(spi)ritual OMnipotence

Report from Pixxelpoint 2008

2008-12-20T00:28:00.000-08:00

The Pixxelpoint festival ended on the 12th of December. You can find some new pics of (spi)ritual OMnipotence on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/otherehto/sets/72157610144804437/

Some comments on (spi)ritual OMnipotence said by who had the chance to experience it:

“An inquiry into the possibility of (tech-supported) spirituality intended in the vastest sense of the term.”

“A really interactive artwork which final outcome depends totally onto the intercommunication between you and the installation; what is more, it supplies you with a technique that can be used and reused even after the exhibition experience.”

“It would be nice to have such thing at home.”

News on future exhibitions of (spi)ritual OMnipotence will be posted on the blog. In the meanwhile, I have already started to develop a new work called Contami Vitae. More info will be available soon.

PIXXELPOINT 2008 / FOR GOD'S SAKE!

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(spi)ritual OMnipotence is participating at the 9th International New Media Art Festival Pixxelpoint,http://www.pixxelpoint.org/, that will open at the Nova Gorica City Gallery (Mestna galerija Nova Gorica) on December 5, 2008, at 8.00 PM. The festival will run from December 5 to December 12, 2008.

This year's edition of the festival focus on the theme “FOR GOD'S SAKE! How the media change the way we imagine / represent / honour / curse the divinity”, suggested by the Italian art critic, teacher and curator Domenico Quaranta.

You can experience "the anti-institutional, new media rituality suggested by OtherehtO" (1) by visiting Galerija Tir in Mostovna (Cesta IX. korpusa 99 A, 5250 Solkan), where the project will be exhibited during the period of the festival.

(1) Pixxelpoint 2008 press release

Brochure

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(spi)ritual OMnipotence brochure

Get your own at Scribd or explore others: Culture pixxelpoint (spi)ritual omnipote

1. What (spi)ritual Omnipotence is and what it is used for

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(Spi)ritual OMnipotence represents a mise-en-scene of our body qua mind perceptive apparatus which wants to stimulate, investigate and challenge the transformative potential of symbolic actions performed outside the realm of institutionalized religion.

This new media interactive installation focalize its attention onto an extension of audio-tactile stimuli which are used to evoke a cathartic, full-body immersive experience. All that in order to provoke a semi-spiritual noesis produced through mediated s(t)imulations with (pseudo)autotherapeutic potential.

2. How to use (spi)ritual Omnipotence

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The installation consists of two developments:

1. PREPARATION
• Brochure reading

• Mantra listening
The visitors are first invited to listen through headphones to the OMnipotent mantra audio file. The relatively long listening time (3 min) is required for producing the cognitive switch necessary for a full experience of the installation. The audio is composed by pure electronic sounds of different frequencies that form a rhythm similar to OM. The origins of the sound OM derive from the mystical syllable Aum used in the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religions. Aum is believed to represent the primordial vibration that was present during the creation of universe, from which all other sounds, words and languages have aroused.

• Hand sanitization

2. EXPERIENCE
The visit of the installation is limited to one person at a time and should not exceed 5 min duration.

• Corridor passage towards the installation area
The corridor is entirely constructed with black cloth. The almost complete absence of light and the narrowness of space stimulate perceptive subjectivity and anxiousness.

• Installation
2.1. Setting
The installation zone is kept in semi-darkness. The cylindrical pedestal supports a fluid-filled vessel that is utilized in the purification ritual.

2.2. Audioscape
The installation room represents a psychoacoustic environment where the mantra audio is transmitted on frequencies above the audible range (x > 22 kHz). Therefore, the visitors are exposed to consciously unperceivable sounds that appear as silence. However, scientific studies (1) demonstrate that although humans cannot consciously hear high-frequency sounds (HFs), the presence or absence of those frequencies has a measurable effect on their psychological reaction. In this manner, we could say that the biological body sensitivity perceives rhythms that appear unrecognized to our conscious mind perception. The fullness of the silence consequently provokes a psychotic experience of unexplainable body involvement.

2.3. Interaction

Notes:
(1) T. Oohashi, E. Nishina, M. Honda, Y. Yonekura, Y. Fuwamoto, N. Kawai, T. Maekawa, S. Nakamura, H. Fukuyama, and H. Shibasaki, Inaudible high-frequency sounds affect brain activity: Hypersonic effect, Journal of Neurophysiology, 2000, available online at http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/83/6/3548

3. Possible side effects

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Like all rituals, (spi)ritual OMnipotence can cause side effects, although not everybody gets them.

The most frequently observed side effects are:
• An immediate or gradual change in behaviour and reasoning
Some examples:
1. a+0 ≠ a
2. The → The

• Alterations in social relations and valuation
Some examples:
1. < y > → >y<
2. [xx] [xy] → x(xy)x → ∞

4. About (spi)ritual OMnipotence

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The installation includes some of the typical characteristic of religious rites:
• Symbolic gestures
(hand washing)

• Full-body involvement
(encouraged by a restriction of the visual experience in favour of audio-tactile stimuli)

• Therapeutic potential

The particularity of this ritual lies in its approach which is completely demystifying. The interactive experience of hand cleansing allows the installation user to comprehend that the whole purification ritual is founded onto perceptive illusions. In this manner, the media stimulated psychotic immersion gets deliberately defictionalized. The solicitation of experience and awareness is controversial when compared to ecclesiastical rites supported by unquestionable truths called dogmas.

Nonetheless, it is precisely because this fluid-filled vessel installation functions as a Black Hole in Reality, an empty space onto which is possible to project one’s own desires, fears or distorted perceptions, that one can evoke the phantasmatic surplus value that enables the:
CREATION OF SOMETHING (autocurative experience) OUT OF NOTHING (virtual simulation).

5. Credits

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• OtherehtO
(concept, art direction, graphic design)
Contact: other.otherside@gmail.com

• Machiel Veltkamp
(visual & interaction design)
Contact: machiel@cpu-theatre.org

• Raphael Monzini
(sound design)
Contact: raphael_monzini@yahoo.it

For more information about the research part and inspiration for the project, read the article Oltre i confini del corpo
available online at http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1314