Immersed in technology : art and virtual environments PDF
Preview Immersed in technology : art and virtual environments
IMMERSED IN TECHNOLOGY Copyrighted Material IMMERSED IN TECHNOLOGY ART AND VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS EDITED BY WITH MARY ANNE MOSER DOUGLAS MACLEOD FOR THE BANFF CENTRE FOR THE The Banff Centre for the Arts THE MIT PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS LONDON, ENGLAND Copyrighted Material ARTS © 1996 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced In any fonn by any electronic or mechamcal means (IncludIng photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in wnting This from the book was set In Bembo publisher. hy Compset, Inc. and was printed and bound In the United States of Amenca. LIbrary of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicatlOn Immersed in Data technology: art and virtual environments Anne Moser with Douglas MacLeod for / edIted by Mary the Banff Centre for the Arts. en1. Includes blbhographlcal references ISBN 0-262-13314-8 and Index. (alk. paper) 1. Art and technology. II. MacLeod, Douglas. N72.HI48 :>. VIrtual reality. III. Banff Centre I. Moser, Mary Anne. for the Arts. 1995 701'.05-dc20 95-385 CIP Copyrighted Material CONTENTS PREFACE Dv!/glas MacLeod ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I N TR O DUCTI O N EMBODIED VIRTUALITY: OR How PUT BODIES BACK VIRTUAL INTO TO IX xv xvii N. Katherille Hayles THE PICTURE SKIN: ARTICULATING RACE IN CYBERSPACE MYSTERIES WHEN Is CLASHES OF THE THE EAR OF BIOAPPARATUS PIERCED? THE Marl' A/me lHosa Nell Cameroll Bailey 29 Ten/waf 51 Frances Dyson 73 SOUND, TECH:-IOLOGY, AND CYBERCULTURE CYBERDAMMERUNG AT WELLSPRING Allllcquere Rosalllle Stone 103 SYSTEMS A DISAPPEARANCE OF FASCINATION, COMMUNITY Avilal RVllell 119 MASCULINITY, AND Rob Milthorp 129 CYBERSPACE Copyrighted Material CONTENTS A CITY FOR BACHELORS ABORIGINAL NARRATIVES IN CYBERSPACE NATURE MORTE: LANDSCAPE AND NARRATI VE IN VI RTUA L ENVIRONMENTS TIME TRAVELING IN THE ARCHEOLOGICAL GALLERY: AN ApPROACH IN MEDIA ART ARTISTS' STATEMENTS OBJECTS OF RITUAL ARCHEOLOGY OF A MOTHER TONGUE Erkki Jeanne Randolph 151 Loretta Todd 179 Margaret Morse 195 Huhtamo 233 Will Bauer and Steve Gibson 271 Toni Dove and Michael 275 Mackenzie D ANCIN G WITH BAR THE VIRTUAL DERVISH: Diane]. Gromala and Yacov VIRTUAL BODIES Sharir CODE HOTEL Perry Hoberman VR ON $5 A DAY P L A CE HOL D ER Ron Kuivila Brenda Lourel and Rachel 281 287 291 297 Strickland FIELD RECORDING STUDIES vi Michael Naimark Copyrighted Material 299 CONTENTS DANCING WITH THE VIRTUAL D ERVISH: Marcos Novak 303 WORLDS IN PROGRESS TOPOLOGICAL SLIDE Michael Scroggins and Stewart Dickson INHERENT RIGHTS, VISION RIGHTS 309 Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun ARTWORK PRODUCTION CREDITS 319 CONTRIBUTORS 329 INDEX 333 vii PREFACE A new medium can suggest a multitude of approaches. In 1929, Dziga Vertov's The Man with the Movie Camera cataloged possibilities for the evolution of film. From narrative structures to special effects, it shows what cinema could have become. Virtual reality occupies a similar historical moment-it is unformed and hence its possibilities seem unconstrained. The Art and Virtual Environments Project conducted at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, Canada, was an attempt to insert cultural practice into this realm of possibilities. Although the artistic community has often been excluded from the development of new technologies, this situation is changing. Artists no longer sit on the sidelines eventually to become grateful users of borrowed tools but have become active in development, creating a disturbance in the field with new contingencies. By providing an opportunity for artists to develop and work with emerging technologies, the Art and Virtual Environment Project was also about the mutation of cultural practice . A new medium like virtual reality challenges traditional conventions not because the participant wears a helmet or glove but because it suggests new relationships between the viewer and the viewed. The structure of the project was designed to accommodate these challenges. An open call for proposals was issued toward the end of 1991 inviting all artists or groups of artists to submit ideas for projects. App lications received from all over the world were assessed by Banff Centre personnel and seven external adjudicators with backgrounds in art and technology from across Canada. Artistic Copyrighted Material PREFACE merit, technical feasibility, and innovation in the use of the medium were all considered . In March 1992 the Centre began discussions with eight groups of artists. At the same time we continued production on Lawrence Paul Yuxwelup tun's virtual environment artwork that was initiated during the Bioapparatus residency the p revious year. All told during this project, nine major virtual pieces were produced. A fundamental component of the project was the inclusion of writers and theoreticians who would examine this new medium, and thus the proposals also requested submissions for essays call for and analyses. Several chapters in this book resulted from that process, and, as the project gained defmition, other writers were Environments invited Project to participate. Throughout the Art and Virtual we brought writers to the Centre to interact with the artists and their projects in an attempt to create a synergy between theory and p ractice. By the end of March 1994, after two years of intensive and ground breaking work, all of the projects were complete. Eight of the nine were demonstrated and Virtual projects and almost all of the essays were presented at the Art Environments International Symposium held in conjunction Conference on Cyberspace at the Banff The overriding goal of the with the Fourth Centre in May 1994. project, through the artworks, symposium, and this book, was to generate a discourse that could deal with the issues around virtual reality. Sometimes discussions were generated by cutting lines of com puter code; at other times it was through papers and presentations. Virtual reality, in fact, was a term that was abandoned early in the process. Loaded with media hysterics and the stigma of violent videogames, it did describe what we were sional, interactive trying to accomplish. graphics not accurately Instead, real-time, three-dimen and sound represent the technical parameters of the work. Within those parameters, however, chaos reigned . We really had no idea what we were doing. This is a very liberating, tion. It was like staging if exhausting, method of produc nine different operas in two years while at the same time trying to invent the idea of opera. While there are tried and true procedures x Copyrighted Material PREFACE 1. Darryl Kaminski prepares a video version of Michael Scroggins and Stewart Dickson's Donald Lee. Xl Copyrighted Material Topological Slide (1993). Photo PREfACE for production in theater and film, no such algorithm exists for the creation of a virtual environment. To develop nine major virtual reality projects in two years was only possible because we did not know enough to say it was impossible. But the inchoate nature of the medium also served us well. There was no one to tell us what we could or could not do. Nonetheless the results are impressive. Toni Dove and Michael Mackenzie's Archeology of a Mother Tongue and Will Bauer and Steve Gibson's Objects if Ritual describe new genres of performance. Brenda Laurel and Rachel Strickland's exploration of characterization in Placeholder is ground-breaking work. Both Perry Hoberman's Bar Code Hotel and Ron Kuivila's VR on $5 a Day have a manic radiance in their approach to computers and human interaction. Michael Scroggins and Stewart Dickson's Topological Slide moves us through one cultural space and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun's Inherent Rights, Vision Rights moves us through another. Michael Naimark's Field Recording Studies c ontinues his seminal work in the recording of actual landscapes. And two versions of Dancing with the Virtual DenJish by Diane Gromala, Marcus Novak, and Yacov Sharir pioneered a new approach to multidisciplinary work in cyberspace. The theoret ical investigations showed similar innovation . Hayles's analysis of virtuality through a For example, N. Katherine semiotic square and the lyricism of Jeanne Randolph's lists both show the feedback loop of theory and practice. Erkki Huhtamo's study of media archaeology is an invaluable historical docu ment. Each proj ect and essay in its own way makes a valuable contribution to the field. These ideas and artworks provide only a suggestion of what this medium could be. However, the very frailty of possibilities is cause for concern. Many of these works will never be shown again. Some are simply too com plex to remount. In other cases, the team of artists and programmers that produced the piece has dispersed, taking with them detailed knowledge of the assembly and installation of a p articular work. Unfortunately, too, as the medium of virtual environments becomes more and more defined. many of these different ap proaches will be ignored, abandoned. or forgotten as the medium coalesces into a mature form. Most worrisome of all, a new ap proach to cultural initiatives xii Copyrighted Material
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