Final Hyperessay: La Camera Insabiatta (2017)

Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson is known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist. In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA, which inspired her performance piece The End of the Moon. Her performance ranges from simple spoken word performances to elaborate multimedia events. She also has published six books, produced numerous videos, films, radio pieces and original scores for dance and film.

Initially trained in violin and sculpting, Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York during the 1970s, focusing particularly on language, technology, and visual imagery. She became more widely known outside the art world when her single  O Superman  reached number two on the UK pop charts in 1981.

The project, her first collaboration with Huang, is Puppet Motel in 1995. That’s an interactive CD-ROM, and in this fictional space, there are thirty unique rooms in hotel scene. Anderson infused with stories and music to make readers interact with the mechanism through a cursor.

La Camera Insabiatta

In a space filled with the graffiti by chalks, participants in head-mounted device, holding controllers and sitting at the chair explore and fly within “the other” world in companion with the artist’s indelible voice on audio serves as the storyteller. There are 8 rooms in this virtual world: The Cloud Room features a galaxy of text like spinning nebula; The Anagram Room, the movements of participants would reflect on the move of two heads on the wall, which are talking to them; The Dog Room represents the artist’s deep missing to her dead dog; The Water Room features a surreal scene taking place in a flooded, ceramic-tiled room; The Sound Room, voices of participants talking and singing will be converted into sculptures, and participants with controllers can strike them to listen their own sound or others who attended before; The Dance Room, surrounded by small people, is characterized by the mysterious story to make participants more soaked in; The Writing Room allows words to flow out of physical gestures; And The Tree Room allows participants to fly around an enormous tree with words leafs that are telling several stories.

The aim of this work is the exploration in the memory space where participants are able to fly without physical constraints. In Laurie Anderson’s interview, she said what she does is about losing your body and making an experience that “frees” you to look at any position. That’s also how it works in Virtual Reality, making people released from the subjectivity of body and experiencing the world at any aspect through senses. In my opinion, La Camera Insabiatta is influenced by some of her previous projects, such as Forty-Nine Days In the Bardo and The Waters Reglitterized. In 2005, The Waters Reglitterized, opened at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City. This work, created in the process of re-experiencing or re-working Anderson’s dreams while awake, uses the language of dreams to investigate the dream itself. The piece includes drawings, prints, and high-definition video. And, this work took its title from an essay on painting by Henry Miller written for his friend Emil Schnellock in 1949. Miller wrote, “Before falling to sleep last night I ordered my subconscious mind to remember, on waking, the last thought in my head — and it worked.” And for Anderson, dreams are “more than just pictures but portrayals of physical sensations and emotions.” That’s why there are lots of drawings chosen in the work but also her lots of works, which have an almost fluid quality and feature warm, saturated colors. In La Camera Insabiatta, it also emphasizes on the awakening consciousness, but ignores the physical present. And both of these works reproduce the experience that could not happen in the physical world, one is the dream world and the other is the human’s memory world, like the state of dreaming.

The Waters Reglitterized at Sean Kelly Gallery http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/finch/finch9-22-05_detail.asp?picnum=3

In La Camera Insabiatta, Anderson makes participants forget the physical self, and fly in the dream or the memory to feel the different statement of life, the death, in the virtual world. When it comes to the topic, the death issue, it’s worthy of discussing about the projection of the personal life experience of artists in their work. During the production of this project, both artists were just experiencing the death of their beloved family. Therefore, they wanted to explore the experience of death with the advanced technology, and combined the religious concept of “Bardo,” which is the period about first 49 days after people’s death, a transitional state between death and rebirth. In this period, these dead people still own their senses and feelings, but without the physical body, and their memory are disappearing gradually. In my view, the other exhibition also has an impact on this work, Forty-Nine Days In the Bardo, opened at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia in 2011, exploring the themes of love and death, the many levels of dreaming, and illusion. The installations include texts as well as drawings, sculptures, projections, and sound are made from materials including mud, foil, iron, chalk, and ashes. Both of two works are inspired by the death of her dog, Lolabelle, an intense discussion on loss as well as the deep spiritual connection between pets and their owners.

Lolabelle’s portray in Forty-Nine Days in the Bardo http://the-st-claire.com/1111/1111-review1.html

Lucid Dreams

Among Anderson’s works, there is the similar concept with Lucid Dreams, a dream during which the dreamer is aware of dreaming. During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment. From the aspect of epistemology introduced by Paul Tholey, there are seven conditions, awareness of the dream state, awareness of the capacity to make decisions, awareness of memory function, awareness of self, awareness of the dream environment, awareness of the meaning of the dream, and awareness of concentration and focus. In La Camera Insabiatta, participants know what they see and heard is not from the real world, just like the state of dreaming, and they are aware of it. In the virtual space, participants can decide what is their next step and how to interact with objects by themselves. And they can “feel” themselves, instead of seeing their own body or any physical present in the virtual world and seek for the personal meaning of this work for themselves, not just following the guidelines to operate the mission. With the help of VR device, participant are more immersed in this virtual world than the sole projection.

Comparison with Osmose (1995)

Forest in Osmose http://www.immersence.com/osmose/os_forest_grid.html

Besides, I would like to mention Osmose by Char Davies here. They both utilize the techniques of VR to help participants “fly” or “swim” in the virtual world, to “free” themselves form the limits of body. And both of them have different kinds of space in the virtual world, with regard to nature. In Osmose, Davis presents the nature scene, such as forest, cloud, pond and so on, but also code and text about the technological issue. In La Camera Insabiatta, Anderson talks about the nature of the death and also makes use of text as material but on the different purpose, for the representation of memory here. When it comes to the controlling devices, both of them use of a head mounted display, and with the help of hand-held controllers in La Camera Insabiatta; however, Osmose depends on the body’s most essential living act, the breathing, to navigate and to make participants feel themselves, a particular state-of-being within the virtual world. Regarding to visual presentation, the visual aesthetic of Osmose is semi-representational, consisting of semi-transparent textures and flowing particles instead of the hard-edged realism. And in La Camera Insabiatta, it transcends the state of the medium, the abstract sound transferring into the concrete sculpture.

Virtual Space
https://medium.com/@hsinchienhuang/la-camera-insabbiata-vr-installation-b04e8a60197e

VR

When it comes to the importance of the techniques of VR, Huang mentioned, VR is a tool that can efficiently and greatly deliver the cogitation, sensation or affection of the creator to the audience, just like so-called “empathy machine” by Chris Milk in his TED talk. In this work, the artists transformed their life experience, facing with the loss and thinking about the meaning of death, into the work to make participants experience the same and real feeling. What’s more, Huang also predicted that VR could influence people’s perception of themselves in the future. For instance, through the eyes of other creatures, the opposite sex or a different cultural background, VR helps people look at themselves from different aspect. Huang considered it’s the next wave of influence on human beings. Because people can release themselves from their physical present or social norms in the real world, and achieve to truly “fly” and “free” physically, mentally and consciously.

 

 

Final Hyperessay: Work Selection

La Camera Insabbiata

  • Artists: Hsin-Chien Huang(Computer Graphics & Interactive Program), Laurie Anderson(Story & Music)
  • First Public Display: Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art- Chalk Room,  2017
  • Device: head-mounted device, hands-held controllers
  • Reward: the Best VR Experience Award winner at the 74th Venice Film Festival

“Your feet say, you are in the room. I feel the floor. But your eyes say, I’m in great dangerous flying and back to fall. You believe your eyes, not your feet.” –Laurie Anderson

the scene in Taipei Fine Arts Museum http://artist-magazine.com/archive/image/edcontent8/515132_165/515_158_3.jpg

In a space filled with the graffiti by chalks, participants in head-mounted device, holding controllers and sitting at the chair explore and fly within “the other” world in companion with the artist’s indelible voice on audio serves as the guide. There are 8 rooms in this virtual world: The Cloud Room features a galaxy of text like spinning nebula; The Anagram Room, the movements of participants would reflect on the move of two heads on the wall, which are talking to them; The Dog Room represents the artist’s deep missing to her dead dog; The Water Room features a surreal scene taking place in a flooded, ceramic-tiled room; The Sound Room, voices of participants talking and singing will be converted into sculptures, and participants with controllers can strike them to listen their own sound or others who attended before; The Dance Room, surrounded by small people, is characterized by the mysterious story to make participants more soaked in; The Writing Room allows words to flow out of physical gestures; And The Tree Room allows participants to fly around an enormous tree with words leafs that are telling several stories.

The Chalk Room
The Anagram Room
The Dog Room
The Water Room
The Sound Room
The Dance Room
The Writing Room
The Tree Room

(source: http://lacamerainsabbiata.org/)

The aim of this work is the exploration in the memory space where participants are able to fly without physical constraints. In Laurie Anderson’s interview, she said what she does is about losing your body and making an experience that “frees” you to look at any position. That’s also how it works in Virtual Reality, making people released from the subjectivity of body and experiencing the world at any aspect through senses. What’s more, this characteristic of VR matches the core idea of this work, the death issue. During the production of this project, both artists were experiencing the death of their beloved family. Therefore, they wanted to explore the experience of death with the advanced technology, so they combined the religious concept of “Bardo,” which is the period about first 49 days after people’s death, a transitional state between death and rebirth. In this period, these dead people still own their senses and feelings, but without their physical body, and their memory are disappearing gradually. In the introduction video, Huang said,

“The mission of last technology is to help people to think about the most important issues such as live and death in our daily life.”

In my opinion, this work makes an overwhelming demonstration of technology in  arts, making people experience the feelings that never could be explored before, and making anything, including the experience, feelings and emotions, “real” in the virtual space.

  • Chalk and Blackboard

The reason to choose “chalk” as a material to present the world, which is like the space of memory in the brain, is that chalk is like memory; words can be removed, but cannot be erased completely and must be remain something on the blackboard. It is the same state with memory; sometimes, people might forget something, but it doesn’t mean that this memory disappears from the consciousness; instead, it hides somewhere in the subconsciousness, and the only difference is whether it’s stronger or weaker memory.

Besides, that’s an interesting perspective from Anderson: she thought chalk has certain tactility, handmade, and it’s opposite of what virtual reality usually looks like, where the world is perfect compare to the chalk room filled with dust and dirt. It’s kind of a savvy means to mixing the real world with the virtual space.

Laurie Anderson painting the wall https://www.vrroom.buzz/vr-news/immersive-arts/experience-worlds-best-vr-artwork-taipei
  • VR

“It’s an isolated experience, not like the film or the concert. You are alone in this world,” said Anderson.

Rather than following the goal-oriented structure in the previous VR project, this VR interactive work focuses on the personal experience. In my view, this method breaks through the entertainment of the VR device, but enhances the level as a mediation to help people to introspect their lives. And Huang mentioned, VR is a tool that can efficiently and greatly deliver the cogitation, sensation or affection of the creator to the audience, just like so-called “empathy machine” by Chris Milk in his TED talk. In this work, the artists transformed their life experience, facing with the loss and thinking about the meaning of death, into the work to make participants experience the same and real feeling. What’s more, Huang also predicted that VR could influence people’s perception of themselves in the future. For instance, through the eyes of other creatures, the opposite sex or a different cultural background, VR helps people look at themselves from different aspect. Huang considered it a next wave of influence on human beings. The potential of technology is not foreseeing, but the domain to be explored by human is expanded continuously and certainly.

Vive- VR Device https://www.tfam.museum/Exhibition/Exhibition_page.aspx?id=624&ddlLang=en-us

Final Research: Artist Selection

Overview

Huang Hsin-Chien http://img.ltn.com.tw/2017/new/sep/11/images/bigPic/600_136.jpg

Huang Hsin-Chien is a contemporary new media artist from Taiwan. Huang is expert in large-scale interaction, performing, mechanical apparatus, algorithmic computations and video installations. Now he is also the director of the Digital Content and Technologies Program in National Cheng Chi University in Taiwan, my home university.

He studied mechanical engineering in National Taiwan University. Then he studied industrial design in Art Center College of Design and Illinois Institute of Technology for master degree in design.

His first rewarded creation is “Time of Dream” in the first year of new media art competition “New Voices, New Visions,” when he was a Ph.D. student of the graduate school of Illinois Institute of Technology in 1994. It was based on a book “Einstein’s Dreams” talking about a series of fantasies about time and gave him inspiration to create an interface between words and images. Readers were able to travel between different times and stories, such as separating themselves from their own shadows or visiting the rooms with reversed causalities.

During that period, he also won acquaintance of several people such as world-renowned multimedia artist Laurie Anderson, who collaborates lots of projects with Huang, such as  “Puppet Motel”, “Here” and “La Camera Insabbiata,” which just won the Best VR Experience Award in 2017 Venice Film Festival.

Laurie Anderson http://www.laurieanderson.com/2018site/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-01-at-3.19.19-PM.jpg

Actually, after his graduation, he served as a general art director in Sony online game business in West United States for several years. He said,

“When I was in the computer game industry, many of my colleagues were from the military. They created games for kids using the same technology from military simulation and training. After the Columbine High School campus shooting, I started to look deeply into the characteristics of technology and to reflect how humanity is altered by technology.”

Eventually, he went back Taiwan and is devoted in art creation since 2001 and rebuilt his profession as a new media artist and made the relationship with society.

He not only produces art creations that are presented in museums and art-related festivals or exhibitions, but also participates in the visual or stage design for well-known singers’ business concerts in Asia.

Rationale to choose

The reason I regard Huang as a contemporary new media artist is that he meets the criteria: the combination of technology, live performance, interactivity, collaboration, interdisciplinary and something to speak out.

In terms of technology, he already attempted to use the camera to project participants’ image on the screen in 2002, but the differentiation between pervious similar works, instead of a complete colored-silhouette or the real image, he picked up the silhouette of birds and rain as materials in the work, “Rain.” With the help of the interactive software and the formula of acceleration of gravity, the image can be projected in sync and the images of rain and bird that are from the nature can be presented smoothly and cope with the natural movement. And in his latest rewarded project, “La Camera Insabbiata,” he also utilized the techniques of the virtual reality device to make people to go in the other world where reflected on the reaction of the participants in the real world to create a feeling of “suspending disbelief.”

When referring to the concept of live performance, the representation of Huang’s work is “Road” in 2015, an interactive multimedia performance. The performance used real-time motion capture technology to transform the performers’ movements onto projected background. What’s more, it is an interdisciplinary art work. Huang collaborated with the professions from dance, visual design, music production and playwright. In his interview, there is a vital point of view for the collaboration of the interdisciplinary.

“It is a disturbing problem when collaborators always put the goals or the ultimate achievement in the first place, especially from different fields. Because people involving in would have preconceived ideas about how to do is sensible and what is necessary. However, for people who are professionals in different specialty, they may not think so.”

I think it’s essential to keep this perspective in mind, because the creation can be an innovative sparks when everyone throws away his/her own rules and views.

Road(2015) http://www.storynest.com/pix/_4proj/per_road/p2.jpg

There is a representative of interactivity, “Window of Heaven and Earth, Mirror of the travelers,” it is a public art in the airport MRT station in 2017. When people pass by the screen, the visual would reflect their images that the historical architecture is as a material. Besides, the screen also reflected the real-time weather and sky color that made this work more real in the virtual image. At the aspect of collaboration, Huang not only collaborates with other artists, but also cooperates with the audience. In “La Camera Insabbiata,” he recorded the audience’s footage, which were sound being transformed into the images, as a new material for the work in the next audience’s spectacle.

In Huang’s works, the techniques, forms and material to present or utilize in an art are not chosen randomly or just catch up the fashion. He always wants to talk about something in his works. Take “Window of Heaven and Earth, Mirror of the travelers” for example. Why he chose to present Taiwanese architecture from different periods as a material is that the airport is a symbol of departure, where people have an emotional paradox that combines with the feeling of expectation and missing. The historical architecture represents the impression of hometown in peoples’ memories, who have left their hometown for a long time. And these architecture made a comparison to the urban life which is noisy and over-mechanized.  At the airport, before people left, Huang hoped to create a dream that took us back to the calm and natural countryside where can smooth our disturbed mind.