DAC: You titled your work with Arthur C. Clarke’s third law, “Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology is Indistinguishable From Magic”. Do you remember your first thoughts on this law?
Janos: I read all three laws and found this one to be the most accurate and possibly profound. Nearly a year ago, I was looking for a title for this piece and not only did Clarke’s law fit, but I believe brought more depth of concept to the art (something which titles rarely actually do). When I think about, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, I remember (ironically) seeing pictures of an indigenous tribe of peoples being shown a TV. This is an old memory so it may be a bit distorted but I believe they had two responses. The first and not surprising was puzzlement in who the tiny people were in the box and how they got in there. And the second, which I think of often and have personally experienced, was an inability to actually see the images. The experience of looking at the TV was so far from their normal reality that their brains could not process the information into understandable visual information! The picture became an optical illusion of sorts.
DAC: What do you think Arthur C. Clarke means by “sufficiently”?
Janos: Probably, he meant technologies that I think of as being “Near Future”. That is, ones that may exist but only in small and usually nerdy circles and are years away from mainstream.
I use one of these Near Future technologies in my work. 3D rapid prototyping is a technology that topographically “prints” physical materials into actual objects. Currently I am designing an elaborate project, which takes advantage of RP. When I tell people that soon they will be able to go online and for example, chose a pair of sunglasses, personally change the size, texture, color and ornamentation, purchase them and watch as a RP machine on their desk manufactures the glasses, they look at me in disbelief. But this is going to happen and much of the technology already is out there and will come together in the Near Future.
DAC: You wrote: “we connect with each other in the virtual world” and that “this connectivity creates avatars, extensions of our actual world persona who act as our ambassadors inside the virtual world”. Tell us why you choose a skeleton.
Janos: I needed a body. This piece had to have a figure who could be a stand in for all humanity - but whose image can do this? Anytime a figure is involved in art, it brings with it a map with all sorts of possible conceptual routes. If it’s my body, it might be a self-portrait or about my personal experience/existence. A famous person or a historical figure would only have dug me deeper, locking the piece into a very specific meaning.
I chose a skeleton as a way of making that universal connection between us all, yet staying unspecific as to leave open many routes of travel. Needless to say, I understand that a skeleton brings with it it’s own routes but they seemed to me to be diverse and broad enough for multiple interpretation and experience.
We, who use the Internet to communicate, all have and are connected to avatars. When we connect with each other as avatars across the Actual/Virtual border, the intensities and effects of having avatars fascinates me.
In my research and experience, I have found three main types of connections. The first of which, we have when using on-line dating sites or ChatRoulette, and Skype. Interacting with these sites is like being in your home and speaking to your friend through an open window. You each exist in different spaces but can see and hear each other clearly. The Virtual World is only a thin medium to interact through.
In the second, we become a bit more blurred by the thickening digital space and the more our avatars act for us. Here the analogy is more like writing with pen on the glass of the now closed window. We can still “see” each other but must rely on written words, which are a slightly disconnected description of our actual selves. I see this happen in PayPal, email, eBay, texting etc.
The third and final, is the most digitally concealed. Here we become tethered to our avatars from a distance as they interact in the dense soup of digital space. With Facebook, Secondlife, on-line gaming, etc, we now wear masks and our window is fogged by our breath as we write on the glass.
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