“Astray in Deimos” by Eduardo Kac

Image from ekac.org

Title:

Astray in Deimos

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Exhibiting Artist(s):

Eduardo Kac

Symposium:

TISEA: Third International Symposium on Electronic Art
More artworks from TISEA:

Creation Year:

1992

Medium:

White-light transmission holograms

Artist Statement:

My work can be understood in the context of language art and visual poetry, two genres that explore similarities and distinctions between word and image. I create what I call holographic poems, or holopoems, which are essentially computer-generated holograms that address language both as material and subject matter. Language shapes our thoughts which in turn shape our world. To question the structure of language is to investigate how realities are built. I use holography and computer holography to blur the frontier between words and images and to create an animated syntax that moves words beyond their meaning in ordinary discourse.

The choice of holography as the most suitable medium for my project, and the subsequent use of computer animation, reflects my desire to create experimental texts that move language, and more specifically, written language, beyond the linearity and rigidity that characterise its printed form. I do not adapt existing verbal structures to holography, but try to investigate the possibility of creating verbal texts or artworks that emerge from a genuine holographic syntax.

I am also concerned with the temporal and rhythmic structure of my texts. Most of my pieces deal with time as non-linear (ie discontinuous) and reversible (ie flowing in both directions) in such a way that the viewer/reader can move up or down, back and forth, from left to right, at any speed, and still be able to establish associations between words present in the transitory perceptual field.
I try to create texts that can only signify upon the active perceptual and cognitive engagement on the part of the reader or viewer. My texts don’t rest quietly on the surface. When the viewer starts to look for words and their links, the texts will transform themselves, move in three-dimensional space, change colour and meaning, coalesce and disappear. Their choreography is as much a part of the signifying process as the words themselves.