Animal,
Vegetable, Video
by Sam Easterson
Website: http://www.anivegvideo.com/
Reviewed by Luisa Paraguai Donati
Department of Multimedia
Institute of Arts, Unicamp, Brazil
http://wawrwt.iar.unicamp.br
luisa@iar.unicamp.br
This website is part of a larger project
called the Animal, Vegetable, Video,
in which the video artist, Sam Easterson,
has been working for the last five years.
In 1988 he was commissioned by the Walker
Art Centre, Minneapolis, to create a new
video project. For that project he outfitted
a flock of sheep with a helmet-mounted
video camera. Since then he has been designing
them to be attached onto animals and plants
of all kinds. Micro video cameras are
also placed deep inside the animals and
plant habitats showing how they live,
behave and move in their own environment.
Therefore, the project has produced an
extensive collection of video footages
and created a network of an artist and
scientists by developing video exhibitions
for art centres and working with researchers
in different scientific institutions.
The web design is simple, clean, and totally
based on screens and windows with an animated
movement of coloured squares on a white
background to formalise aesthetically
the idea of those video experiments. Web
users can browse easily to get any information
and video footages by clicking on the
names of animals or choosing specific
habitats.
Watching some of those videos, it is clear
that the author is interested in "looking
and in the process of looking" to
conduct his process of creation. The viewer
can get different references of the environment
according to each animal and its characteristic
rhythm, body movement, and sounds as a
scorpion, an alligator, or a wolf. The
perspective of captured images creates
a specific visual experience by linking
the perceiver and different views, the
individual and the landscape. Then, the
viewer is not only an observer of the
scene but also the first person in the
video narrative.
By thinking about new technologies and
the possibility of having different perspectives
to approach the world another concept
can be mentioned here, "mediated
presence" [1], when it is possible for
participants to experience phenomenologically
the "sense of being there."
In some way, the participants presence
can be projected, extended into a physical
remote space through other spatial references,
and according to each interface used,
they can provoke, more or less, interferences
on it.
Personally, another interesting point
in this project is the use of head-mounted
technology inserted in the animals
body spatiality. It brings me the idea
of wearable computer [2] and its use for
specific tasks, becoming the "wearer"
capable of enhancing physical activities
and/or bodily limits. The technological
mediation in the communication process
has been increasingly allowing a redefinition
of the limits of our action and perception
and (re) modelling the realities of our
body.
Notes:
[1] Marvin Minsky (1980) mentioned the
term "telepresence" for the
first time, inspired by Robert Heinleins
novel,Waldo. He thought of "remote
presence" those occurrences when
participants can influence the form and/or
content of the mediated presentation or
experience as in definition. Since then,
the concept of mediated presence has been
extensively discussed and for Biocca
(1997) can be briefly presented as consisting
of two interrelated phenomena: "telepresence
the phenomenal sense of being
there and mental models of mediated
spaces that create the illusion, and social
presencethe sense of being
together with another and mental
models of other intelligences
that help us simulate other minds."
[2] Bass (1997) suggests five characteristics
to define a wearable computer, "it
may be used while the wearer is in motion;
it may be used while one or both hands
are free, or occupied with other tasks;
it exists within the corporeal envelope
of the user, i.e., it should be not merely
attached to the body but becomes an integral
part of the person's clothing; it must
allow the user to maintain control; it
must exhibit constancy, in the sense that
it should be constantly available."
Bibliographical References:
F. Biocca, "The Cyborgs Dilemma:
Progressive Embodiment in Virtual Environments,"
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication,
Vol.3, N.2., N.p.
M. Minsky, "Telepresence," OMNI
Magazine, (May 1980) p.45-52.
L. Bass, Conveners report of CHI '97
Workshop on Wearable Computers, Personal
Communication to attendees, (1997) N.p.
L. Santaella, "Culturas e artes do
pós-humano, da cultura das mídias
à cibercultura," (São
Paulo: Editora Paulus, 2003). N.p.