Untitled is an experiment in human perception and augmented reality. Visible light is usually represented in the center of a graph of the electromagnetic spectrum. This graph reveals the narrow bandwidth of electromagnetic radiation humans can actually perceive. Cameras and antennas can be calibrated to sense all other wavelengths. This dependence on the apparatus for sensing the remainder of electromagnetic radiation exposes both the voyeuristic nature of man as he reaches closer to the all-seeing God and the rather limited scope that is nature to him. Humans require an exterior minds eye to sense the world in the age of information. Imagination is replaced by the screen and speaker.
Human beings now seem to require an apparatus to see and understand the exterior world. This in turn, manipulates the minds eye to produces images and sounds in terms of cinema, television, radio, and now the computer. The youngest generations in America flock to television, the Internet, cell phones, and iPods: all screen based media. The news is often disseminated through visual and audio reports. The television is meant to extend your visual and auditory reach, but instead it is cluttered by synthetic sound and motion. The central nervous system is directly extended into communications systems. Humans are part of a synthetic landscape, a virtual map of the Earth provided by GPS.
Maps have always been a representation of a vantage point that human beings could not directly realize. Each map is limited by resolution. Topography adds a third dimension with contour lines or relief shading that provide a sense of depth. Traditional maps tend to prefer a large scale, while the digital map can provide seemingly unlimited resolution. Digital mapping allows for the rotation of vantage point. Google Earth can resolve the urban street, allowing for the perspective of looking out a moving car’s window or standing still on a super highway.
The GPS grid covers a smooth ellipsoid. Each point on the GPS grid is separated from every other point by a line 3 meters in length. The grid is minimal, yet expansive. The virtual world of GPS is invisible to the naked eye, it exists as a metaphysical extension of the environment. The vantage point of a person on this grid must be explored.
Typical 3D approximations of reality simulate the illusion of real space with super-realism (Renaissance painting) and cinematic lighting techniques. This experiment is minimal in contrast, it illuminates the virtual GPS surface that constantly surrounds humans but is otherwise invisible to the naked eye.
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In Untitled, the artist Stephen Belovarich roams the landscape wearing a visor fitted with LCD screens, camera, and a laptop computer inside a backpack. Belovarich investigates the impact of visible light on the virtual GPS grid, his perceptual awareness extended by the technical apparatus.
Written by Stephen Belovarich :: info@installationspace.com