The work Watchful Portrait presents a move away from an artistic practice specifically interested in and reactive towards the human participant to a new paradigm in which the work is orientated toward the world at large, a world in which humanity is part of a greater system. The work consists of a pair of real-time 3D portraits of the same young woman, Caroline, who is interested in alternately following the sun and the moon through each night and day with her eyes.
These portraits can be viewed through two centrally pivoting screens. Turning these screens allows the public to look around the portrait while it stays static, involved in its task.
Paradoxically both embedded in and reliant, in many respects, on this selfsame system, Watchful Portrait attempts to operate outside of the overarchingly human parameters of its worldview. The work primarily functions as a benign digital sentry, interested in a universal state. In this it is influenced by the Janus figure from Roman mythology and in its form by religious iconography, although it is a rational model to which it is subservient, not a spiritual one.
Janus, an intriguing entity, was the god of night and day and also of beginnings, of entrances and of doorways. His two-faced appearance allowed him to look both to the future and to the past, to preside over change and transitions.
Reflecting these contexts, the public has the choice to leave Watchful Portrait in any way desired, with the blank and minimalist side of the screen facing the gallery, or open with the portrait visible. The position, however, has no influence on the activities of the piece. Perhaps this is a fitting context for these times when the very reality of war can be a question of belief or perhaps of choice. I am not sure if many really understand how the allencompassing war on terror actually functions, or what their levels of involvement are in its processes.
In practical terms, the work also tussles with new parameters of sculptural media, of realtime 3D objects which through position or motion sensing can be experienced as physical structures with visual if not tactile form. This advent of the 3D object powered by gaming engines presents a host of new temporal and conceptual contexts for artists to investigate. These differ significantly from those offered by older timeline-based media in that they have no finite consumable duration; they simply exist until catastrophe or indifference kill them off.
As with Janus, whose shrines—usually just portals—were opened during wartime and closed during times of peace, a user, following his/her visit, can leave open either the empty, minimalist side of the images or the side with the portraits. In either case, the position of the images does not influence Caroline’s activities.
The development of the 3-D object brought many new temporal and conceptual contexts with it, and these have opened up interesting areas of research for artists. They can be clearly differentiated from older media in that they have no limited, terminal duration. Initial reactions to these contexts include works that undergo change in real time in order to simulate processes that take hundreds if not thousands of years to be consummated.
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Concept:
John Gerrard:
Interaction design:
Erwin Reitböck
3D portrait development:
Werner Pötzelberger and John Gerrard.
This work was made within the Siemens
Artist-in-Residence program at the
Ars Electronica Futurelab.
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John Gerrard
is an artist whose varied works investigates the emotional possibilities of digital technologies, creating works which question our identities, our relations to each other and toward the physical environment. His sculptures frequently hinge around the new temporal and experiential possibilities to be found in realtime 3D. See www.johngerrard.net. In 2004 he completed a long term artists residency in the Ars Electronica Futurelab.
