I though Snibbe’s art was very creative, immersive artwork. He went through a large screen saver of art work. The first thing I noticed was that his actually presentation of his presentation was interactive. The linked windows he had to guide him through his art work seemed to be a message about interactivity in their own right.
Some of my favorite pieces covered by Snibbe were Cab Spotting, Fear, Boundary Functions, the Dynamic System Series, and the Duck in a Bottle.
The first artwork Snibbe covered was his Boundary Functions display. When I was reviewing my notes I remembered the section I read out of the Multi-Media Reader about Char Daives. In that reading Char Davies’ developed a virtual reality program named Osmose, the program was designed to create ultimate immersion. It used techniques in virtual reality that were similar to the ones Snibbe used in Boundary Functions.
In the VR project, breath and balance were used to control movement and the scenes were designed to be unfamiliar and trigger “deep thinking”. Snibbe used the same principles in his art. “Boundary Functions” used the body as an interface just like Osmose. Also both Davies and Snibbe used their work, not only as a form of self-expression, but to study people. Snibbe called his observations proximatics.
Proximatics is, I believe, the study of people and their movements. Boundary Funtions, “immersively” expressed the idea that, “personal space is only defined by your relationship to others”. This expressive thought is similar to the kind of thought Daives wanted to provoke through Osmose.
He explained that his intent for the experiment and the true purpose of his interactive art is to study/observe human interaction.
I love the interactivity of Snibbe’s artwork. I was especially interested in 2-D artwork made for the computer screen. He called these programs the “Dynamic System Series” I thought it was creative artwork. I like the idea that it will always exist on the internet as a piece of art work but it will never be the same for any one user. The series consisted of the Double Rock, the Bubble Heart, and the Ant Trail. The hand was the interface for this program. The program was used to visually present the natural movement of the hand. I though the natural patterns of the hands motion were very unique and pleasing to the eye.
I thought Snibbe himself gave a very fun, interactive presentation. He covered a wide-range of subjects in his speech.
The Verbal Paradox, “Duck in the bottle” piece was a great visual metaphor for understanding the unanswerable question. The unanswerable question is used by Buddhists to un-do the tradition ways of thinking to gain enlightenment. This idea is also very similar to the effect that Davies’ Osmose created in its users.
Moments like that in his speech reminded me of a lot of the lessons we have covered in class: ways to engage original thinking, employing the used of technical production with creativity, and understanding how people communicate with each other.
Finally, I wanted to make a quick comment on the “Cab-spotting” piece. I though this presented a glimpse into the future of marketing research. With the technology to accurately track the flow of traffic daily valuable marketing information can be gained.
