work, dislocating the central position of the author, and enhancing the work through harnessing the imagination of the participating spectators. The development of cybernetic control processes since the mid– twentieth century was the innovation that provided the basis for inter- action with computers and made possible works that the author did not define exclusively any longer. Like her predecessors Popper, Davis, Good- man, and Sakane,34 the art historian So ¨ ke Dinkla locates the origins of the idea of interaction in the classic period of the avant-garde, specifically Futurism and Dada, with Marinetti’s Variety Theatre Manifest and Max Ernst’s exhortations to participate of the 1920s. Further lines of this de- velopment continue in happenings, cyborgart, 1960s reactive environ- ments, and closed circuit technology.35 Any concept of a work that seeks to give an idea an existential form for adefinite period of time in space diverges categorically from the onto- logical appearance of a work of virtual reality. These ephemeral image spaces, which change within fractions of a second, achieve the effect of existing only through a series of computations in real time, 15 to 30 per second. The image is constituted as a spatial effect, via the interposing program and HMD, only on reaching the cerebral cortex;36 thus it leaves its medium in a twofold sense. Recently developed laser scanners can project virtual reality images directly onto the retina; in this case, the category ‘‘image’’ does not disappear altogether—if the retina will suffice as a medium—but this must surely constitute the most private form of image currently imaginable: an image that is seen only by the observer, who triggers or retrieves it through actions or movements. Moreover, these virtual images will be seen only once by one person before they disappear forever—something that is entirely new in the history of the image. There are certain parallels with the cathode ray tube, still an essential component in the majority of existing television and monitor screens, for there, also, a complete picture never exists. A ray of light scans the lines, causing luminescent bodies to emit light for a fraction of a second. It is the sluggishness of the human eye, the so-called retinal afterimage (inves- tigated by Goethe in his Farbenlehre)37 that produces the effect of a com- plete picture on the screen. In this serial image production, which is invisible to the naked eye, images continually appear and disappear for good in fractions of seconds. To construct a work using photons is de facto the immaterialization of the work, although the equipment used to create Chapter 5 206 it is far from immaterial. It is this immateriality that represents the pre- requisite for the highest degree of variability possible and the basis for interaction. Materiality—if one wishes to call it that—is limited to the individual pixel. The ontological character of a work of art as defined by Heidegger38 and others no longer obtains in the aesthetics of computer- aided virtual reality. For this reason, such works are defined increasingly in terms of their processual nature, which stresses their unfinished or open quality and locates art within a framework of communicative social relations. Material works of all epochs have served as points where memories and recollections are crystallized, whether gravestones, medals, paintings, or other artifacts—even film. Memories change over time and according to the given state of knowledge, society or social class, whether dominant or dominated. The strength of material works of art, both past and present, lies principally in their function as illuminating and vibrant testimonies of the social memory of humankind. For only fixed artworks are able to pre- serve ideas and concepts enduringly and conserve the statements of indi- viduals or an epoch. An open work, which is dependent on interaction with a contemporary audience, or its advanced variant that follows game theory—the work is postulated as a game and the observers, according to the ‘‘degrees of freedom,’’ as players—effectively means that images lose their capability to be historical memory and testimony. In its stead, there is a durable technical system as framework and transient, arbitrary, non- reproducible, and infinitely manipulable images. The work of art as a dis- crete object disappears. Computers may be the best repository of all time for information—as long as the operating system or storage medium is not out of date—but they are unable to record or reproduce the sensual pres- ence of a material work of art. Unlike the qualities of material works of art, games and arbitrary interaction do not qualify the computer as a medium for memories and recollections. Notes 1. 1995: Ricco/Maresca Gallery: Code, New York; Muse ´ ed’art contemporain de Montre ´ al: Osmose; Laing Gallery: Serious Games, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. 1997: Museum of Monterrey: Virtual Art, Mexico. Barbican Art Centre: Serious Games, London. 2000: San Francisco. Digital! The Natural Interface 207 2. More about this work: Porter (1996); Wertheim (1996); Rutledge (1996); Davis (1996); Davies and Harrison (1996); Lunenfeld (1996); Borsook (1996); Carlisle (1997); Grau (1997); Kac (1998); Davies (1998a); Heim (1998), pp. 162– 168, 171; exhibition catalog, Arte Virtual Realidad Plural, Museo de Monterrey, Mexico Monterrey 1997. See also: hhttp://www.softimage.com/Softimage/ Content/Projects/Osmosei. 3. Osmose uses the following hardware configuration: SGI Onyx Infinite Reality Engine2 with R4400 150 Mhz Prozessor, 2 RM6’s, plus 128 MB RAM, DAT drive, 2GB Hard Disk, CD-ROM drive. A Macintosh computer, receiving com- mands from an SGI computer, controls various MIDI applications, sound synthe- sizers, and processors. Image and sound, as well as position sensors, are contained in an HMD with a Polhemus tracker and a motion-tracking vest. There is also a data-beamer and a digital stereo amp with speakers. 4. The texture of the leaves was scanned from real objects. 5. In the early development phase an Indigo2 was used. 6. John Harrison wrote a prototype of Osmose in Softimage’s Sapphire Develop- ment Kit, a program that allows static models to be computed efficiently under real- time conditions. See Sims (1996). 7. See Porter (1996), p. 59, where he quotes Char Davies. 8. For example, SIGGRAPH 1991 and 1992; IMAGINA 1991 and 1992; International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) 1992. In 1991 she won the Prix Pixel Image at IMAGINA and received an award for The Yearning at Ars Electronica in 1993. 9. In Davies’s own words: ‘‘And perhaps most importantly, a lot of the emo- tional impact of the piece comes from the haunting melodies and soundscapes throughout.’’ Quoted in Porter (1996), p. 60. 10. From the Osmose Book of Comments of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Montreal (owned by the artist), some comments written in the period August 19, 1994 to October 1, 1995: ‘‘Sublime, an experience that is embodied, spiritual and esoteric . . .’’; ‘‘An almost religious experience, certainly a meditation, very close to yoga . . .’’; ‘‘I discovered in myself a fascination for the depths. I am surprised and Chapter 5 208 eager to understand the deep sense of my own being in this real unreal space. RJ’’; ‘‘Osmose is a reconciliation with nature through technology, a reconciliation with technology also contrary to what we’re used to, gentle and peaceful. . . .’’ 11. See hhttp:// www.immersence.com/immersence_home.htmi. 12. Quoted in Robertson (1994), p. 19. 13. Davies (1998a), p. 67. 14. See Morse (1998), p. 209. 15. Davies (1998a), pp. 56ff: ‘‘Osmose is a powerful example of how techno- logical environments can simulate something like the old animist immersion in the World Soul, organic dreamings that depend, in power and effect, upon the ethereal fire. . . . Osmose also reminds us how intimate we are with electronics, in sight and sound, in body and psyche.’’ 16. I attempted to locate this within the history of illusion in a lecture enti- tled ‘‘Into the Belly of the Image: Art History and Virtual Reality,’’ at the Eighth International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) at the Art Institute Chicago, September 22 to 25, 1997. 17. D’Amato (1996), pp. 35ff.; or the critique of BIT: ‘‘Perhaps Char could take her naive naturenostalgia and contrived technoblindness, her jungle of quotes, and marry Mr. unabomber technodemonizer, pledge troth in concomitant deafness to the integrate social possibilities that cut through the machinery of capitalism and living, make little virtual bomb babies.’’ See Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT) (1995), p. 13. 18. See Lanier (1989), p. 119. 19. ‘‘One of the things we are doing with Osmose is to port it onto new tech- nology as the technology comes along, maybe eventually we will get it onto to something relatively small. And we are hoping to do that with the new work [E ´ phe ´ me ` re] too. It is my insistence on transparency (in real-time) that necessitates us using such high-end equipment. If I could do it with just a wooden brush and oil pigment I would—but then you could not be enveloped in the created space, which is what drove me into this medium in the first place, and may keep me Digital! The Natural Interface 209 here, even for all the technical complexities.’’ From a letter from Davies to the author, February 4, 1997. 20. Buber (1984), pp. 13ff. 21. Ibid., p. 14. 22. Adorno (1973), p. 460. 23. Serres (1981), p. 152. 24. Gehlen (1986), p. 60. 25. Hans Jonas, ‘‘Der Adel des Sehens: Eine Untersuchung zur Pha ¨ nomeno- logie der Sinne,’’ in his (1973), pp. 198–219. 26. Bo ¨ hme (1988), p. 221. 27. See Grau (1994), pp. 21ff. It is already possible to experience holding a simulated beating heart in your hand, and then putting your hand inside it. 28. See Kennedy et al. (1992), pp. 295ff. To date, little research has been done on mental effects. However, one recent work is Kolasinski (1996). 29. Wertheim (1999); Anders (1998); Brew (1998), p. 79; Davis (1998), pp. 56–57; Gagnon (1998); Goldberg (1998); Heim (1998), pp. 162–167, 171. 30. Halbwachs (1925). 31. W. Thierse, ‘‘Das Ganze aber ist das, was Anfang, Mitte und Ende hat. Problemgeschichtliche Beobachtungen zur Geschichte des Werkbegriffs,’’ in Barck et al. (1990), p. 397. 32. John Dewey, ‘‘Art as Experience,’’ in Dewey (1987), vol. 10, p. 8. 33. Eco (1973), p. 28. 34. Popper (1975, 1993); Davis (1975); Goodman (1987); Sakane (1989). Chapter 5 210 35. See Dinkla (1997), p. 25. 36. See Zell and Hu¨bner (1994), p. 164. 37. Goethe (1988), pp. 67ff. 38. Heidegger (1990), p. 21: ‘‘Im Werk der Kunst hat sich die Wahrheit des Seienden ins Werk gesetzt. ‘Setzen’ sagt hier zum stehen bringen. . . . So wa ¨ re dann das Wesen der Kunst dieses: das Sich-ins-Werk-Setzen der Wahrheit des Seienden.’’ Only if one concedes that the ‘‘truth of what is’’ exists in its transience does this quotation from Heidegger still have validity today. Digital! The Natural Interface 211 9 6 Spaces of Knowledge Knowbotic Research (KR+cF): Dialogue with the Knowbotic South Since their formation in 1991, the Austro-German artist group Knowbotic Research (Yvonne Wilhelm,1 Christian Hu¨ bler,2 and Alexander Tucha- cek3) have developed hybrid models for digital representations of knowl- edge. Knowbotic Research have received many awards for their work,4 and in 1998, all members of the group were given a professorship at the Uni- versity for Art and Design in Zurich. Their virtual installation Dialogue with the Knowbotic South (DWTKS) (1994–1997), which has been exhib- ited at several exhibitions,5 processes scientific data from research stations’ networked data bases to create a changing abstract representation of An- tarctica. It visualizes and maps this deserted, yet scientifically well- documented, continent in a virtual scenario, but does so in a totally nonmimetic way.6 In DWTKS, the data from the networks is visualized as changing starbursts of pixels on large projection screens in a dark room. The data is collected and activated by software agents, the knowledge robots or ‘‘knowbots.’’ The image space consists of complex dynamic fields where exchange and interaction take place between the human visitors and the knowbots and poetic software machines. The data, arranged in the virtual space like constellations of stars, are pulled together, as if attracted by a magnet, and then burst apart again, like supernovas. The installation also presents the physical topology of several research and monitoring sta- tions in the Antarctic on a plastic film on the floor. The artificial space can be experienced both virtually and abstractly; the user navigates by moving a touchwand, an interface reminiscent of the joystick. Wearing a headset with a mini-monitor, the ‘‘private eye,’’ in front of one eye, the visitor explores the glowing, rotating data fields and correlated metallic sounds, which produces an extraordinary feeling of space. Currents of conditioned cold air, the temperature of which derives from data recorded by meteoro- logical stations on the sixth continent, is blown into the installation space. It is a polysensory environment that the visitor encounters in DWTKS. This combination of physical and virtual components that represent the multiple layers of the real was created years before hybrid artworks of this kind appeared in the discussion as ‘‘mixed realities.’’ It took two years to develop DWTKS; the group received some sup- port from the hardware producers who lent their machines, and invested 50,000 U.S. dollars of their own money in the project. For young gradu- ates, this was a considerable sum and also the limit of what they could Spaces of Knowledge 213 raise. Although Knowbotic Research were expert in the most important programs, such as C + and Java, for DWTKS they also had to rely on the help of professional programmers for exceptional software solutions. When artists employ professionals, who work for much less than they would get in the commercial sector, they have to mobilize considerable skills of per- suasion for art’s sake. In the hypothetical space of DWTKS, the knowbots are the units that structure, visualize, and establish contact with the artificial space. The users enter into contact with these virtual software agents and use them to access the data live from the electronic networks of the Antarctic research stations. Theoretically, this happens in real time; practically, the data is updated every three hours. The knowbots condense the information dy- namically and allow the users to access it. Using a wand—an interface that is neither ‘‘intuitive’’ or ‘‘natural’’—the users can log in via knowbot to the swirling data fields and intervene. The knowbots function as non- representational interfaces between programs and active users; they are visualized, abstract representations of knowledge that is undergoing per- manent change. However, communication with these early forms of agents is confined to moving through the data fields and activating correlated sounds. The knowbots appear to the user in the form of local swirls of data, and, when activated, they visualize keywords of the given collabo- rating research project (for example, diving robots), and the user can also activate with his or her gaze accompanying fragments of sounds. In the image space, these are combined faster by a knowbot the closer the user’s gaze is to the agent. When Alexander von Humboldt returned from his field trip to South America, he proposed the construction of a panoramic space of images depicting a highly complex and foreign reality for visitors. This is not the aim of Knowbotic Research: They invite the user to explore and inter- rogate interactively an abstract, self-organizing system. The visitor is not offered immersion in an illusionistic artificial Antarctic landscape but a plunge into an image space filled with abstract scientific data, a space of constant metamorphosis: This is the intention of the artists. Following Giambattista Vico, who asserted that we can only under- stand what we have created ourselves, DWTKS enables scientific data, that is, columns of figures, from Antarctic research stations to be translated into three-dimensional audiovisual representations and temperature-controlled Chapter 6 214 air streams. This multiperspectival perception, which is communicated on various levels, including the mini-monitor and panoramic view on large projection screens (fig. 6.1), raises questions about traditional mimetic concepts of computer art. Although Knowbotic Research operate within the context of the virtual reality discourse, also working with the total effect produced by sounds and images, they choose to represent complex, chaotic, and abstract systems in a form diametrically opposed to that of the mimetic approach. DWTKS allows the user to witness actively how science models and simulates Antarctica, a continent not fully explored, with ex- treme natural and climatic conditions and scant history of civilization: computer-aided nature.7 Their visualization of scientific data does not cre- ate an artificial space of illusion but, instead, an abstract dynamic knowl- edge space that is capable of representing changes over time, for example, the constant movements of icebergs. The artists’ computer-aided approach, however, does not conform to the view of some scientists that the com- puter can construct and represent anything and everything. Figure 6.1 Knowbotic Research, Dialogue with the Knowbotic South , 1995. Interactive real-time installation. By kind permission of the artists. Spaces of Knowledge 215 [...]... in Dortmund, Germany, to focus on landmarks and locations that represent and document the economic and social history of the Ruhr (fig 6. 11).83 Jeffrey Shaw was born in 1944 in Melbourne, Australia From 1 963 to 1 965 he studied architecture at Melbourne University and then art at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan and St Martin’s School of Art in London Since the late 1 960 s, he has been regarded... archetypes with virtual reality, that virtual reality facilitates the bond of humankind and nature, as the Stoics understood it and as a recurrent theme of the doctrine of the elements, is highly problematic for a number of reasons Chapter 6 230 Essentially, virtual reality stands for the complete divorce of the human sensorium from nature and matter In the history of illusionism in art and media, virtual. .. embedded The total arrangement of these different elements constitutes the panorama From a central rotating platform, the visitor uses the zoom on a video camera to focus on particular zones in the virtual space This interface facilitates Chapter 6 240 Figure 6. 11 Jeffrey Shaw, Place Ruhr, 2000 Interactive panorama landscape By kind permission of the artist navigation and allows the visitor to enter the... not content to remain on the surface of the monitor, as many graphics programs do Their approach aims at using the artist’s repertoire to visuChapter 6 2 16 alize the internal processes of computer technology and the data streams in the telematic networks in order to reach beyond the genre of simulation media, which in the course of its history, art has brought forth time and again.9 The artists use... features of a strategy Virtual reality models, for example, of a host of historic buildings attempt to graft the new onto the old and are widely used for the purposes of advertising (fig 6. 6) .64 Moreover, the linking of the doctrine of the elements with Jung’s concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious can be seen as an attempt to establish the medium of virtual reality as part of a continuum... before ,68 but with the difference that she offers the visitors to her virtual spaces a dynamic structure with intermedia elements, thus expanding the historic mnemonic techniques with contemporary media .69 In this piece, virtual art operates close to the current widespread trend of staging knowledge, inspiring and forcing rejection of the desktop metaphor in favor of dynamically generated spatial visualizations... reflects the topography of the image space, both in its texture and by characterizing its potential Total immersion is achieved only through the synaesthesis of these effects, for not only does the sound enhance the immersed state, it also encourages the visitors to destroy the image part of the immersion: What at first sounds like a camera shutter when the visitor takes pictures soon transforms into the... (1995), which combines photography, cinematography, and virtual reality Since its creation, there have been several versions of this installation, which cites the older medium of the panorama within the new one of virtual reality.81 The first Place surrounds the visitor with a 360  panorama screen and allows him to move through the landscape projected onto it,82 in which further photographed panoramas in... which refers to cosmological models indebted to Plato’s doctrine of the elements These models stood for unity and humankind’s place in the totality of the natural order The installation reflects a historical and intellectual concept that, on the one side, utilizes the rigid doctrine of the elements and, on the other, digresses from it to create disparity and a wide range of associations Virtual reality,... Camillo, circa 1550 .67 The aim was to take the knowledge of the ars memorativa stored in the cultural medium of the book, animate and give life to it, transform it into a vision that provided access to the already panoramic body of knowledge of the Middle Ages The Hungarian artist Agnes Hegedues has taken up this historic concept of the memory theater, as Bill Viola had done a few years before ,68 but with . (19 96) ; Wertheim (19 96) ; Rutledge (19 96) ; Davis (19 96) ; Davies and Harrison (19 96) ; Lunenfeld (19 96) ; Borsook (19 96) ; Carlisle (1997); Grau (1997); Kac (1998); Davies (1998a); Heim (1998), pp. 162 – 168 ,. sound, in body and psyche.’’ 16. I attempted to locate this within the history of illusion in a lecture enti- tled ‘‘Into the Belly of the Image: Art History and Virtual Reality,’’ at the Eighth International. aesthetic that is not content to remain on the surface of the monitor, as many graphics programs do. Their approach aims at using the artist’s repertoire to visu- Chapter 6 2 16 alize the internal processes