A brief history of Telematic Dreaming
Telematic Dreaming is a seminal installation by Paul Sermon. It was originally created as a commission for the exhibition that is held every summer by the Finnish Ministry of Culture in Kajaani in 1992. And in 2005, it was presented in Taiwan as a reworking project.
Interacting with others’ telematic presence, Kozel (one of the performers) performed in the physical world and the virtual world simultaneously.
Here is a video showing how performers interacted with others:
Dreaming the Telematic Body
The installation doesn’t include any audible attachments, it might can be explained that Sermon did it deliberately to avoid any noise so as encourage audience concentrate their attention on the bodies separated in real space but virtually connected. As Dixon says, “human interaction was reduced to its simplest essence: touch, trust, vulnerability. ” (Virtual Bodies, P. 217)
The attempts of moving arms and body and touching the virtual body seems very strange in the world that both of us are familiar with. For my understanding, all the installation about is the in-depth exploring of “parallel world”, which represented in our mind/spirit (virtual body) and physical world (flesh body/physical presence).
Virtual-Connection-Reality
Like OSS / Adobe Connect, the ”opened” multimedia platform allows us cooperate with others in distance, share our thoughts and express our ”alter ego ( may explained as our virtual counterpart)” in an effortless way. In such a manner, with no physical presence required, therefore it creates the infinite possibilities in doing/making everything together, in a world that not very familiar with. By doing so, “virtual” and “reality” are not sharing different meaning, instead, they connected.
