Linda Laszlo | Deconstruction: An Exploration of Virtual Embodiment

 
What is the definition of human in virtuality? Does it have to look like us? Does it have to move like us? These are all questions I believe my project is raising but does not give answers to. Deconstruction addresses these questions by deconstructing the body right in front of the eyes of the viewer, animating from a clearly human to a geometric cloud controlled by pre-recorded human motion. In the screen based 2D web experience, the pieces of the skin will fly in every way, so it will be still be the recognizably human body – only in pieces.
While the graphics offer endless options to experiment, by name “virtual reality” suggests a search for creating something believable, something that is hyper realistic to satisfy the fantasies that are impossible in reality. The virtual space gives us a kind of freedom we don’t use enough for art purposes, as most projects are to create a more entertaining reality such as video games or even edgy music videos, in a way we are copying and enhancing our own material reality. And meanwhile painters and other 2D visual artists took upon themselves to explore and expand on the body as a medium and what it entails, the new era of virtuality lacks this kind of experimentation, although the artists of this new era are the ones who could take this exploration one step further.
I believe for the sake of the concept, firstly, it is important that the movement data I am using being rooted in human movement. Since I am interested in observing whether even an abstract shape can be seen partly as human, the movement had to derive from a real person. Secondly, for inspiration of the “deconstruction”, I looked at cubist painters such as Picasso’s Girl with a Mandolin (1910), Metzinger’s Dancer in a Cafe (1912), and Duchamp’s Portrait of Chess Players (1911). They have disembodied the body in their paintings in order to make it the representation of the fluidity of time and consciousness. Although, their purposes were different, I realized their method was computer friendly. It made me to return to the very building blocks I used to build the body piece-by-piece, only I teared it apart. I hope the thought they think about after viewing will be whether there is embodiment in disembodiment, but the beauty of abstraction is one cannot control the thoughts a piece triggers in the end. Either way, I only hope to trigger something in people.