Virtual audio spaces – trends and directions in interactive, documentary and performative activities.
17.11.2020
Przemysław Danowski on his lecture:
Antonin Artaud was the first to use the phrase “virtual reality” in his manifesto “Theatre of Cruelty” (“Le Théâtre de la cruauté”, 1932), in reference to the way of organising performative space. He also described an auteur vision of sound and musical instruments in this new type of theatre: “They will be treated as objects and as part of the set. Also, the need to act directly and profoundly upon the sensibility through the organs invites research, from the point of view of sound, into qualities and vibrations of absolutely new sounds, qualities which present-day musical instruments do not possess and which require the revival of ancient and forgotten instruments or the invention of new ones. Research is also required, apart from music, into instruments and appliances which, based upon special combinations or new alloys of metal, can attain a new range and compass, producing sounds or noises that are unbearably piercing”. [Antonin Artaud, “The Theatre and Its Double”, translated from the French by Mary Caroline Richards, Grove Weidenfeld, New York, copyright © 1958 by Grove Press, Inc., original edition: “Le Théâtre et son double”, 1938].
The popularisation of immersive technologies gave rise to a promise of new forms of sensual audiovisual work perception. In the area of sound, that promise concerns i.a. related spatial perception options. After years of loudspeaker systems – such as stereo or surround sound – the reception of audio compositions in ways resembling the natural hearing process has become taxing for numerous recipients, and troublesome for authors used to established production methods. Shortage of standardisation, poor availability of playback equipment, a limited selection of valuable productions – all are symptoms of a very early development stage in the area. Concurrently, all these difficulties mean that contemporary creators can enjoy considerable freedom and capacity in seeking new forms of expression. The abandonment of traditional models stemming from screen forms allows an untethered reach for the unknown, and an exploration of the sensory-motoric loop of experiencing sound. Virtual environments feature specific limitations associated with state-of-the-art technology capacities, as proven in particular by attempts to mimic reality – yet already today, they allow a process of creating worlds based on completely arbitrary sets of rules, owing to which artists can implement the vision proposed by Artaud by developing assorted objects simultaneously forming part of virtual sets – and musical instruments performers or participants of experiences can play in ensembles.
The presentation will showcase directions of activities organised in assorted sound-related disciplines in virtual environments, all based on the artist’s practical experience in areas of immersive documentaries, the audio layer in VR 6DoF experiences, and performances involving VRMIs (Virtual Reality Music Instruments).
Prehistories of VR. Cinema, literature, art
1.12.2020
Matylda Szewczyk on her lecture:
Similarly to practically any state-of-the-art medium, Virtual Reality has its own prehistory, rooted in a past recent or distant, depending on the person attempting to reconstruct it. The most radical researchers, such as German art historian Oliver Grau, have placed early virtual space projects in antiquity. Yet the “VR prehistory” I would like to ponder mainly concerns the 1980s and 1990s. While various appliances allowing Virtual Reality to be experienced had already existed in those days and intense works were in progress to develop others, their availability was disproportionately limited in comparison with the interest triggered by VR in the community of literature and cinema authors, artists and culture scholars.
Why had VR proven to be so significant in terms of philosophy and cultural sciences, even before we genuinely began using it? What kind of fears and hopes had Virtual Reality triggered in times of its actual prehistory? Which of these forecasts may prove essential in an era of actual VR realisations becoming relatively broadly accessible to regular media users – and which will remain nothing but a sign of their times, not that distant yet completely different to the age we call our own?
In my lecture, I will discuss imaginings and propositions of problematising VR through novels, films, and art and theoretical works created in times when Virtual Reality had been no more than a visionary perspective. Analysed works will include i.a. William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels; and films from the “summer of digital paranoia”, to reference a phrase coined by cinema researcher D.N. Rodowick for the 1999 season, when “Matrix” by the Wachowski siblings, David Cronenberg’s “eXistenZ” and Josef Rusnak’s “The Thirteenth Floor” opened in cinemas. We will also reflect on why – as Jaron Lanier claimed in 1993 – the phrase “Virtual Reality” carries a type of “magical power” within, and what that “power” could then (and still can) involve.
