John Holder

Specious Souls

johnholder — Thu, 26 May 2011 02:30:03 +0000

My installation entitled Specious Souls evolved from research I had been working on for several years. I re-visited the emotionally expressive, virtual, 3D human head engine that I had been developing and using for ĭn’ter-kôrs’. After the last piece I decided to reconsider the involvement of interaction and set about experimenting with cameras and voice activated commands, and touch pads for the floor, which were easier and can create more immediate responses. After a tutorial with my supervisor where he pointed out that sometimes simplifying the work was a great way to understand what I had, and possibly need or could do without. With this in mind, after quite some experimental creative time in the studio I decided to remove all electronic forms of interaction and position two virtual actors projected from opposite corners of a 16metre room onto a set of 7 plinths, that I arranged to visually please myself, considering notions of tension, separation, immediate proximity and merging. The emerging installation reminded me of Salvador Dali’s, Mae West Room in look and feel, and with digital projections it became a fluid, moving sculpture.

Enactive Dialectics

admin — Tue, 24 May 2011 23:52:37 +0000

Exhibition October 2009. Enactive Dialectics – a composition for two chairs.
The emotions we present to the world and those we feel inside may often be very different, in fact our facial expressions act as form of non-verbal ‘language’. The ability to present the correct expression is an important and evolved tool. Would a greater inter-subjective
understanding be achieved if we had access to the hidden emotions?

Through this work I shall attempt to show that familiar intuitions about personal identity and subjective experience can be re-drawn and experienced with unexpected results through digital mediation, placing the boundary between self and other into question in both real and virtual space.

Ephemeron

admin — Tue, 24 May 2011 20:34:27 +0000

Exhibited in 2010, Ephemeron is an interactive installation resulting from the collaboration of artists during the e-MobilArt project. Ephemeron, a responsive sculpture, attempts to express the eternal ephemeral human epic: the daily song of pain and struggle, love and loss, lived by beings full of “mud and dreams”. The installation comprises an audio soundscape, projected video and a large fabric form under high tension and with a floor of sand. Visitors may enter the form, where the projected video and soundscape become sensitive to their presence.