Abstract

Incarnate Expositions: The hybrid mix

Angela Main

My practice considers aesthetic experience as it is `felt’ (somaesthetics) in a social context, and the notion of this as a mirror for both the self image and ‘reflected presence’. This sits within a frame termed ‘techno-cultural ecology’ - experiences of meaning in a technologically mediated context, as a mix of the tangible and abstract. Theatrical elements in immersive screen based environments, present parallel realities in a social and performative setting. Coined `Cyborg Art’ by one reviewer, the work questions the cultural basis of reality within the framework of utopic paradigms - scientific, social and metaphysical.

The interactivity engages users in processes of fragmentation, reformation and transmutation, and reflects on the mediated displacement of the human player and the resultant digitally hybridized experience of their form as a ‘mix’. These installations often reference simple games and mix contemporary and historical mythologies.

I Piece (2005), explores the notion of displaced concurrent presences both ‘real’ and mediated, reflected via both a surveillance system and a natural surface, in a social setting. This work took Lacan's mirror stage as a metaphor for subjectivity dependent on images, of seeing and being seen, which takes on crucial significance in the era of the ubiquitous screen.

Animalia (2005) and Animaliaremix (2006-2007), utilise augmented reality to present participants with a visual experience of the reflected ‘other’ , a half human half beast formed via a digital prosthetic. This work proposes that a space exists in cultural practice for exploring an alternative experience of embodiment and the mythic image. The shamanic cyborg then presents a new image of wholeness, a bridge to the imaginary, which incorporates a digital ‘orthopedic’, a perfection of the fragmented and incomplete human. Conceptually the work references both Western and Vedic zoomorphic mythologies and layered themes of the digital chimera, evolutionary theories, shamanic performance and Haraway’s cyborg.

Metazoa (2007) utilises augmented reality as a means of immersive engagement and views the programme as an evolutionary process. Participants construct a series of environments which in turn construct them, as they move through a series of biological forms, giving an illusion of variable control. The work `mixes’ biological, mathematical and spiritual evolutionary models as utopic constructions, experienced through the processes of fragmentation and reformation in a group ritual.

Works in development include Ex Nihilo, which utilises augmented reality to depict the transmutation of matter into energy, and the body into light.