Choose one of the artists discussed in the lecture and reflect on their use of interactivity

and/or virtual reality.

Virtual Art agglomerates art and technology and by binding the two mediums together; it therefore
incorporates all other media within it. With this combination of art forms we have entered a state of
flux, in that the direction of the art cannot be ultimately determined, as Grau assertsWe are
experiencing the rise of the com-puter-generated, virtual spatial image to image per se, to images
that appear capable of autonomous change and of formulating a lifelike, all-embracing visual and
sensory sphere. As yet, digital art still exists in a state of limbo, rather like photography before
Stieglitz (2003, p. 3). Through this franticly accelerating and ever changing art form the world has
witnessed artists push the boundaries of defining the real through virtual, augmented and mixed
realities; creating an interactive and therefore highly immersive form of technological
entertainment, production and art. In From illusion to Immersion Grau argues Is it that the idea of
installing an observer in a hermetically closed-off image space of illusion did not make its first
appearance with the technical invention of computer-aidedivrual realities. On the contrary, virtual
reality forms part of the core of the relationship of the human to images(2003, p. 4-5) Asserting
that virtual reality if just a fiction that alludes the eye into a false belief and this process of art is not
phenomenal and therefore unoriginal.
Simon Biggs is an Australian, new media artist and has been making digital Art media since 1978.
He works with the idea that technology has become essential to humans and he integrates within his
work, While focusing around digital poetry, language, interactive and per formative environments,
interdisciplinary practices, identity and auto-generative/interpretive systems. Biggs' interactive,
instillation piece entitled 'Reread' emphasizes the relationship humans have with technology and the
language spoken between the real and the virtual; whether through physicality or through visual and
audio placements. 'Reread' has the audience member projected on a wall, while facing themselves
they are viewing inverted words and texts of different shapes and sizes that are continuously
changing in relation to the audiences movement. With the use of mirror imaging the audience
member is automatically pushed into the virtual world and views themselves within an alternate
relativity It veers, on the contrary, into fascination, which is that of passing to the side of the
double. If, according to Mach, the universe is that of which there is no double, no equivalent in the
mirror, then with the hologram we are already virtually in another universe: which is nothing but the
mirrored equivalent of this one. (Baudrillard, 1994, n.p.)
Biggs works closely with choreographers in order to implicate the actions between the real and the
virtual. As seen in 'blow-up' the performers are projected on a screen, enlarged and manipulated
while their action on stage is being played out. The software underpinning the work tracks the
performers in real-time and is capable of detailed motion data acquisition. This data is employed to
manipulate the live imagery (Biggs, 2008).
With an ever growing need and love for technology humans are interacting more and more with it;
therefore are formulating convoluted relationships with it. Biggs views this within is work, with no
clear distinction whether it is for better or for worse. In the age that humans now live it is
inescapable not imagine a life without technology and all virtual art, hypermedia and remediation
resembles life within it.
Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation (S. Glaser, Trans.). Michigan: University of
Michigan Press. (Original work published in 1981)
Biggs, S. (2008). Blowup. Retrieved from:
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/installations/blowup/index.htm

Grau, O. ( 2003 ). Virtual Art: From Illusion To Immersion. London: MIT Press