[Commlist] Virtual Creativity 8.2 published

Intellect is happy to announce that Virtual Creativity 8.2 is now available!

For more information about the issue, click here >> 
https://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=3681/

*_Contents_*

*Editorial*
Authors: Denise Doyle

*Exploring the networked image in ‘post’ art practices*
Authors: Garrett Lynch

This article presents and discusses a series of four networked artworks 
undertaken since 2013. The artworks are performative, created within the 
web over a duration of time, are visible to an audience throughout their 
creation and as such can be considered as durational networked 
performances. Different in subject matter they overlap considerably in 
the themes, form and methods employed and constitute a body of research 
that explores the networked image in relation to a number of ‘post’ art 
practices. Specifically, this includes the questioning of media and form 
through postmedia, post-photographic, post-digital, post-Internet and 
post-screen practices in addition to addressing the manner in which the 
artist creates through postdisciplinary and postproduction methods.

*Systems of seeing: Virtual gaze interaction*
Authors: Jeremiah Ambrose

Augmenting Berger’s Ways of Seeing (1972), this article seeks to define 
and contextualize the most dominant form of perceptual interaction in 
virtual reality. Combining my own practice with an art-historical 
overview, I explore a creative application of interactive 360° film, 
whilst also addressing the need to critically engage with this new 
medium. I propose that given the rate at which metadata became one of 
the most valuable commodities of the twenty-first century, our ocular 
interactions will no doubt become subsumed into these systems. As the 
discourse of digital artistic practice shifts from digital to 
post-digital a central concern of virtual reality is the disembodiment 
it generates, but the irony here is that the first-person body is in 
fact a virtual camera. More in line with Vertov’s (1896–1954) prescient 
cybernetic concepts surrounding the kino-eye, virtual gaze interaction 
offers utopian real-time interaction in the same breath as it 
exemplifies an Orwellian nightmare. Beyond this cinematographic 
perspective of the virtual body is the more pertinent need to explore 
the implications and potential applications of this new type of 
interaction. The gaze has been a site of theoretical discussion for many 
theorists, including; Sartre, Foucault and Virilio. However, the 
interactive gaze is still a site in need of a discourse. Discussed in 
this article is a site-specific installation, which physically and 
virtually demonstrates an application of virtual gaze interaction 
applied to Magritte’s La Clef Des Songes (The Key to Dreams). Extending 
from Berger’s choice in cover art, it uses different forms of 
reproduction towards a focus not on what is lost, but what is gained 
through these new processes of visual interaction. In addition to 
establishing a historiography and associated praxis for virtual gaze 
interaction, I present a framework for digital futures pertaining to 
ocular interactions in media art and beyond. Embedded in this discussion 
are considerations on the politics of vision and the potential impact 
this will have on how we perceive and the perception of media art.

*3D technology as an effective tool for reflection simulation: The 
Beagle 2 lander on Mars*
Authors: Teodora Kuzmanova And Nick Higgett And Mark Sims And Eric 
Tatham And Jim Clemmet

Beagle 2, developed for the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Mission 
by the Beagle 2 Consortium, was due to land on Mars on 25 December 2003. 
After being successfully ejected from the ESA’s orbiter Mars Express, 
followed by an attempted landing, the spacecraft failed to communicate 
with Earth, and the mission was presumed lost. However, in January 2015, 
it was announced that satellite images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance 
Orbiter (MRO) indicated the possibility of a successful landing by 
Beagle 2. In the light of these findings and the considerable 
uncertainty still surrounding the outcome of the mission, a team of 
researchers from De Montfort University and the University of Leicester 
have joined in a collaborative project aimed at identifying whether the 
object captured by NASA’s HiRISE camera is Beagle 2, and detecting its 
possible landing configuration. The practical scientific experiment 
employed the innovative concept of ‘reflection analysis’, propounded by 
Dr Mark Sims – former Beagle 2 Mission Manager and professor of 
astrobiology and Space Instrumentation at the Space Research Centre, 
University of Leicester. The technique stemmed from the idea of 
simulating possible configurations of the Beagle 2 lander, testing how 
they reflect light and comparing the 3D renders to unprocessed images, 
available from the MRO’s HiRISE camera at a number of different sun 
angles. De Montfort University’s team used commercial 3D modelling 
technology to create a 3D model of the spacecraft and replicate 
virtually the sun angles at the times the satellite images were taken. 
This allowed a comparison of the simulated 3D renders to the satellite 
images to estimate the configuration of Beagle 2 on Mars. The results 
revealed that Beagle 2 probably deployed at least three, and possibly 
all four of its solar panels after landing on the planet’s surface.

*Newly generated ritual in the age of digital technology*
Authors: Minso Kim

This study aims at re-constructing the philosopher Walter Benjamin’s 
celebrated contention from his 1936 article, ‘The work of art in the age 
of mechanical reproduction’, regarding the disappearance of aura and 
ritual within widely replicated artworks. By introducing artworks that 
circulate within virtual space, I will demonstrate how, in the era of 
digital technology, numerous examples show us that mass reproduction 
helps aura to exist; leads to the creation of new ritual phenomena; and 
both recuperates and transforms the idea of the ‘disappearance’ of 
rituals. In this article, transformation of these newly generated 
rituals appears via the generation of online fan fiction. First, the 
article details rituals created by the character, Spock, in the 
television series, Star Trek (Roddenberry, 1966–69), followed by the 
phenomenon of 1990s Korean popular culture, fan fiction. In addition, 
the scope expands to include an example of ‘after school programs’ 
incorporating K-pop, allowing digital spaces to produce and foster new 
forms of ritual via online artworks. This article references 
sociocultural examples from film and aura in American television, and 
then highlights two Korean fan communities to suggest an extended 
interpretation of Benjamin’s ideas to include artworks circulating in 
digital environments.

*Crafting virtual reality*
Authors: Lynne Heller

This text describes, illustrates and theorizes the creation of a virtual 
reality (VR) landscape/game/sojourn, titled One for Sorrow, an artwork 
that seeks to confound the dichotomies between hand and digital making 
and the illusion of two dimensionality versus three dimensionality. This 
text also describes the making process as a way to position and trouble 
the translation of the handmade into the digital using collage, 
assemblage and montage along with craft theory. Although ostensibly a 
first person puzzle game, the experience uses the old nursery rhyme One 
for Sorrow to entice the player to explore and discover, not necessarily 
mixed realities, but rather, mixed sensibilities – 2D/3D, 
hand/algorithm, drawn/photographic. Digital and handmade aesthetics, 
coupled with considered sound design and narrative, can evoke an 
immersive experience and provide an unorthodox model for VR art.

*By the Code of Soil*
Authors: Kasia Molga

*Reviews Editor Introduction*
Authors: Lynne Heller

*Seminar Review*
Authors: Antônio Mozelli

SAD 2018: 4TH Seminar of Digital Arts: Recurrence and Hybridization, 
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 25–27 April 2018

*Event Review*
Authors: Nina Czegledy

ISEA2018: 24th International Symposium on Electronic Art: Intersections, 
Durban, South Africa, 23–30 June 2018

*Event Review*
Authors: Nina Czegledy

In praise of the FEMeeting, Portugal, 15–16 June 2018
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