Agata Chodera
MASTER OF REALITY, 2020
installation, six degrees of freedom, interactive 360 audio, Valve Index, VIVE trackers, object, fur, interactive video
The Master of Reality installation focuses on the audience’s three senses: sight, hearing and touch. Its essential components include an interactive sculpted object made of sections of animal furs (collected in an open call action). Sound is produced by moving the palm of the hand over the object’s surface, the effect depending on the sequence of gestures chosen by the installation user.
Master of Reality provokes questions regarding the position and role of the source and recipient, levels of agency, and status of animals in culture (experiencing the pleasure of touching soft, enjoyable substance requires other sentient beings – bred and killed for their hides and furs – to suffer).
Experiencing contact with organic matter seems to be as important as human relationships with technological space: the work examines the audio dimension impact on the mood and sense of wellbeing of installation users. Sound-generating interactions with the sculpture are accompanied by emotion-imaging reactions of the avatar on the screen. To quote Jakub Wróblewski, in her installation Chodera “creates a monument to human domination in the Anthropocene era”.
Six degrees of freedom – six ways one can move within and interact with virtual space: there are three rotational degrees of movement around the x, y and z axes, commonly termed as pitch, yaw and roll, and three translational degrees: left-to-right and right-to-left, forwards and backwards, and up and down. The higher the number of degrees of freedom, the more natural VR motion becomes.
