Fuel

I first came across Fuel in October or November 2000: rather late considering that they had been around since 1991. Formed at the Royal Collge of Art by Peter Miles, Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell they adopted what Alan and Isabella Livingston called "a visually aggressive stance" (2003, p.91).

This particular film, featured if my memory serves me correctly on OneDot TV on Channel 4 in the late 90s or the early part of the new century. I am not sure of the title of this piece. They represented a new trend in collective approaches to design that "seek to reject individual celebrity of a Carson or Brody" (Eskilson, 2007, p. 381).

Further Reading:

Eskilson, S., (2007) Graphic Design: A New History, London: Laurence King.

FUEL: http://www.fuel-design.com/

Livingston, A. and I., (2003) The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers, London: Thames and Hudson.

The Cave

"Suspension of disbelief is a fundamental part of the effective use of a virtual reality Interface. Until we can ignore the interface and concentrate on the application, virtual reality will remain a novel experience instead of a serious visualization tool." (Packer and Jordan, 2001, p. 287).

This video is a video demo that explains the functionality of the CAVE®.

producer/director: Sumit Das, Alan Millman

evl contributors: Drew Browning, Carolina Cruz-Neira, Sumit Das, Thomas A. DeFanti, Alan Millman, Daniel J. Sandin.

credits: Lewis Siegel, Kathy Koller and Michelle Miller.




The Cave (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment or Computer Virtual Environment) was conceived by the media artist Dan Sandin and the engineer Thomas DeFanti with the assistance of graduate student Carolina Cruz-Neira in 1991. It was developed at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois in Chicago.


Dan Sandin, The Cave 'Virtual Reality Theatre' (Prototype: Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois, Chicago, 1991; publicly showcased: SIGGRAPH 92, (the annual convention for the Special Interest Group for Graphics of the Association for Computing Machinery) Chicago 1992). "Virtual Realiity, accessed through dark glasses, allows users to feel as if they were in a totally different universe. For Paul Virilio, 'We are entering a world where there won't be one but two realities: the actual and the virtual' (Rush, 2005, p.237)




Michael Rush describes The Cave, a virtual environment, as “a cubic room, three meters (sic) square… consisting of stereographic computer graphics which react interactively to actions of the ‘user’, who is equipped with stereo glasses which make it possible to see other ‘playmates’ (Sandin’s word) in The Cave" (Rush, 2005, p. 234).


The CAVE's immersive experience "was intended as an allusion to Plato's cave; its multiple screens and surround-sound audio evoke the metaphor of a shadowy representation of reality, suggesting how perception is always filtered through the minds veil of illusion" (Packer and Jordan, 2001, p. 287). In his Republic, Plato "used the image of prisioners in a cave who define the basis of their reality through the shadows of fire dancing on the walls of the cave to develop concepts of reality, representation, and human perception" (Paul, 2008, p.129). The "Cave 'dwellers' do not need to wear helmets, which would limit their view of and mobility in the real world , nor don bulky gloves and heavy electronics packs, nor be pushed about by movemement retricting platforms, to experience virtual reality. Instead they put on a pair of lightweight 'glasses' and walk into the Cave, a 27-cubic-meter room with an open side and no ceiling" (Sandin, DeFanti and Cruz,-Nera, 1993 p.288).




Bibliography:

Packer, R. and Jordan, K. (2000) Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality, ArtMuseum,
Available from World Wide Web: http://www.w2vr.com/timeline/Sandin.html [last accessed 05/05/10].

Packer, R. and Jordan, K. (2001) Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality New York: Norton & Company.

Plato, (2008) Republic, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Paul, C. (2008) Digital Art London: Thames and Hudson.

Rush, M. (2005) New media in late 20th-century art, London: Thames & Hudson.

Sandin, DeFanti and Cruz,-Nera (1993) "A Room with a View" in Packer, R. and Jordan, K. (2001) Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality New York: Norton & Company, pp.287-292.

Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter’s photo-realist style was spurred on by the neo-Dadaism of Fluxus. He referred to his “photo paintings” as “capitalist realism” (Wheeler, 1991, p.279). Dadaist influence is not always immediately apparent. With the picture Emma (Nude on a Staircase) from 1966 there is the reference to Duchamp’s 1912 Nude Descending Staircase (albeit pre-Dada). His “original motivation in turning to photographs was a wilful act of negation (Nasgaard, R., 1988 p. p.40). This decision was “primarily to escape alternative options for making art that were available in the 1960s” notably “the doctrinaire heroics of Socialist Realism, the cult of subjectivity of Art Informal, the spirituality of Yves Klein and the idealism of the Zero Group” (Nasgaard, R., 1988 p.40).

Woman with Umbrella (1964)

Emma (Nude on a Staircase) 1966

Two candles 1982

Sonic Youth: "Daydream Nation" 1988

My own experience of Richter’s work is rather limited outside of books and other reproductions. I recall that sometime between 1988-1991 Richter’s name came to my attention, firstly in the art classes and then in the studios and at college: West Park and then Stourbridge. His work was very visible. Richter’s Kerze (Candle) 1983, featured on the cover of Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation (Kerze, 1982 featured on the inside cover). Richter seemed the height of cool.

Betty 1988

Confrontation 1 1988

The early Richter’s are smudgy, smudgy like old news print photographs. “Richter like Andy Warhol appropriated tabloid as well as snapshots” in an attempt to reconnect “his art to the contemporary social world” (Wheeler, 1991 p279). The end result is “deadpan, hands-off” (1991, p. 279). The effects are similar to those in Photoshop as it fuses together the techniques of photography and the visual effects of oil paint. These kinds of effects can be achieved very easily within that programme. The qualities of paint within Richter’s work is very interesting: “whether in full colour or monochrome sepia , the image might be delicately glazed and scumbled to suggest timeless candlelight moment or its surface smudged and dragged to create an impression of a flash in the torrent of media images” (Wheeler, 1991 p.279).

Sources:
Nasgaard, R., (1988) “Gerhard Richter: The Figurative work” in Neef, T,. (ed) (1988) Gerhard Richter: Paintings, London: Thames and Hudson pp.39-72.
Neef, T,. (ed) (1988) Gerhard Richter: Paintings, London: Thames and Hudson.
Wheeler, D. (1991) Art since Mid-Century: 1945 to the Present, London: Thames and Hudson.