Journal Article Abstract 3
Title: “Oculus: crossing boundaries in cyberspace, art and consciousness”
Journal: Art Journal v. 59 no. 4 (Winter 2000), pp.14-20
Author: Lynn Tjernan Lukkas
The Oculus Projects are an ongoing series of digital and interactive works of art-performances, interactive installations, digital Iris prints, and a website with live web cam transmissions. These projects were designed to explore the relationship between the body and technology and that relationship’s effects on the consciousness and the self.
The author begins by informing her readers about different concepts of human consciousness as described in Western culture. She finally defines consciousness as beginning “when brains acquire the power of telling a story without words, the story that there is life ticking away inside the organism, and that the states of the living organism, within body bounds, are continuously being altered by encounters with objects or events in its environment, or by thoughts or internal adjustments of the life process” (p.14). The neurophysicist Antonio Damasio insists that it is impossible to separate the body and emotion from cognition, and all are essential to consciousness, which is the knowing of the self. The Oculus Projects carry this theme. In researching material for these interactive installations, the author traveled all over the world, to such places like Iceland, Tibet, China, and Vietnam, to download images and sounds. She used a Global Positioning System to calculate her exact position on the earth in terms of longitude and latitude. This reading was to determine the location of her physical body and conscious presence in space and time. In some locations, she sat for hours in the same position, recording images and sounds around her. Once her solitary experiences were recorded, she then comprised digital information that would represent her conscious sensory experience in each location. This digital material would then become the subject of her installations and Iris prints. A grid of sensors was placed within the internal confinement of a gallery space, creating an interactive stage where viewers’ immediate experiences are the focal point.
One at a time, viewers enter the installation, tripping sensors that trigger a random set of video and sound projections recorded at a particular site. The body of the artist has been dematerialized, leaving only her conscious experience. The necessity for the body and emotions to be present falls on the part of the viewer. “Viewers become performers who construct a narrative of images and sounds controlled by the movement of their own bodies in time and space. As they move through an installation, causing the images and sounds within it to change, they alter their spatial environment, which in turn acts upon their body, mind, memory and consciousness” (p17). These installations can be compared to modern film and theater; however they differ in that each experience is re-invented by each viewer and is different every time. The artist, the viewer and the technology collaborate together to create an interaction of the body and consciousness within the installation.
The interior gallery spaces are a combination of a theater stage and movie screen. Two large arching scrims hover above the stage. Images are projected onto these scrims. Also, a live video camera records the actions of the viewer and simultaneously projects the viewer’s image onto the screen. Each installation site also has a performer who enacts repetitive movements and actions, which are synonymous to the particular location. The combination of artist, viewer, performer and digital sounds and images within a staged environment create a complete visual and sensory experience. “The direct relationships of the live, the dematerialized, and the represented body call attention to being in one’s own body—reifying the body as the foundation of consciousness staged within geo-political, technological, and poetic space” (p.18). Through the digital Iris prints, the artist chose single frames within the videos she collected and then digitally altered them to represent authentic experiences through the photographic styles of the various regions. The website for the Oculus projects is located at www.lynnlukkas.com; this is a documentation of the artist’s processes in developing the installations. In the spring of 2001, she added a live-cam transmission of the installation of Tibet, which is housed in Saint Louis. The website also include documentation of the completed works. Future projects include installations located in Egypt and Cuba and will include interfaces that rely on the biological functions of the body to control the spaces. “These new interfaces will reach beneath the surface of the body, beneath its individual actions, to the functions that sustain life and simultaneously create the potential for human consciousness” (p. 20).
I was rather intrigued by the research methods and developmental processes of this artist in creating these virtual experiences. I visited her web site to view the pictures and short video clips of her installations. Some of them were quite interesting. It appears that the stages are constructed quite similar to a theater production, with added digital effects surrounding the “acting area” to create a realistic yet virtual journey. She has integrated the performing arts, the visual arts and technology in a most unique fashion. I would be interested in going to St. Louis to see these installations in person. In the Tibet Oculus, she has included very compelling photographs of the country’s people, who have struggled for many years to maintain their spiritual practices under an occupying force. The pictures reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of the concentration camps during the Jewish Holocaust. I can only imagine the conscious awareness of actually being in a place like that, which is exactly what Ms. Lukkas has created in a St. Louis gallery. She has represented the former Demilitarized Zone, the 17th Parallel, in Vietnam within another installation. I’m sure it, too, is very interesting. I would like to visit her website again sometime to see what new demonstrations she has created.
