Tuesday 15 September 2009

Selavy Oh at IBM



You TP in, and walk out across the water, as you do so the land rises up out of the sea at your footfall. Like a god/ess you create as you walk out to a small platform in the middle of the sea.

Sit down on one of Selavy's very recognisable seats and your camera is sent to examine the inside and outside of an avatar head. You are introspecting....










...around you banks of data are turning, mechanically, like a city of data, churning, changing.

This is a staggering piece of genius.

Selavy has captured the virtual world in one piece of art.

...and, to repeat myself from previous post, the lack of any mandatory back story allows me a mental free association......
I was at Annapurna base camp (RL Himalayas) a few years ago. A huge bowl of rock, the bottom at 4000 meters, the rim at 8000. Hundreds of acres of rubble and debris and the constant crashing of avalanches made me think I was at the centre of all land creation, these blocks of rock becoming, eventually, gravel and sand and silt, building deltas, supporting agriculture before again being washed to the sea.

Selavy's piece had a direct link for me to this experience, manifesting the life blood of all virtual existence. Data churning, creating, bytes building.....

I think this is a truely classic piece, one that will be copied endlessly, but not by Selavy, she's an original genius.

:))

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