JANE MCGRATH MA DIGITAL MEDIA ARTS
My experience has been very exciting, there is something wonderful about the meeting of many creative minds in one space, the ability to move from room to room and engage in or simply listen in on very exciting convestations.
At moments these are practcal, relating to producing screens, sizes, cameras and tracking onto deeper matters of engagement and interaction ….then back to the process of rapid prototyping – in its self something that sends my mind into a spin!
Move on and Micahel is sitting in the corner working dilligently on his pixy boards as a scientist who is visiting the work is discussing his theory on how the electrronics are working with his friend .. Carl is discussing the context of the engagement process to The Shyness Project..Tina is introducing new arrivals to the work.
People are engaging both with the work and with each other. There is a dynamic contagious energy that circulates within the space … just like the movement across the Pixy… or the movement of emotions between screen, software and the viewer -it bursts forward and retracts depending on who is where …you can almost touch it and feel it… this residency seems to me to be a constant process of becomming – of pushing forward, of change. Not only is the work it self pushing forward but it is pushing outwards and affecting the visitors.. all of this played out to a sound track of the works pre recorded emotions…laughter and whooping, crying and long bitter accusations. Its a very emotive space.
So for me the ‘experience’ starts as soon as you reach the bottom of the stairs and will not end until you close the main door on the way out. The emotions are so strong that they can not fail to affect you, your mood can not fail to be changed.
There is definately a move from emotion A to emotion B – I feel that there is a very hoilistic kind of contagion going on. Whether this comes from interaction with the work or interaction with the people or the process seems somehow irrelevant.
I believe that if you stand back and take a longer perspective on the residency at Lighthouse as a live installation, a piece of work in it self – it has the fingerprints of real time emotional contagion all over it.
A case of process immitating art?
