Transreal Bodies and Digitized Clones: Bridging Realities With Sound, Biometrics and Motion Capture
Symposium:
- ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art
- More presentations from ISEA2011:
Session Title:
- Virtual Doppelgangers: Embodiment, Morphogenesis, and Transversal Action
Presentation Title:
- Transreal Bodies and Digitized Clones: Bridging Realities With Sound, Biometrics and Motion Capture
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
Panel: Virtual Doppelgangers: Embodiment, Morphogenesis, and Transversal Action
From 2008-2011, Cárdenas and Mehrmand have collaborated and made individual artworks which bridge realities and extend the body sonically and visually. Through these experiments, they have developed new technologies, aesthetic strategies and forms of political embodiment which are transreal, crossing the lines of realities and using reality as a medium. These projects work within what Ricardo Dominguez describes as, “concrete practices as speculation and speculation as concrete practices – at the speed of dreams,” experimenting with ways of linking their physical bodies with our virtual doppelgangers. These experiments form a trajectory of Science of the Oppressed and point towards new lines of flight, models such as transreal, holographic and clone identities. Becoming Dragon questions the one-year requirement of “Real Life Experience” that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive Gender Confirmation Surgery, and asks if this could be replaced by one year of “Second Life Experience” to lead to Species Reassignment Surgery. For the performance, Cárdenas lived for 365 hours immersed in the online 3D environment of Second Life with a head mounted display, only seeing the physical world through a video feed, and used a motion capture system to map her movements into Second Life.
Subsequently, Mehrmand and Cárdenas collaborated on Becoming Transreal, using expanded versions of this technology to map two avatars’ motions in a slipstream narrative about futures of nanobiotechnology. Cárdenas and Mehrmand began to collaborate on mixed reality performances such as Technésexual, in which the performers commit playful erotic acts in physical and virtual space simultaneously, using devices to amplify the sound of their heartbeats for the two audiences. An electrocardiogram was used to monitor the heart rate with an Arduino/Freeduino, playing a recording of the heartbeat at the live rate using Puredata. Temperature sensors modulate the pitch based on touch. DIY biometrics are used to bridge realities with audio, finding ways of exploring the space between realities. The mixing of realities in this project can be seen as paralleling our own experiences mixing genders and sexualities, queering new media. Virtualworlds such as Second Life facilitate the development of new identities, allowing for unimagined relations and relationships. Technésexual looks closely at these new relationships, and how they affect our everyday lives and horizons of possibility.
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Full text (PDF) p. 352-359