Interdisciplinary Sculpture 3 3336QCA
Contemporary Art Project
Contemporary Art Project
Working Title
Trinity
See Listen Speak
Aim of the project
The intention of my practice in 2017 is to explore the capacity for New Media to express abstract concepts throught the cross polination of the physical, the digital and the spiritual.
This exploration stems from an interest of where technology sits within the context of the traditional church, abrahamic religion and spirituality. Entering into a discussion regarding the dicotomy of the pricipal values of the church system and the nature of technology.
The aim of this contemporary art project is to focus on discussing collective and personal spaces that are created to deepen meditation and connection to the divine through technology.
Three Virtual Reality(VR) headsets are arranged on a plinth/table, with each of the power cables to the VR headsets coming out of a bible located in the base of the table.. Each of the VR headsets contain an individual experience relating to methods of connecting to divine.
The content for the VR is as follows:
- Speak: voice to tongues translation
When the participant speaks, the sound of tongues is played back in the headphone, and the VR screen brightens to white during the play back. This parallels the real experience of speaking in tongues, ones intention is to speak a word of phrase, yet what they hear is an unknown language being spoken.
- Listen: spacial and fixed point audio with no visual
The VR headset has no visual, making the viewer blind. But there are two audio components; the fixed point audio is theta wave osilations; the spacial audio is tongues, as the participant turns their head the audios fixed point in space shifts from left to right. Giving the illusion that the audio is coming from a fixed point within the room. What this work is exploring is receiving preyer, which can be an intense experience, your role is simply to listen. What the participant is hearing is an actual prayer. The theta waves portion is intended to induce deep meditation, which can be unsettling depending on the current frequency of the participants brain waves.
- See: virtual space with fixed point audio
The virtual space is a desert, with mountains in the distance with the sun above. This space is highly symbolic referencing christian imagery with the intention of creating a contemplative space. The audio component is embeded with alpha waves, which are intended to increase a persons capacity for concetration and contemplation.
This work is now intended to be installed at the POP gallery, Brisbane. The interaction with the work and installation playing a roll in the interpretation of the work. And can function independently if required. This consideration was made as VR technology within the museum/gallery context require specific daily maintanence and supervision. This was discovered through research initally was focused on current artistic application of VR experiences such as Jordan Wolfson's Real Violence and Ian Cheng Entropy Wrangler Cloud.
Generally VR is currently used for event exhibitions as it is an emerging technology.
Theoretical
Framework
What was the motivation for doing the work?
The motivation for this work, and my practice in general revolves around a series of profound life experiences. In 2005, I had neurological failure, which resulted in multiple organ failure. I spent several years in and out of hospital, my marriage failed, my health continued to decline. I remember passing at one point at hospital. For me, there was nothingness, I knew where I was, and I knew that the life I had led up till that point had led me there. By 2009 my health had declined sufficiently that the doctors said "theres no easy way to say this, you have three years to live.... You will need to get your affairs sorted out". Then discharged me for the last time. . That knowing, shifts your perspective and your priorities.
Ive since travelled australia, met the woman of my dreams, have children and an amazing group of people in my life.Ive also since given my life to god,
Now keep in mind I have always believed in god, tho I had never actively participated in a church or ritual. So i was water baptised. When I rose out of the water world with new perception, I could see differently, the sun had a shimmer to its reflection and time was dislocated, i felt an intense disconnection to the now. It is during this time that I also received the baptism of the holy spirit.
Without the baptism of the holy spirit, you can be a christian, but never experience the giftings of the holy spirit, which is most noticably expressed through tongues. It was after this baptism that my life trully changed and can only be described as a rollercoaster. My arts practice instantly changed, my work taking on a deeper critical exploration. There is a yearning in the core of my being to express through the arts, the transendental.
Towards the end of my travels I was camping on the cliffs of the Nullabour plains, the moon was tipping just as the sun rose over the ocean. I took a photo. It just didnt do it justice. I wanted to be able to capture that momemt. To share that with other people.
This is why I am now engaging with New Media technology. It gives me the possibility to explore and share an experience. Allows you to create objects and vast spaces that are invisible to the naked eye. But as a parallel to faith, can be seen through those equipped to see.
And the more I engage with programming language, applying realworld physics and formula, creating artificial intelligence and spatial calculations the more I realise the truth that "Numbers are as close as we get to the handwriting of God". ( Dr. Hermann Gottlieb 2013)
Ive since travelled australia, met the woman of my dreams, have children and an amazing group of people in my life.Ive also since given my life to god,
Now keep in mind I have always believed in god, tho I had never actively participated in a church or ritual. So i was water baptised. When I rose out of the water world with new perception, I could see differently, the sun had a shimmer to its reflection and time was dislocated, i felt an intense disconnection to the now. It is during this time that I also received the baptism of the holy spirit.
Without the baptism of the holy spirit, you can be a christian, but never experience the giftings of the holy spirit, which is most noticably expressed through tongues. It was after this baptism that my life trully changed and can only be described as a rollercoaster. My arts practice instantly changed, my work taking on a deeper critical exploration. There is a yearning in the core of my being to express through the arts, the transendental.
Towards the end of my travels I was camping on the cliffs of the Nullabour plains, the moon was tipping just as the sun rose over the ocean. I took a photo. It just didnt do it justice. I wanted to be able to capture that momemt. To share that with other people.
This is why I am now engaging with New Media technology. It gives me the possibility to explore and share an experience. Allows you to create objects and vast spaces that are invisible to the naked eye. But as a parallel to faith, can be seen through those equipped to see.
And the more I engage with programming language, applying realworld physics and formula, creating artificial intelligence and spatial calculations the more I realise the truth that "Numbers are as close as we get to the handwriting of God". ( Dr. Hermann Gottlieb 2013)
What is the issue or concern addressed in the work?
Over 50% of the worlds population, an estimated 3.6 billion people identify as adherents of an Abrahamic religion (Hunter 2017), Yet the use of technology as a vehicle for exploring connection to the divine has yet to be critically explored. This has be a result of the dicotomy of the pricipal values of the church system and the nature of technology. This being that technology is the new tower of babel, the self focus and seclusionistic.
After all the purpose of the church is to worship God (Luke 4:8; John 4:23; Rev. 4:10), study the bible (2 Tim. 2:15; 1 Cor. 4:6), pray (Acts 2:42), love one another (John 13:35; Phil. 1:1-4), help each other (Gal. 6:2), partake of baptism and the Lord's supper (Luke 22:19-20), to learn how to live as godly people (Titus 2:11-12), and to be equipped to evangelize the world (Eph. 4:12; Matt. 28:18-20). The church's very existance requires an active community.
Technology privileges the first-person point of view; even in third-person perspective apps, the user’s experience is intensely personal. “VR is very isolationist,You put it on and you forget your surroundings; you forget the people around you.” (Planck 2015) The fear regarding very nature of the technology is that it may amplify current cultural emphasis on the individual.
In an essay first published in 2007—when the website Second Life (where members interact via computer avatars) was the highest-profile harbinger of VR—Orthodox priest Jonathan Tobias identifies VR as a sin the ancient church called fantasia. Unlike healthy make-believe, fantasia “rejects the one reality created by the Holy Trinity.” Tobias invokes one of Scripture’s more dramatic stories of sinful rebellion: “If ever the Tower of Babel were raised again, it would be here, in cyberspace.” (Poteet 2016)
The intention within this contemporary art project was to explore this position through the virtual reality experiences. One for each of the common expressions for connecting to the divine, speaking in tongues, receiving prayer and going to a place for contemplation. This is grounded by active engagement with Rhema and lobos, sculpturally through the inclusion of the bible in the final installation. The communal setting yet individualistic experience is intended to stimulate the dialogue.
Studio
Methodology
How did
you create the work and was process important in its creation and
why?
The process of creating a digital work is, in my experience, vastly different from creating work in other mediums. You need to have a complete vision of what you want to create. How it will look, how it will sound, how it will function. You need to have assets created in advance (tho these can be substituted at a later date). The code you intend on creating does not have a lot of room for play, every detail needs to be mapped out in advance. It either works, or it doesnt. A colon(:) or semicolon (;) could be the deciding factor in success of failure. For artists we are always chasing that image in our mind, to express it as perfectly as we can in the physical realm. And this ability to spacially map out in your mind what you to achieve, aids you in mapping out the structure of your digital artwork. This method of visualisation also draws strong parallels to engaging in prayer, requiring disengaging with your physical environment, and engaging with the unseen.
For more information regarding the studio methodology of each aspect of the work click the following links below
Speak
See
Listen
Modification of the virtual reality headsets
Mockups of POP gallery installation
Preparation for POP gallery installation
The process of creating a digital work is, in my experience, vastly different from creating work in other mediums. You need to have a complete vision of what you want to create. How it will look, how it will sound, how it will function. You need to have assets created in advance (tho these can be substituted at a later date). The code you intend on creating does not have a lot of room for play, every detail needs to be mapped out in advance. It either works, or it doesnt. A colon(:) or semicolon (;) could be the deciding factor in success of failure. For artists we are always chasing that image in our mind, to express it as perfectly as we can in the physical realm. And this ability to spacially map out in your mind what you to achieve, aids you in mapping out the structure of your digital artwork. This method of visualisation also draws strong parallels to engaging in prayer, requiring disengaging with your physical environment, and engaging with the unseen.
For more information regarding the studio methodology of each aspect of the work click the following links below
Speak
See
Listen
Modification of the virtual reality headsets
Mockups of POP gallery installation
Preparation for POP gallery installation
Context
Compare
and contrast your work with two
other practitioners in the
field who have similar aims to yours and support your conceptual
ideas.
Christian artists have been attempting to convey the transendental for the past 2000 years, through claratas and representation of christ, saints in paintings, altar pieces and relics and through architectual design to enchance the presence of god and providing a place of contemplation.
The works Chapel of Sacred Mirrors by Alex Grey ( the church he built ) and Rothko Chapel by Mark Rothko are intended to be contemplative spaces.
Chapel of Sacred Mirrors by Alex Grey
Rothko Chapel by Mark Rothko
The works Chapel of Sacred Mirrors by Alex Grey ( the church he built ) and Rothko Chapel by Mark Rothko are intended to be contemplative spaces.
Chapel of Sacred Mirrors by Alex Grey
Rothko Chapel by Mark Rothko
Conclusion
How is
your work performing against your aims and theoretical framework?
Do you
have any evidence for this?
The final work far surpases my original intention. Trinity successfully expresses each of the three aspects of spirituality that were proposed, by creating a virtual space, employing spacial audio and voice translation.
The opportunity to exhibit in the POP gallery, Brisbane, brought with it far more challenges than anticipated. The original intention was to create a work that was event based, running only for a day at a time, and manned at all times. Now the demand is that the work runs for 4 weeks, with very little supervision or downtime. The software had to be refined far more than in a normal project, and far more considerations had to be made in the installation of the work. Particularly around security and safety.
Reference list
Hunter, Preston 2017. "Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents". Adherents.com. Accessed 31 May 2017 url: https://www/Adherents.com
Poteet, Rev Mike 2016. "Christians and Virtual reality" UMC.org. Accessed 31 May 2017 URL: http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/blogs-commentaries/post/christians-and-virtual-reality
Plank, Mark 2015. "Oculus' next big move is to make VR a social experience" Engaget . Accessed 31 May 2017. URL:https://www.engadget.com/2015/05/25/oculus-social-experience/
Plank, Mark 2015. "Oculus' next big move is to make VR a social experience" Engaget . Accessed 31 May 2017. URL:https://www.engadget.com/2015/05/25/oculus-social-experience/
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