RE-CREATION / MODIFICATION
The next stage of my project began with the creation of a 3D model of a single-storey gallery building. Void of any contents, patrons or other components related to the gallery experience, it was intended as a purely ‘physical’ means to an end for virtually simulating the rules of a ‘white cube’ gallery space. I implemented this model into an environment in Unity so that it could be navigated from a first-person perspective.
The building was roughly modelled on floor plans of the White Cube gallery in Bermondsey, a point of reference selected both for its locality, as well as a suggestion in its branding and architecture towards an embodiment of some of the white cube ‘values’ outlined by Brian O’Doherty in his aforementioned writing on the subject (see 2-2).
Following the construction of a ‘default’ white cube gallery, I introduced further iterations to the game world to test one possible manner of attempting to disrupt a viewer’s perception of the space, in the form of design adjustments to the building and its surroundings. Each ‘version’ of the gallery is intended to be viewed in quick succession, so as to simultaneously build and distort any familiarity with the space. I have also made a conscious effort to incorporate various medium and platform-specific features I sought to practice using through implementation.
I created a three variations on the original gallery space in total. A ‘black cube’ attempts to reverse a number of design and ideological tropes associated with the starting space. A reduction-driven variant removes the gallery floor, replacing it with a series of suspended platforms; viewers are forced to jump between them with careful attention, lest they fall out of the building and eventually the world itself. A version that displaces the context of the original building places it into an unspoilt natural environment, with organic features overlapping with and interrupting the boundaries of the space. Each new variant incorporates visuals and sound to attempt to create a perceptive break from the last.
In an attempt to embrace my chosen medium, I drew on the visual language of contemporary video games as a way of guiding viewers through each gallery space, as well as providing them with the means to move between the variations. ‘Checkpoints’ designed to attract the viewer’s attention encourage movement towards particular parts of each building; contact with these exaggerated forms transitions them to the next environment. To some extent these forms are intended to represent a kind of art object, although their design serves purely as a placeholder at the time of this iteration.
Feedback from my crit suggested that of the three variants, the floorless gallery most effectively modified the space, a conclusion with which I agree, on reflection. Whereas other versions of the space are more aesthetically driven, this reduction of the gallery’s boundaries more directly disrupts a viewer’s interaction by forcing them to dramatically reconsider their approach to navigation and therefore viewing the theoretical works in the space.
Individually, this iteration raises several questions I will seek to examine through further development: When an ‘obstacle’ is placed in front of the act of viewing art, does the ensuing act of manoeuvring that obstacle become a part of the work itself? Is movement in space merely what precedes the act of viewing, or in fact an extension of it?
ACTIVATED SPACES
O’Doherty speaks of two players in the gallery space, the ‘Eye’ and the ‘Spectator’. He characterises these components of the viewing experience, giving them personalities; the slightly bumbling, conformist Spectator accepts a work by participating in it, whereas the discerning, sceptical Eye hangs back and maintains an invisible presence, observing the act of observation itself (O’Doherty, 1976:39). He suggests that modernist artworks — and by extension the white cube gallery space designed to elevate them — demand a separation between the perceptive Eye and the physical body of the Spectator.
Virtual spaces are particularly interesting case studies when applying this notion in practice, representing the separation in a rather lucid material form. Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘heterotopias’ presents valuable language for explaining and understanding the nature of such a space and the way in which it accentuates this dissonance.
To some extent any virtual world can be considered a heterotopia, existing as a world within a world, false and yet influencing the real space in which it is contained; in the case of a game environment, this influence — and its aforementioned definition of the estrangement of Eye and Spectator — occurs through the medium of physical inputs that allow the space to be navigated. In their nature, game spaces require the activation of a Spectator. The way in which they fulfil the principles of a heterotopia perhaps bears some similarity to Foucault’s example of the mirror, a “placeless place” (Foucault, 1986:24). He explains:
“In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a soft of shadow that gives my own visibility to myself… the mirror does exist in reality, where it exerts a sort of counteraction on the position I occupy” (Foucault, 1986:24).
The mirror, much like the virtual environment and its platform, exist simultaneously as real, physical objects, and an unreal projections of a virtual reality.
In relation to O’Doherty’s ‘Eye’ and ‘Spectator’, the implementation of a virtual gallery space further confuses the white cube’s perceptive dissonance. We interact with a heterotopia through a simulated digital version of the Spectator moving through space, whilst our physical interaction with the platform running the simulation serves as a further Spectator in relation to the artwork. Concurrently, we simulate the Eye in this space in relation to what it contains, whilst a further Eye observes our enacted observation within the virtual environment, enabling us to interpret it.
The potentially medium-specific creation of this bizarre incongruity suggests that what may appear at face to be a limitation of the medium of virtual space may in fact provide the foundations for a unique exploration of disrupted perception that could not be replicated in a physical environment.
NOT A ROOM
In a non-physical space, a room does not have to be a room.
Reflection on my iterations up to this point, as well as feedback received in my most recent crit, has led me to the conclusion that using a building as a starting point — particularly one modelled on a real-world space — may in fact be a self-imposed limitation that fails to fully utilise my chosen medium of a virtual environment.
Drawing on lessons learned from producing and modifying this space, my further iterations will disregard it. Particularly, I intend to embrace a more ambiguous interpretation of the physical relationship between concatenated spaces by creating a virtual gallery that could not exist in material form. Potentially, one room could lead to another in an impossible, playful manner that more effectively toys with the nature of spatial rules and pays little heed to real world architectural conditions.
After all, this is not a real world.
CONCEPTUAL SKETCHES OF SPECTATOR-ACTIVATED DIGITAL HETEROTOPIAS
“The absence of a Spectator could mean the gallery is 30 feet high” (O’Doherty, 1976:42).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
O’Doherty, Brian (1976) Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space
Santa Monica, CA: The Lapis Press
Foucault, Michel, (1986) Of Other Spaces (trans. Jay Miskowiec)
in Diacritics, 16:1 pp. 22-27