Convergence: The Collision of Physical & Virtual Space in Digital Art
By Itoko Nakajima
From June 3rd to June 19th the Chelsea Art Museum had a Digital Art show, presented by Studio IMC. The theme was "Convergence: The Collision of Physical &Virtual Space in Digital Art." Each of the installations in this exhibit presented a futuristic artistic vision intended to challenge traditional concepts of art and space.
Infinite City by Jean-Mark Gauthier, Miro Kirov, & James Tunick was created to show that people could cooperate through sound. Infinite City takes the audience members inside a futuristic 3D cityscape. Enveloped in a 30-foot immersive projection display and a multi-channel surround sound system, audience members can influence sound and navigate the virtual environment through their body movements and hand gestures. When I touched the sensor, the movement of the green digital light was sharp and beautiful. This digital art is completely new, but brings together two elements which are usually very different: digital art and human ethics.
Dana Karwas and Gabriel Winer’s work, See-Through Wall, embodies live and prerecorded realities. There is a big white screen through which a camera reveals the opposite wall. But soon this white screen begins to show a prerecorded video which gives the same view as the camera. I saw two people passing in front of the camera as though they were coming toward me. Then I noticed that this was a live shot though the camera. But after a while I saw an image of another person who was only on the screen. As the artists and gallery director explained, "the audience and the museum itself become the viewing content, as the real and the virtual are seamlessly mixed." Viewing the image though the camera and watching the video begin on the screen, was a surreal experience. The real and the unreal merged, as if melting illusion and perception.
Finally, Swarm, by Daniel Shiffman, reflected the same kind of sensation that I feel when I see a beautiful ocean. The constantly moving brush strokes of Swarm are meant to express the pattern of flocking birds, but they reminded me more of a swarm of fish. This installation smears colors captured from live video input, producing an organic, painterly effect in real-time. These moving brushstrokes gave me a peaceful, happy feeling. I relaxed. It was always moving like a school of fish in the ocean. After approximately 30 seconds, the face of a man emerges through the swarming fish, onto the digital canvas from the live video. The images continually alternated with one another, replacing each other on the digital canvas.
