Helen Keegan :: Blog :: Telematic Art, Second Life and technological convergence

Last Tuesday evening I went along to the inaugural lecture of Paul Sermon, the Professor of Creative Technology here at the University of Salford. Paul’s telematic art uses videoconferencing technology to “challenge people's ideas of personal space and their own self image”. It was a great lecture, as Paul demonstrated some of his work from the past 15 years, beginning with ‘Telematic Dreaming’ from 1992 (an installation/performance piece with a ‘human avatar’), before moving on to ‘Telematic Vision’(1994), which deals more with the notion of telepresence, using the screen/monitor as a portal to a shared mental space.

Paul doesn’t use sound in his work, which forces participants in the artwork/installations (who could be located anywhere in the world) to react a lot more physically in terms of the way that they express themselves, as they are using the body to communicate without having to speak. This was demonstrated by his showing of videos from There’s No Simulation Like Home (1999) and some rather comical footage from BBC’s ‘Trouble at the Big Top’, where some people seemed immune to the wonders of being able to beam their faces across the world via blue cushions, instead preferring to have pillow fights….

Other works included ‘A Body of Water’ (1999), a piece which ran across 3 locations, where people scrubbed one another in the shower – images were chroma-keyed together via videoconferencing and projected on to a wall of water; the ‘Teleporter Zone’ (2005) and ‘Headroom’ (2006).

Paul ended by demonstrating his work in Second Life at The SYLGRUT Centre (a venue for contemporary media art and critical theory), before bringing us almost back full-circle by showing a ‘real-life’ photographic image of a normal room with chairs, tables…. And blue and pink (male and female) pose balls littered around the place…

I’m really looking forward to Friday, as ‘Liberate Your Avatar’ Paul’s interactive public video art installation (incorporating Second Life users in a real life environment) will be shown on giant screens in Manchester:

“This completely unique project brings together fifteen years of telepresence research by artist and Professor of Creative Technology at Salford University, Paul Sermon, with his current experiments and experiences in the online three-dimensional world of Second Life.

In this new project, Paul Sermon will recreate the actual All Saints Gardens on Oxford Road within Second Life, allowing both members of the public and virtual inhabitants (‘avatars’) of Second Life to coexist and share the same park bench in a live interactive installation.

This installation will transform the ‘Urban Screen’ situated in All Saints Gardens into a portal between these two parallel worlds. The installation will also investigate demonstration and how it has changed from real into virtual environments. By positioning the ‘Urban Screen’ as the mediator of change, the installation will examine the history of ‘All Saints Gardens’; relocating Mancunian Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst as an avatar within Second Life. Here she will she remain locked to the railings of the park, reminding us of the need to continually evaluate our role in this new online digital society. ‘Liberate Your Avatar’ examines this new crisis whilst drawing upon the history of the site, creating a rich, provoking and entirely innovative, interactive experience.”

I’m sure this is going to be something rather special - it’s great the way that Paul’s work has evolved and now he can bring his experiences into SL – and I particularly like the way that he converges technologies, blending the real and the virtual into various mixed realities...