Steve Belovarich MFA Computer Art
“Hello computer.” “Hello User, How are you feeling today?” This dialogue appears in The Tourist, a cybernetic performance where I talk to an artificial intelligence named AL through an augmented reality headset. He tells me how to succeed in life. This tongue-in-cheek reference fragments the sleek future perfect promise of electronic gadgetry in ways that stir the viewer to think about the merging of ego and the computer. The work plays on the absurdity of the public’s gaze into a mobile device as I wear an enormous headset vis-à-vis Steve Mann.
The glow of the screen is alluring, yet it displaces me from reality. Through the artwork I make with electronics, I confront the disconnect between the perpetual advancement of technology and the erosion of the natural perceptual awareness of our immediate environment. I explore my love/hate relationship with computers, as I contend with a mediated existence. In the video .highway, a visualization of the GPS grid swoops past the viewer as they voyage down the freeway, fully immersed in a simulation that signifies the real environment. This work comments on the virtualization of the American landscape; the traveller now experiences the road through an electronic lens.
Electronics reinforce the conceptual nature of the work by providing a dynamic medium to visualize perceptual phenomena found in our interaction with technology. The inner workings of consumer electronics are largely taken for granted in our fast-paced technological society. I hack electronic devices and write computer programs to express both my frustration and devotion to the machine. It is through this process that I reshape the viewer’s understanding of their developing relationship with computer technologies.