REFERENCE: Immersing Body & Mind

The TV documentary 'What makes a masterpiece?' (2012) courtesy of Channel 4, features James Turrell's immersive installations as a play between science and art, powering between experience and aesthetics.

 

"His work is often described as explorations in light and space. The artist calls his work 'adventures in perception' and I can't help thinking this is a take on the brave new world of neuro-aesthetics, which studies the impact of art on the brain. By flooding the senses with otherworldly flushes of light, Turrell is creating something of a new reality, born of a fusion of the two disciplines of art and science. In Turrell's case, beauty isn't so much in the eye of the beholder but the brain." -Matthew Cain

With new technology and developing art practices that now frequently combine the two, it is becoming difficult in defining what exactly affects us when we encounter art. Whether there is some key element that engages the viewer's attention, or whether it is the joy of surprise and the new. James Turrell's installations don't only overload the senses with his extreme colour and light, but they seem to transport the viewer to a psychological state, an alternate reality of escape.

REVIEW: [Black Mirror] directed by Charlie Brooker

I watched the brilliant, dark and unsettling Black Mirror, which has been constantly surprising me with how on point it's commentary is. A dystopian series of small stories, wrapped in a very familiar universe to our own, Black Mirror gives us a disturbing glimpse into the not so far future of technology and it's impact on our lives. I've always been quite cynical about how quickly technology is developing and how dependent and intertwined it has become with everyday life. I'm not going to lie, it worries me. And Charlie Brooker does a wonderful job of fulfilling my fears in this drama series.

In an interview I watched online, Charlie Brooker states he decided to call the series Black Mirror because when our digital devices are switched off, they literally look like a black mirror staring back at us. And there's something twisted, mysterious and great about that.e

Episode two "15 million merits" focused on our obsession with entertainment shows and insistent technological distractions. It is set in an alternate future where everyone lives in a tiny cell comprised of a room-size virtual screen in which every activity takes place through the currency of virtual merits. From a virtual cockerel wake-up call in the morning, to picking out food from a virtual vending machine on a screen, all activities revolve around this technological medium.

My interest is in the idea of living within a video itself...which actually isn't a new idea really at all. Games such as Second Life and Sims have been doing this for ages. They offer you the option to cast yourself in an alternate life and reality. Worrying when it leads some to spend more time on their "virtual" lives than their real ones. With all these recent new technologies such as the Wii and the X-box where you can effectively control your own virtual world with simple movement, it leaves little other activity to be desired or necessary. Instead of doing the real activity itself (such as sport) people opt to do it virtually instead. We become completely immersed in a world which essentially doesn't even exist. And the problem is that some people actually prefer it.