5 Artist References

I've been looking at some virtual and installation artists to give my work some context, here is a short list with descriptions.

Eteam - This is a group of artists working on environmental and virtual reality concerns. I'm looking specifically at their Second Life projects and the way there able to use the virtual reality to question real life issues. Second Life dumpster is the best example of this.

http://www.meineigenheim.org/dumpster/index.html

G+S - Goldin and Senneby are two artists working in collaboration exploring " juridical, financial and spatial constructs through notions of the performative and the virtual. This is another pair using Second Life as a starting point to talk about virtual reality and desire. Their project 'Objects of Virtual Desire' catalog the personal virtual possessions of a series of people within SL and then brings these items and their owners stories into the gallery space. I really think the most effective part of these works are the interviews.

http://www.goldinsenneby.com/gs/?p=7

Eva and Franco Mattes. aka 0100101110101101.org - This pair of artists are interested in internet art and public media. Their project dealing with avatars and virtual identity is really well put together and researched, as well as their essays on the subject.

http://0100101110101101.org/home/portraits/index.html

Jeffrey Shaw - As an artist Shaw has work dating back to 1966. His current work is interesting because of the way he is able to bring virtual space and interact with it in real space. The most obvious example of this is the 'Golden Calf'. Which is a work that quite literaly allows the viewer to see a virtual space in real space.

http://www.jeffrey-shaw.net/html_main/frameset-works.php

Perry Hoberman - Hoberman's installation work uses interface and digital projection to bring multiple ideas into play. I really like the setup and interface of 'Timetable'. Its a very interesting and clean work, which questions not only time, but interface and our interaction and use of time.

http://juhuu.nu/1999/timetable/

Cyborg Manifesto

Note and Quotes -

- Cyborg - is the Chimera - theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism.

- condensed image of both imagination and material reality

- joining the two structures, any possibility of historical data is transformed i.e. destroyed

-the relation between organism and machine is a 'border war'. - stakes are territories of producer, reproduction and imagination.

- Cyborg ignores the process of growth that produces strife with the other i.e. woman/nature

- Cyborg has no need for father's, love or the 'Garden of Eden' ; "it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust".

- wary of holism, but needy of connection

- 3 crucial boundary breakdowns -

- human to animal

- Animal-Human to machine

- Physical to non-physical

-Cyborg - consciousness or its simulation - 'shadow personality'

Relationships

In the cyborg manifesto Harroway creates the metaphor of the cyborg to problematize the feminist movement, and really our understanding of gender, race and language. I find this metaphor very compelling, and while not the focus of the writing, definitely the most pertinent part to my work. The Cyborg as she describes it resembles an idea that I've read elsewhere as the 'shadow personality' or avatar. It is a identity which is created out of nothingness and exists only in consciousness and virtual space. Having no history, gender or race assigned to it, it can take on and become anything. What's interesting, and actually contradictory to some of what Harroway says in her writing, is that most cyborgs are not genderless, but actually super gendered. Looking at avatars in computer games, or facebook profiles, one starts to see this rather quickly. Gender is in fact idealized, giant breast and bulging man muscles dominate the scene. When creating a 'shadow personality' humans tend towards wanting to idealize themselves, transforming into the rockstars and celebrities (or elves) they wish they could be. It seems that the cyborg, though free of history and the need for fathers love, and mother earth, it is not free of desire. In fact desire seems to be hyper realized and catered to in the virtual world.

Summer Project Pics

Summer Project

Over the summer I worked on a installation in the Washburn Gallery. Here are some images that show. I considered it a prototype of the work that I hope to put up in my Thesis show.