaking for one's self).

Holography in general, is the science of producing holograms, illusions performed from a light field, rather than images projected through a lens. It requires the use of a laser in order to illuminate the subject matter of a given object.

The holographic method was first invented by Hungarian-British physicist Gábor Dénes, who received a  Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971 for his breakthrough.

Dieter Jung was a German artist known for working with holographic imagery. He developed a projected form of text which he titled BIBI BEI BOB, in 1987.

The National Polytechnic Museum of Sofia displays a self portrait, to whom it is unknown.

Holograms are more commonly found placed on credit/debit cards which are added as security features, they are applied so that they can not be removed as easily as they provide identity for the card's brand.

These images show two parts of a single hologram of a mouse as a means to reveal different angels of a projected object.

Work from the hard drive

Once the computer was made accessible by the common people, new forms of art work was introduced to the digital media. The calculative machines were used as a primary tool to create works that were in some ways futuristic by appearance.

Computer art, however, was not entirely met with positive feedback, as most works of computer art was left without credit (from well known artists) due to an anti-technology sentiment from counter-culturalists of the 1960s-1970s.

Lillian Schwartz's Pixillation was an image made entirely out of pixels, consisting of abstract imagery.

John Whitney's Catalog was a short film made by using outdated military computer equipment.

William Letham's The Evolution of Form is a series of complex images of three denominational objects which are "sculpted" by the computer.

Generation of Computer Imagery

CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) has forever changed the way cinema has incorporated special effects. It's often rare to view a film of today's era without some influence in digital enhancements. Some people have feared that CGI may one day replace physical actors and environments all together, like in Rober Zemeckis's 2004 film, The Polar Express were every character was animated through motion capture.

The first ever CGI rendered character to at least express emotion as a believable entity, appeared on Young Sherlock Holmes in 1985 known as the Stained Glass Knight. Lucasfilm created the first "photorealistic" computer generated character, within 10 seconds of screen time.

Rise of Digital Filmography

"Cinema has become an art of video, rather than video art." Directors such as Steven Spielberg and Jean LucGodard are recognized as new-media digital artists. Around the time of the twentieth century, films have been heavily altered by digital special effects, such as the kind seen in Spielberg's classic: Jurassic Park in 1993. In the film, live actors would often be seen interacting with CGI models such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the films most famous scene.

New-age cimina is said to consist of illustrations that are multi-screen, multi-user, panoramic, dome-projected, and nonlocal. Isaac Julian explored these concepts through his works:

The Long Road to Mazatlán (1999)

 Paradise Omeros (2003)

Baltimore (2004)

These works were designed to embrace both the issues of racial and class identity, and the history/ theory of film including painting, choreography, and the psychology of memory. Each work is projected through multiple  screens in a filmed environment of cinematic sophistication.

Dawn of the Digital

The uprising of digital technology was unstoppable, and widely popular among artists with new and expansive opportunities. Once an image, language, ect was included into a computer, it could be altered in various ways.

Scanned work like the one from Lillian Schwartz Mona/Leo that shows a split image between Leonardo Da Vinci famous work; Mona Lisa, with a pic of a self portrait for the other half. 

Jean-Peirre Yvaral had also tweaked into Da Vinci's work by reconstructing the Mona Lisa into Synthesized Mona Lisa. 

Victor Burgin's Angelus Novus is a triptych of digital prints where the central piece shows a woman altered by the contrasts and exposure to lighting effects. From each side reveals bombs dropping from planes during World War II. Burgin intended for the viewers to see the 'angel' looking outward from the center of the piece, with her wings being flanked from each side. It is somewhat meant to only appear this way.

Digital Dilemma

At its time, no other text grasps in developing a language addressing issues withing the art age of technology more than Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Benjamin's essay resolves around cultural criticism that proposes the devaluation of a work of art is consequent to its mechanical reproduction. Technology raised issues of authorship and the uniqueness of the art object whose 'aura; was lost in reproduction. It is debatable weather or not art still had retained its value once it's manufactured in a certain sense. Instantly, this reminds me of the "kitsch" term used by Clement Greenburg, who believed modern art at the time was tied more to mass production, and was not "genuine culture," as he would put it. Kitsch as how Greenburg had seen it, was art made simply for art's sake, and nothing else. A similar relationship can be seen on Benjamin's essay, discussing the issues with mass produced art.

Identities

Video artists have used their installations for deepening the examinations of the self. Video installations were designed to elaborate on the individuals who viewed the images themselves. The camera for instance was a tool created to conduct real-time images the self. Installations had the ability to do this with the addition of adding an alternately designed environment, thus executing an encompassing view. It also grants the viewers a sense of being included into the work itself, in a literal viewpoint.

Adrian Piper's What It's Like, What It Is #3 invites people into the work with screen projections of racial stereotypes that audinace members interact with as the projected individuals challenge their presumptions and prejudices. Out of the Corner consists of seventeen monitors and photographs, doing so involves the audinace in once again interacting with ethnic stereotypes whom address the audience with trivial questions.

Moving into theatrical performances once more, Lovers by Teiji Furuhashi has naked bodies perform aerobic activities while interacting with the audience. Voices murmur as bodies appear from the darkness as they confront the viewer, only to fall back into the void, with the shadow of AIDS hovering over the installation.

They Lyrical

Poetic ruminations were incorporated into installations by artists such as Steina Vasulka, who produced Orka in 1997. The installation reveals several strokes of birds passing by on screen, fallowed by a sequence of burning lava, and ocean waves. It expresses a motion that runs counter to the laws of physics as well for "frame-bound images," as described by Romaeuropa Webfactory. Stenia's work is set to describe the roots of her personal mindset. Orka was intellectually designed to homage her place of birth.


Bill Viola's work is praised for his work having the greatest tendency towards lyrical art. It comes form his interests in exploring the spiritual side of things along with explorations of light and form. In his work Installation, vertical slabs of granite turn as mirrored projections controlled via computer show three sets of human bodies submerged in water. Once again reminding me of a work done my an artist once mentioned from an earlier presentation.

The Stopping Mind was an installation made by Viola that incorporated sound into the images. The four screen installation was set to preoccupy the passing of time, where the seemingly peaceful images are interrupted by sudden violent sounds to give the illusion that the march of time has halted.

The Political

Between the 1960s and 1970s, some artists had taken notice to arguments from art critics like Saint-Simon. Simon wanted to see artists apply political sensitivity into their work. Frank Gillette created his 1969 installation Wipe Cycle as a response to the critics urge. The installation is described to integrate the audience into the information, and enabled viewers to stand within the environment in order to make the viewers feel as if they are associated with information you would expect to see on headline news.

Irish Tapes in 1964 was a controversial installation by John Reilly and Stefan Moore designed to "bombard" the viewer with images of conflict in Northern Ireland. The installation includes several rare interviews with members of the Provisional IRA as well with individuals who suffered from unrelenting violence in Belfast (as mentioned via link).