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Preface |
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Institute of Technology (KTH), where she presented her VR-piece, "The Parallel Dimension," which makes use of six-screens virtual reality environment of the CAVE System.
Teresa WENNBERG's artistic work engages with such concepts as memory and perception, and expresses itself in an attempt to humanize the digital media through poetic and imaginative installations.
For this occasion, Teresa WENNBERG will be showing a new VR-piece, "BRAINSONGS─ WELCOME TO MY BRAIN" which she built at the KTH. In this piece, she is working with a virtual interpretation of human brain functions, in all their dynamism and mystery. The visitor will be introduced in an interactive environment to various phenomena and situations that act as visual metaphors for the world of the brain, and associate virtual experiences of human emotion and memory.
Artist's Statement
Our brain is a organ which is extremely refined and at the same time quite mechanic. Some input signals are treated with an impressive accuracy where most of the capacities of the brain are employed, memory functions evoked, a multitude of decisions made.. and a precise action is taken. Others are dealt with in a more casual way and rapidly sorted into a routine treatment. In order for us to simply move around and act in our everyday reality, our brain uses an enormous amount of microscopic neurons. These neurons are constantly exchanging messages - we are said to produce a new memory every 10 seconds. The brain and the computer have a very similar way of processing information. Doors open and close, portals permit and deny access, both systems are humming with orders and counter orders for to carry out a certain action.
Inspired by this similarity, Teresa Wennberg has created a Virtual Reality environment, BRAINSONGS, which relates to three mayor functions of the brain: short term memory and decision, recognition of objects and figures and our orientation in space. In BRAINSONGS, we are confronted with many stunning contradictions: we fly although we are standing still, we go through solid walls, we move with incredible speed between totally different situations, we are attacked by weapons which are so virtual they don't hurt... making us oscillate between a feeling of control and confusion.
Is it a game? No. It is simply a meeting with parts of our brain that we never discovered before.
So how do we set the difference between "true" and "false", when we move around in these virtual zones, which both resemble and defy all the physical laws we normally relate to? The interesting thing is that our brain doesn't seem to care very much about such distinctions. The brain functions are parallel - what Marvin Minsky describes as "a society of mind". There is no central executive or "me" surveying everything, but rather the fluid communication of a whole system, where different parts contribute different functions, in a multitude of interactions. This however does not require a "truth" factor. Rather than to seek a fundamentally true picture of the world, the brain instinctively finds a compromise that fits each experience well enough. In a strange world, like the virtual reality world you are about to enter, your mind will adapt and form a strange consensus.
The visit starts with a model showing the interconnections in a brain. From there, we can venture into various situations which put our brains' functions at stake and make us experience its extraordinary flexibility. Just as our body is in permanent activity, a visit to BRAINSONGS is based mainly on movement, memory and quick decisions. When we enter this virtual environment, we experience a real time metaphor for the change and transformation that is constantly taking place inside us. Stay there as long as you please and associate freely about what's going on in your head.
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January 18 (Friday) - March 24 (Sunday), 2002 Gallery B(CAVE)
Artist's Talk