Substance: Interactive Installation
curated by Year 01
Opening reception: Saturday, May 11th from 5pm - 7pm

In the ethereal world of substance, complex data is employed in the creation of a mystical experience beckoning the viewer to reach out through touch to erase the boundaries between real and imagined worlds.

Substance creates a dreamy fluid world, where virtual and physical beings sense and respond to each other in a way which calls into question the nature of 'reality'. Richard Brown creates 'virtual unrealities rather than simulating perceived reality'. His Mimetic Starfish, a virtual creature, uses neural network technology to interact with viewers in 'real' space whereas The Mnemonic Body, a physical creature, uses virtual reality technology to interact with participants in an artificial world.

Richard Brown's Mimetic Starfish is 'aware' of its environment, sensing the world and responding to it. Interactions are remembered in its database of knowledge which informs how it will repond to future similar events. The resulting behaviour is complex. When a viewer reaches out to the starfish, a tentacle extends to the viewers hand, if the hand moves too quickly, the tentacle suddenly retracts in an alarming manner. Stroking a tentacle causes neural net activity to be displayed by muscular contractions and colour changes of the skin. Is it alive?

Alan Dunning and Paul Woodrow's The Mnemonic Body explores the idea that reality does not exist outside ourselves but rather is an internal construct, created by and 'sustained through the neurological processes contained within the brain'. The Mnemonic Body consists of a life-sized image of a human body covered in thermochromic paint that reacts to temperature changes by changing colour. When touched, stroked, or even approached or breathed upon, particular locations on the body produce corresponding sounds and projected images. Participants brain waves are monitored via electrodes and the output is manifested as visual and aural events using a virtual reality heads up display.

In everyday life we assume that we are operating from a framework of 'reality' because we perceive a uniform set of circumstances and objects which respond to us according to assumed rules. This exhibition embraces reality as an illusive boundary where organic and inorganic meet and asks again the recurring question : What is real?

Camille Turner & Michael Alstad
4.15.02

TEXTS

Einstein's Brain: Alan Dunning and Paul Woodrow http://www.ucalgary.ca/~einbrain/EBessay.htm

Richard Brown
http://www-crd.rca.ac.uk/~richardb/artmode.htm

substance
exhibition of interactive installations
Richard Brown, Alan Dunning and Paul Woodrow
May 11-25th, 2002
InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre
Toronto