michael atavar


Qs

these questions were forwarded to me by paul rae
in two stages

on

17/4/02 at 14:37
20/6/02 at 21:53

and sent back by return.

the order of the replies in this
final version was determined by picking the numbers out of
a hat.

Qs

7) you state you are interested in using the browser not as a window of information but as a landscape for the audience to get lost inside. in before the posthuman can take [its] place, susan melrose elaborates on the perplexing matter of how the web limits the horizons of the thinkable, even as it appears to open them up. is it possible to reconcile these two positions?

no.

probably the most useful
thing you could do now is walk away from this screen,
go to the nearest window
and look out.

or switch off your computer.

in my last piece windows I
encouraged the user to look
at the view and send me back a record of what they saw. the responses were very interesting.

open, alive, full, detailed.

increasingly I like to spend time in the landscape. with
my feet on the ground. then I can come back to virtual space refreshed. knowing what it really is.

1) just what is it that makes today's technologies so different, so appealing?

computers won't save your life,

they can't solve your problems and they're not the cavalry. but they do have a beauty and a clarity that's entirely human.

they also present a possibility for the future. so in a thousand years time we will still be alive, making things, talking and exchanging handshakes.

2) 'I'm a maker' you say every time the theory overflows. what do you make? and what do you think I'm doing?

my work is stupid. it doesn't
develop through theory. it makes very small advances that occur by error, accident, limitation.

it moves very slowly.

I make virtual reality, e-says and do www projects.

but if I didn't have electricity I'd be building something out of wood or whatever materials were around instead .

I'll always make things.

3) the process of editing this issue has been a strange one. first you, an artist and I, an academic, spent time in coffee shops identifying common ground, and then I flew round the other side of the world and we tried to make it happen. is this process reflected in the product?

I do a lot of remote projects so
I'm not very surprised. but I am
shocked at how long it's taken.

remote kinds of discourse
(including of course this one) are interesting.

but if I had a choice I'd disconnect from email and go back to telephone calls or better still meetings in coffee shops.

it's important for me to play.

I think no one should work more than three days a week.

4) why is presence blue?

everything is blue.

the sky is blue. the earth floating in space is blue.

since 1997 I've been
experimenting with the html colour #3333FF. an electronic blue that you only get on screen. a particular kind of quality created by light shining
through the colour.

I find the blue light, especially at night, beautiful and thoughtful.

5) do you miss performing? (what took its place?)

no.

I suppose the truth is that I
will always feel drawn to
performance but resist it.

and through that tension, the
pull and push, some new kind
of work, a different kind of voice
will emerge.

incidentally all my virtual reality
works are live events. the material is generated by the computer, different every time.

they are performances. a reflective dialogue between user and screen.

9) how might you justify the inclusion of matthew goulish's contribution in this issue about intersections of performance and the internet?

as a beautiful piece of writing.

actually I wanted to come back
to something in Q 1. the word
horizon. when you start looking
at things, really looking, trying
to removed your projections
onto them. they turn out to be
beautiful.

rubbish in the street, a patterned sleeping bag, chewing gum stuck to the pavement.

recently I've been looking at the
horizon, the sky, the wide open
spaces. trying to build virtual
models of these experiences.
and being quite shocked by how bright and how light they are.

8) desperate optimists draw a distinction between the hermetically sealed relationship between live art and the academy, and the diverse and interesting contexts of new media work. having followed a similar trajectory in your work, do you agree?

yes.

there's a breeze blowing.

in computer work I find an
interesting and open dialogue.
about the future of culture.
it's optimistic. and that's
refreshing.

it's also immaterial.

(after all these things are just files that can be dragged to the
wastebin and deleted)

and so has a lightness, a sense of its own impermanence that I like.

10) last night we went to watch joyce, by ron athey and company. it was a very graphic show, which included images and actions that induced a strong physical response on the part of audience members including crying and vomiting and a very resonant final image, that was entirely dependant on the co-presence of performer and audience, of that 1:1 ratio that only live performance can guarantee. In the aftermath of such an event, what, really is the valency of the assorted declensions of liveness that steve dixon critically surveys in absent fiends?

at the end of RA's show a
performer hangs upside down,
struggling. like a butterfly.
emerging from a chrysalis.
eventually she gives up and
surrenders to what she is.

a body.

this idea of acceptance. of
what the materials are. of what
you are given. a lack of struggle. is very interesting. and something I've tried to work with.

(whatever is on the notebook
page is what the piece becomes)

there's really nothing to worry
about.

6) gesture stutter state by ray langenbach is a faltering meditation on the complex ways in which power and performance are manifested in neurological gaps. in web terms, the stutter operates a bit like the double click on the mouse. I know you're interested in those moments of hiatus, those gaps while you wait for the download, but I'm guessing the appeal for you is not the same as for ray. how?

I think about the mouse a lot.

in my work I've tried to avoid
clicking and instead encouraged the user to float through the screen.

unexpectedly giving them less to do (which is always a good thing).

I suppose I'm interested in
sensuality, allowing things to
happen in real time, being
open-ended, relinquishing
some control, waiting.

and this clearly manifests in
my VR work

http://www.atavar.com/sciis/

take a look.

michael atavar june 2002


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