Tuesday, February 06, 2007

On February 2nd, University of Southern California faculty members Anne Friedberg and Perry Hoberman gave a presentation centered on their overlapping interests entitled, “Critical Parallax: the Binocularity of Theory and Practice.”

Friedberg: The core of her talk was her recently published book, The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006). In keeping with form, this was a bifurcated subject. The book exists both in the traditional printed page format and as an interactive website, framed in the windows it explores, recreating the environment of a movie theater lit only by its projector (including obstructive audience members.) Friedberg invoked the “metaphysics of light,” remarking how it has been “harnessed as an entertainment medium.” Friedman explained the print version of the book was more suited to a linear argument, in which a “chronological evolution” of windows/screens may be developed, while the internet version better allowed her to develop a “matrix of concepts” which the user may freely explore . . .
www.thevirtualwindow.net

Hoberman: Several of his artworks, mainly interactive installations, were presented or represented. “Out of the Picture,” inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, projected narrative scenes from projectors positioned in such a way that any observer’s shadow would appear on screen with the film.

Friedberg: The 1936 film adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come, positing a future in which architectural windows are replaced by screens rendering visible whatever a user wishes, initially sparked Friedberg’s interest in “windows;” she emphasized situating present societal changes in cultural histories. Friedberg explained that throughout cinematic history, the screen has generally remained singular, but the splitting of the screen by computer software has afforded cinema an easier transition to regularly fracturing its window.

Hoberman: “The Sub-Division of the Electric Light, “ an interactive CD-ROM, was described by its maker as an “elegy for film projection” and allows users to manipulate the various projections of tiny projectors appearing at varying angles out of a black screen. That screen is divided and defined in multiple ways by the projectors, reflecting Hoberman’s attitude of having “no reason to limit the image to a single presentation.” As he explained, this was a metaphor for the divisions of the computer screen. As with Friedberg’s website, this project required Hoberman to digitally recreate projector light, for him, a signal of projection’s death. “Zombiac” was an attempt to “zombify” computers through hollowing them out and replacing the cathode rays of their monitors with spotlights, turning the screens into only physical objects. Through flashing their lights, the computers would attempt to communicate with observers. Hoberman explained that this project would be inconceivable today, as through new technologies (e.g. flat panels, LCD displays) the screen has become more “ethereal.”

The presentation concluded with emphasis on individuality of perception (explored in Friedberg’s “palette of apertures” on “The Virtual Window”) and the specific binocular human perception of space and time (as compared to that of spiders, for example . . .) Hoberman exhibited portions of a collaborative work (with Donald Hoffman) in progress entitled, “Malperception” which simulates or, when possible, allows spectators to actually experience a variety of sight disorders which alter perception in sometimes subtle but important ways.


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