01

97

96

02

1996 Do it Yourself: Real-Time Virtual Environment
click the image for more pictures

DESCRIPTION:

This Virtual Environment was exhibited at the 'On Mouse Up' Group Exhibition held at the Sands Walk Gallery in 1996. Other Participants included:Kevin Atherton, Simon Biggs, Susan Alexis Collins, Alison Craighead, Karen J. Guthrie, Rory Hamilton, Eduardo Kac, Nina Pope and Jon Thompson.
This work seeks to address the relationship between the the artist, the work and the audience.
In this case, interactivity allows the user to complete the work. The space is constructed from digitised pen drawings allowing the user to be a cartoon character in a cartoon world.

Looking back at it I can see that the look and feet is influenced by a set I had designed earlier for 'Endgame' by Beckett. I like the relationship to the stage or a play, as the user of a virtual environment finds themself a performer to an extent, in an unfolding narrative. It also reminds me now of the feeling for the environment I got while reading 'The Third Policeman' by Flann O'Brien.On first entering the environment we find ourself in a room with three images on the far wall, the images are all of the room we are in, but in each one it is filled with a different set of objects Standing in front of each image we find alters the space to fit the image.
The first is of the empty room, this can be used to return the room back to the state it was found.
The Second is of the room occupied by what appear to be three metal cubes, The user can configure the pattern of the cubes in the room and take a printout of the final form (Thus literally doing it themself).
The third is of a raised platform in the centre of the room. If we turn and walk onto the platform the floor appears to disappear and we are left on the platform in mid-air. Jumping from the platform to the ground (of course a painless experience!) and walking through the door that presents itself to us takes us back into the room in its original form. The overall feel of the work is of being in an endless spatial loop of an idea rendered as a drawing, sketch or plan, we are always aware that it is not real. My aim was (in this as in other work) to position the user inside a cartoon scenario.