Une Région, mais pas Centrale

Une Région, mais pas Centrale (A Region, but not Central) is inspired by Michael Snow's seminal video art from 1970, La Région Centrale. In Snow's work a camera is mounted to a pre-programmed robotic rig which allows the camera to move around two axis and film the surrounding landscape. The landscape is familiar and yet as a result of how it's filmed becomes alien.



Above: La Région Centrale by Michael Snow (1971)

Une Région, mais pas Centrale reinterprets the work for the landscape of Second Life. Instead of a robotic rig my representation moves around three axis within the 'virtual' space and becomes a camera through which the viewer sees the HUMlab region. In addition to seeing through my representations monocular 'eye' the viewer sees the location of my representation within the region revealing both the seen and the mechanism of seeing.

Choreographed movements are decided ad-hoc by a controller software, external to Second Life, automating my representations movements. The landscape, already alien, unreal, 'virtual' becomes even more so as it's seen in detail through patterns of observation that are programmed and yet without a clear objective. Similar to Snow's thoughts on his own work which could be a probe to another world, here my representation becomes a probe for the viewer to a 'virtual' world.

Sound for the performance is atmospheric audio taken from Second Life and reworked live in a number of ways.

All footage and imagery shot at HUMlab Island, Second Life.






Above: performance images.




Above: Contoller software and audio generating software for performance.

Three Wearable Devices for Augmented Virtuality - Device #2: A Wearable Map of the Region

Device #2: A Wearable Map of the Region is the second in a series of three wearable devices for performance in Second Life. These devices are intended to give myself and/or my representation a heightened/augmented sense of place.

This devices title alludes to Alfred Korzybski's statement that "the map is not the territory". The metaphor, that subject and representation are not one and the same, forms a key role in philosophical discussions around what has been termed as the Map-Territory Relation. The work itself attempts to visualise a description of a map so perfect in detail that it incorporates itself and so to infinity. This has been employed by Lewis Carroll, Josiah Royce, Jorge Luis Borges etc. to explore ideas of the 'real', representation and the issues these pose in relation to each other.

Similar to device #1, this device is a visual prop for myself as viewer of my representation from a non first-person point of view. My representation wears the device which displays a live aerial map, scale 1:10, of its position within Second Life. The map rotates and moves as my representation moves showing a view of the immediate surroundings. This gives a different point of view and forms a continuation of a space that is itself already a representation. This map however even scaled 1:1 can never be a perfect representation of the original representation. Separated in time, due to periodic (one to three days) server caching, from the original representation the map can only incorporate itself if the wearer remains motionless during this time.

All footage and imagery shot at HUMlab Island, Second Life.

Seeing the Seen

An automated performance within a constructed set, a sphere. My avatar and its gaze is moved randomly by a keying application to explore, pan, tilt, zoom etc. through the space. The resulting vision of my avatar, a video feed, is fed to the interior of the sphere allowing the avatar to see it's own sight in feedback with a slight delay.






Above screenshots from the performance and below the keying application made with Max/MSP which orchestrates the movements.

Three Wearable Devices for Augmented Virtuality - Device #1: A Wearable Garden

Device #1: A Wearable Garden is the first in a series of three planned wearable devices for performance in Second Life (SL). These devices are intended to give myself and/or my representation a heightened/augmented sense of place.

Device #1 is primarily a visual prop for myself as viewer of my representation from a non first person point of view. It functions in much the same way as a flat used in theatre, providing a background and context to the presented content. Here the background is worn by my representation and so moves, clumsily, with my representation through the 'virtual' space. The imagery, a live video feed from my garden in Cardiff, Wales, 'real' life, is static while my representation moves. Seen in relation to the environment of SL, computer graphics overlaid with a graphical user interface and framed within a windowing operating system, it is the video feed which becomes more unreal, representative, virtualised and affirms the visual identity of the place we would normally call 'virtual'.

All footage and imagery shot at HUMlab Island, Second Life and in my garden in Cardiff, Wales.

Blue Screening from Second Life

Testing a blue screen plugin for CamTwist I'm developing for the residency. In the video above and the first image below the plugin is capturing my representation in Second Life (which has a blue screen backdrop) and a video stream. The blue in Second Life is removed and replaced with the video stream in real time. In the second image a test with a flat blue is being carried out to see how sharp the colour mapping is without issues such as light/shaders etc.

After

After, documents the site of numerous performances by Garrett Lynch at the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon in Google Earth during the artists Yoshikaze Residency.

The camera moves around the site to view both historical 'real' and performative 'virtual' artefacts. Artefacts left by the artist include a flag to mark the location of the performances and his customary sandwich board worn during all Second Life performances.

Moon Walk

A simple moon walk performance at the site of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon in Google Earth during the artists Yoshikaze Residency. In the background is a flag to mark the location of the performance.