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Char Davies's Immersive Virtual Art and the Essence of Spatiality

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Char Davies's Immersive Virtual Art and the Essence of Spatiality CHAR DAVIES’ IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL ART AND THE ESSENCE OF SPATIALITY This page intentionally left blank Char Davies’ Immersive Virtual Art and the Essence of Spatiality LAURIE MCROBERT UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2007 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 978-0-8020-9094-2 Printed on acid-free paper Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication McRobert, Laurie Char Davies’ immersive virtual art and the essence of spatiality / Laurie McRobert. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9094-2 1. Davies, Char. 2. Art and technology. 3. Virtual reality in art. 4. Interactive art. I. Title. N72.T4M37 2007 701’.05 C2006-901759-X University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). In memory of my parents Katarzyna Kos and Johannes Demkow This page intentionally left blank Contents Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xiii Introduction 3 1 The Dynamics of Immersive Virtual Art 11 2 Digital Knowing versus Digital Being 30 3 Heidegger, Davies, and Technological Essence 42 4 Substantial Essence 58 5 On Up/Down Paradigms and the ‘Essence of Spatiality’ 75 6 The Essence of Cyberspace and Immersive Virtual Spatiality 93 7 Instincts and the Unconscious: Digital Transcendence and Essential Spatiality 108 8 Speculative Inquiries into the Elements of Char Davies’ Immersive Virtual Art 125 Epilogue 143 Appendix 149 Notes 151 Index 185 This page intentionally left blank Illustrations All images and illustrations courtesy of Char Davies. Plates follow page 66. Black and White Plates BW-1 Cup (1984) BW-2 Glass Jars on Mirror (1985) BW-3 Winter Swamp (1973) BW-4 Winter Clearing (Swamp) (1986) BW-5 Leaf, Light (1990) BW-6 Root (1991) BW-7 Seed (1991) BW-8 Conceptual Map of Osmose (1994–5) BW-9 Model of user/immersant: causes and effects with related perceptual and environmental states (1995) BW-10 Osmose spatial and temporal structure with ovoid-spherical landscape (1994) BW-11 Osmose spatial structure viewed as cube with spatial realms (1995) BW-12 Osmose structure: viewed from above as circles with seed at centre (1995) BW-13 Ephémère structure: spatial stratification and temporal evolution in landscape, under-earth and interior body (1998) BW-14 Spatial-Temporal Structure of Ephémère (1996) BW-15 Ephémère as landscape, I (1996) BW-16 Immersant wearing a stereoscopic HMD and breathing/balance interface vest (1995) BW-17 Computer equipment used to run visual and sounds in Osmose and Ephémère (2003) Colour Plates C-1 Blue World-Space (1985) C-2 Yearning (1993) C-3 Tree and Pond, Osmose (1995) x Illustrations C-4 Forest with Cartesian Grid, Osmose (1995) C-5 Roots, Rocks and Particle Flow in the Under-Earth, Osmose (1995) C-6 Scrolling Walls of Code, Osmose (1995) C-7 Semi-transparent Trees in Winter Swamp, Ephémère (1998) C-8 Interior Landscape (Arctic) Appearing inside Boulder in the Winter Swamp, Ephémère (1998) C-9 Seasonal Transformation in the Forest Landscape, Ephémère (1998) C-10 Seeds, Ephémère (1998) C-11 Germinating (Blooming) Seed in the Under-Earth, Ephémère (1998) C-12 Interior Body, Ephémère (1998) C-13 Bones in the Interior Body, Ephémère (1998) C-14 Eggs in the Interior Body, Ephémère (1998) C-15 Installation view of immersant performing Ephémère (2003) C-16 Installation view of live performance of Ephémère (2003) C-17 Immersant performing Ephémère (2003) Figures 1-1 Spatial structure of Osmose 22 1-2 Spatial-temporal structure of Ephémère 27 Acknowledgments I am indebted to Charlotte Davies for generously allowing me access to her working notebooks and for supplying me with illustrations from them and with real-time images taken during someone’s immersion in Osmose and Ephémère. She was always available to answer my questions and to explain the dynamics involved in her artworks from both artistic and technical perspectives. John Harrison explained the technical aspects involved in programming 3D immersive art; Tanya das Neves was always there to advise me and to help find any information or material I needed; Dietrich Sider assisted me with the prepara- tion of the manuscript. I thank them all for their invaluable help. A special word of thanks goes to my colleagues Bill Frost and Heather Stephens, who read the manuscript and whose constructive criticisms helped produce a better book, and others unnamed here, who read and commented on early ver- sions of the manuscript. Their suggestions were always thoughtful and helpful. Chris Bucci was the editor at the University of Toronto Press who responded to my e-mail about the book I was writing on 3D art and believed in it from the start. Siobhan McMenemy inherited the editorship when he left the Press. James Leahy did the final copy-editing, and Frances Mundy was the managing editor respon- sible for seeing the project to publication. I am grateful to all of them. Finally, I thank my husband Stan McRobert for providing that proverbial ‘moral support’ throughout the years it took me to write this book, and two other very important people in my life: Charlotte Tansey and the late Eric O’Connor, S.J., founding members and past presidents of Thomas More Institute for Adult Educa- tion in Montreal, who taught me to put ‘curiosity at the centre of my life.’ This page intentionally left blank Abbreviations AC Artificial Consciousness AI Artificial Intelligence AL Artificial Life BWE Brain Wave Entrainment CAVE Cave Automatic Virtual Environment DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid ECT Electroconvulsive Therapy EEG Electroencephalograph EMDR Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing EMI Experiments in Musical Intelligence fMRI functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging HMD Headmounted Display ISEA International Symposium on Electronic Art IT Information Technology MRI Magnetic Resonance Imaging MUD Multiuser Domains NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration PCR Photo-Convulsive Response PET Positron Emission Tomography REM Rapid Eye Movement (dream sleep) rTMS repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation SGI Silicon Graphics Inc. TMS Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation TOE Theory of Everything VRML Virtual Reality Modelling Language UFO Unidentified Flying Object UV Ultraviolet Light VR Virtual Reality This page intentionally left blank CHAR DAVIES’ IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL ART AND THE ESSENCE OF SPATIALITY This page intentionally left blank Introduction What Is Immersive Virtual Art? This book is about the impact of Canadian artist Char Davies’ immersive virtual art and the powerful dynamics encountered by people when they experience it. Never before in history have artists presented their art in immersive virtual envi- ronments, and never again will viewing 2D art be the same. In this book I concen- trate not only on the aesthetics of Davies’ digital art but also on the phenomenon of the spatiality in which not only the art forms but we, the participants, float. Immersive virtual art is an emerging technological art form that, in effect, im- merses participants in virtual space in the same way as scuba divers immerse themselves in water to explore another world. In fact, her experience of scuba diving was Char Davies’ inspiration for creating the body vest, a novel interface between viewer and computer which measures bodily responses and allows immersants to control their journeys within the artwork itself. In the ocean, divers float between flora and fauna, with fish swimming toward them and vice versa. In the case of immersive virtual art, one finds oneself inside a mesmerizing spatiality that one also ‘swims in,’ where images float toward and through the immersant, and the immersant floats toward and through them, in what could be thought of as an interactive spatial ballet. Since immersive virtual art is a relatively new phenomenon that many people have not yet experienced, I invite uninitiated readers to take the time to log on to Char Davies’ website at http://www.immersence.com, where they can familiarize themselves in more detail with the type of equipment that is used to experience this art and see what the installations look like when the work is exhibited in public venues such as art galleries or museums. On the website, one can also see the real-time images an immersant sees during immersion and video clips of flythroughs of Osmose and Ephémère. On my own website http://www.mcrobert.org, I have provided links to data mentioned in the book that could not be included here. For readers who understand the technology used to create immersive virtual art and to experience it, I invite them to skip the sections where I discuss this; for those who do not, I begin with the following introduction. In 1965 Ivan E. Sutherland gave a seminal paper entitled ‘The Ultimate Display,’ which laid out the fundamental principles for a future virtual environment display 4 Char Davies’ Immersive Virtual Art system ‘to serve as a looking-glass into the mathematical wonderland constructed in computer memory.’1 He also developed models of his innovative display sys- tem. Some years later, between the years 1985 and 1990, the principal project team at NASA Ames Research Center conceived, created, and developed what is now popularly referred to as a ‘headmounted display,’ or HMD. Their ‘objective was to develop a multisensory virtual environment workstation for use in Space Station teleoperation, telepresence and automation activities.’2 More specifically, an HMD is a headmounted, wide-angled, stereoscopic display system powered by a host computer and external hardware, such as graphics and sound synthesizing equip- ment, to create a digitally immersive space. While the space is generally referred to as virtual reality (VR), I refer to it, as Davies does, as immersive virtual reality.
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