Illuality

  • Lorna Pratt
This practical study has been produced in order to further develop extensive research into ‘illusion’ and ‘reality’. Creative inspiration was not solely derived from art, but instead enthused by the integrity of three-dimensional technology and questioning what potential innovations in science hold when applied within an artistic approach.

While artists have always created the illusion of alternative realities, new technological advances are changing current experience of ‘reality’, creating a parallel existence of a ‘virtual’ world. This short film and series of images aims to generate an abyss where the human body is compelled into a transcendent state. It blurs the line between fictional and the factual; an exploration of outer space as a representation of inner space, and opens the door to a platform where two spaces fold into each other, revolutionising understanding and the perception of the human body. Lipovetsky and Charles, suggest that the state of modern reality has become one of “temporal weightlessness” (2005, p. 41) where a digital transcendence of the body is displayed through an enhanced technological ‘reality’.

Pioneering technology allowing the production of ‘virtual reality’ was crucial to the exploration and realisation of both moving and static outcomes of this project. The use of new, innovative biomechanical technology, ‘3D Vicon Motion Analysis’ (9321B, Vicon, UK), was used to capture the physical human body within a utopian platform inside a computerised database. Sensors placed on specific areas of the body generate high resolution, quality optics and sophisticated algorithms. This technology is used by sports scientists when analysing specific movements of the body. The ‘3D Vicon Motion System’ (9321B, Vicon, UK) also enables the user to create an immersive reality where the recorded numerical data is transformed into a precise 3D body scan. The ambiguity of the third-dimension was essential to increase the power of suggestion through an abstract displacement of the human body. The visuals produced display active bodily movement engagement within a virtual world.

A two minute video has been produced to layer elements of the body in a molecular format hidden in a spherical shape, which may be perceived as a star constellation or abstract pattern. Conceptually, the audience is slowly exposed to the allusive representation of the body that aim to challenge the mechanisms of perception (Mark et al., 2005, p. 30). Movement, colour and sound are combined to expose the audience to experiencing both a spectacle and the aura that illusion and virtual reality create. Different emotional responses are created through the use of shape and animated movement. Both anger and happiness are represented through fast bursting images, while, fear, sadness and any other negative emotions are evoked through slow gradual movements.
Abstract graphics have been enhanced with the addition of three-dimensional audio. Three-dimensional audio creates a surround sound experience that when listened to using headphones, can stimulate a realistic illusion of sound that appears to virtually travel around the body of the listener. This effect further supports the concept of displacing the physical body, using both the model on the screen and the viewer of the artifice.

A small selection of still images has been taken from parts of the film. This aims to enable the audience to further engage with each element of the body, without realising the structure inside an ecliptic shape is essentially a mirror of their own body inside a ‘virtual’ space. The overall aesthetic produce is highly ambiguous and illusive.