Table Of ContentIMMERSED IN TECHNOLOGY
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IMMERSED IN TECHNOLOGY
ART AND VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
EDITED BY
WITH
MARY ANNE MOSER
DOUGLAS MACLEOD
FOR THE BANFF CENTRE FOR THE
The Banff Centre
for the Arts
THE MIT PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
LONDON, ENGLAND
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ARTS
© 1996 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced In any fonn by any electronic or
mechamcal means (IncludIng photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without
permission in wnting
This
from the
book was set In Bembo
publisher.
hy Compset, Inc. and was printed and bound In the United States
of Amenca.
LIbrary of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicatlOn
Immersed in
Data
technology: art and virtual environments
Anne Moser with Douglas MacLeod for
/ edIted by Mary
the Banff Centre for the Arts.
en1.
Includes blbhographlcal references
ISBN 0-262-13314-8
and Index.
(alk. paper)
1. Art and technology.
II. MacLeod, Douglas.
N72.HI48
:>. VIrtual reality.
III. Banff Centre
I. Moser, Mary Anne.
for the Arts.
1995
701'.05-dc20
95-385
CIP
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CONTENTS
PREFACE
Dv!/glas MacLeod
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I N TR O DUCTI O N
EMBODIED VIRTUALITY: OR How
PUT BODIES BACK
VIRTUAL
INTO
TO
IX
xv
xvii
N. Katherille Hayles
THE PICTURE
SKIN: ARTICULATING RACE
IN CYBERSPACE
MYSTERIES
WHEN Is
CLASHES
OF THE
THE EAR
OF
BIOAPPARATUS
PIERCED? THE
Marl' A/me lHosa
Nell
Cameroll Bailey 29
Ten/waf 51
Frances Dyson 73
SOUND, TECH:-IOLOGY,
AND CYBERCULTURE
CYBERDAMMERUNG AT WELLSPRING
Allllcquere Rosalllle Stone
103
SYSTEMS
A DISAPPEARANCE OF
FASCINATION,
COMMUNITY Avilal RVllell 119
MASCULINITY, AND Rob Milthorp 129
CYBERSPACE
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CONTENTS
A CITY FOR BACHELORS
ABORIGINAL NARRATIVES IN
CYBERSPACE
NATURE MORTE: LANDSCAPE AND
NARRATI VE IN VI RTUA L
ENVIRONMENTS
TIME TRAVELING IN THE
ARCHEOLOGICAL
GALLERY: AN
ApPROACH IN MEDIA
ART
ARTISTS' STATEMENTS
OBJECTS OF RITUAL
ARCHEOLOGY OF A MOTHER TONGUE
Erkki
Jeanne Randolph 151
Loretta Todd 179
Margaret Morse 195
Huhtamo 233
Will Bauer and Steve Gibson 271
Toni Dove and Michael
275
Mackenzie
D ANCIN G WITH
BAR
THE VIRTUAL DERVISH: Diane]. Gromala and Yacov
VIRTUAL BODIES Sharir
CODE HOTEL Perry Hoberman
VR ON $5 A DAY
P L A CE HOL D ER
Ron Kuivila
Brenda Lourel and Rachel
281
287
291
297
Strickland
FIELD RECORDING STUDIES
vi
Michael Naimark
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299
CONTENTS
DANCING WITH THE VIRTUAL D ERVISH:
Marcos Novak
303
WORLDS IN PROGRESS
TOPOLOGICAL SLIDE
Michael Scroggins and Stewart
Dickson
INHERENT RIGHTS, VISION RIGHTS
309
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun
ARTWORK PRODUCTION CREDITS 319
CONTRIBUTORS 329
INDEX 333
vii
PREFACE
A new medium can suggest a multitude of approaches. In 1929, Dziga Vertov's
The Man with the Movie Camera cataloged possibilities for the evolution of film.
From narrative structures to special effects, it shows what cinema could have
become. Virtual reality occupies a similar historical moment-it is unformed
and hence its possibilities seem unconstrained.
The Art and Virtual Environments Project conducted at the Banff Centre
for the Arts in Banff, Canada, was an attempt to insert cultural practice into
this realm of possibilities. Although the artistic community has often been
excluded from the development of new technologies, this situation is changing.
Artists no longer sit on the sidelines eventually to become grateful users of
borrowed tools but have become active in development, creating a disturbance
in the field with new contingencies.
By providing an opportunity for artists to develop and work with emerging
technologies, the Art and Virtual Environment Project was also about the
mutation of cultural practice . A new medium like virtual reality challenges
traditional conventions not because the participant wears a helmet or glove but
because it suggests new relationships between the viewer and the viewed.
The structure of the project was designed to accommodate these challenges.
An open call for proposals was issued toward the end of 1991 inviting all artists
or groups of artists to submit ideas for projects. App lications received from all
over the world were assessed by Banff Centre personnel and seven external
adjudicators with backgrounds in art and technology from across Canada. Artistic
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PREFACE
merit, technical
feasibility,
and innovation in the use of the medium were all
considered . In March 1992 the Centre began
discussions with eight groups of
artists. At the same time we continued production on Lawrence Paul Yuxwelup
tun's virtual environment artwork that was initiated during the Bioapparatus
residency the p revious
year. All told during
this project,
nine major virtual
pieces were produced.
A fundamental component of the project was the inclusion of writers and
theoreticians who
would
examine this new medium, and thus the
proposals also requested submissions for essays
call
for
and analyses. Several chapters in
this book resulted from that process, and, as the project gained defmition,
other writers were
Environments
invited
Project
to participate. Throughout the Art and Virtual
we brought writers to the Centre to interact with the
artists and their projects in an attempt to create a synergy between theory
and p ractice.
By the end of March 1994, after two years of intensive and ground
breaking work, all of the projects were complete. Eight of the nine
were
demonstrated
and Virtual
projects
and almost all of the essays were presented at the Art
Environments
International
Symposium held in
conjunction
Conference on Cyberspace at the Banff
The overriding goal of the
with the Fourth
Centre in May 1994.
project, through the artworks, symposium, and
this book, was to generate a discourse that could deal with the issues around
virtual reality. Sometimes discussions were generated by cutting lines of com
puter code; at other times it was through papers and presentations. Virtual
reality, in fact, was
a
term that was abandoned early in the process. Loaded
with media hysterics and the stigma of violent videogames, it did
describe what we were
sional, interactive
trying to accomplish.
graphics
not accurately
Instead, real-time, three-dimen
and sound represent the technical
parameters
of
the work.
Within those parameters, however, chaos reigned . We really had no idea
what we were doing. This is a very liberating,
tion. It was like
staging
if exhausting, method of produc
nine different operas in two years while at the same
time trying to invent the idea of opera. While there are tried and true procedures
x
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PREFACE
1.
Darryl Kaminski prepares a video version of Michael Scroggins and Stewart Dickson's
Donald Lee.
Xl
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Topological Slide (1993). Photo
PREfACE
for production in theater and film, no such algorithm exists for the creation of
a virtual environment. To develop nine major virtual reality projects in two
years was only possible because we did not know enough to say it was impossible.
But the inchoate nature of the medium also served us well. There was no one
to tell us what we could or could not do.
Nonetheless the results are impressive. Toni Dove and Michael Mackenzie's
Archeology of a Mother Tongue and Will Bauer and Steve Gibson's Objects if Ritual
describe new genres of performance. Brenda Laurel and Rachel Strickland's
exploration of characterization in Placeholder is ground-breaking work. Both
Perry Hoberman's Bar Code Hotel and Ron Kuivila's VR on $5 a Day have a
manic radiance in their approach to computers and human interaction. Michael
Scroggins and Stewart Dickson's Topological Slide moves us through one cultural
space and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun's Inherent Rights, Vision Rights moves
us through another. Michael Naimark's Field Recording Studies c ontinues his
seminal work in the recording of actual landscapes. And two versions of Dancing
with the Virtual DenJish by Diane Gromala, Marcus Novak, and Yacov Sharir
pioneered a new approach to multidisciplinary work in cyberspace. The theoret
ical investigations showed similar innovation .
Hayles's analysis of virtuality through a
For example, N. Katherine
semiotic square and the lyricism of
Jeanne Randolph's lists both show the feedback loop of theory and practice.
Erkki Huhtamo's study of media archaeology is an invaluable historical docu
ment. Each proj ect and essay in its own way makes a valuable contribution to
the field.
These ideas and artworks provide only a suggestion of what this medium
could be. However, the very frailty of possibilities is cause for concern. Many
of these works will never be shown again. Some are simply too com plex to
remount. In other cases, the team of artists and programmers that produced the
piece has dispersed, taking with them detailed knowledge of the assembly and
installation of a p articular
work. Unfortunately, too, as the medium of virtual
environments becomes more and more defined. many of these different ap
proaches will be ignored, abandoned. or forgotten as the medium coalesces
into a mature form. Most worrisome of all, a new ap proach to cultural initiatives
xii
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