John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this is the interest shown in Human Beans
and Tavs Jørgensen by the new media community. Previously, Human Beans’
practice was located within a (critical) design discourse. They were surprised 132
even to have been invited to participate in ‘PBB’. The subsequent inclusion of
this work in the exhibition ‘My Own Private Reality’ at the Edith Russ Site for
Media Art is a significant indication there is now broader interest in their work.
As stated above, the review of Jørgensen’s work on Rhizome.org was the most
surprising thing of all. ‘Motion in Form’ was the most traditional-looking work
in the exhibition. Many visitors did not make a connection to computer-based
technology when viewing the glass bowl forms and these works were indicated
as among the works least fitting the artistic vision of folly. It should not be
overlooked that Michelle Kasprzak who wrote the ‘Prototyping the Perimeters’
review attended the symposium and therefore saw the video of Jørgensen using
the ShapeHand motion capture system. Nevertheless, it is encouraging that
perceived boundaries between discourse communities were crossed by these
works. This is an indication that innovative production methods can provide
alternate standards to established discourses.
The few references to Geoffrey Mann’s work and no references to NIO
Architecten’s work is also surprising. ‘Flight – Take Off’ was the second most
popular work in the audience survey and received much positive attention from
visitors. However, this did not translate into press interest for ‘PBB’. NIO’s
work was not cited at all. The panels that were produced for the exhibition were
dependent on the accompanying slide presentation to try to explain what their
purpose was. Out of context the panels themselves were just not very
interesting. This was reflected by the lack of press references to this work.
5.5.6 Summary of public exhibition and symposium discussion
Through the process of organising a public exhibition and symposium the
researcher was able to gather qualitative information from a sample of
contemporary practitioners, survey existing works, explore future trends, gather
audience and peer responses and engage with the broader community of
132 “It's still a bit of a mystery to us how we got selected for this show… Can you shed any light on this?” From an
email received 24/08/2006. The researcher had seen an article on them in I.D. Magazine, April, 2002 and had been
following their work since.
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