Inflated egos and other stories

It is interesting to put the recent art work that I have been making together with my wife and partner Merja Puustinen into perspective in relation to our previous work with virtual worlds and the internet. When we scaled back our production company MEET Factory to just the two of us in 2002 in the aftermath of the financial turmoil brought about by 9/11 it seemed we were cutting all links with the web 3D work we had become known for. We returned to our roots, creating sculptural and video installations, but with an emphasis on bodily interaction using physical computing techniques (sensors, embedded electronics, etc). In 2004 we created our first inflatable sculpture, a family self-portrait “1+1=5”, using similar aesthetics to the cartoon imagery we had used in “Conversations with Angels”, and what was surprising, with similar intent and outcomes – to radically affect the day-to-day perception of the space they are placed in, whether it be gallery or outdoor city location. “1+1=5” has been exhibited in numerous sites in Finland, Sweden and the UK – but only in England did it cause a scandal due to its supposed “obscenity” – very stylised penis and breasts – displayed on an art centre’s roof!

Created in 2006, “Laughing my guts out” was our first inflatable “bouncy castle” type sculpture. A pile of human guts, this work was intended as a critique of the daily media coverage of death and destruction from around the world, particularly in Iraq and Africa. The daily “news” is entertainment, so why can’t guts be entertaining? Why not have children and adults jumping up and down on this pile of entrails? The work was also rigged with flex sensors controlling an electronic soundscape. So this image of death becomes a playful interactive community experience! After observing the piece in action, we understood that there were very many similarities between the user experience of the bouncy and the virtual world, except that one occurs in the physical world, the other online in virtual reality. Both have a temporary community of users, both create an alternative space for interaction, both allow role play and escape from the usual physical reality.

Why “bouncies”? First and foremost, we wanted a no-brainer physical interface – and the bouncy castle provided that. There is no question what you have to do, just climb in and move around, jump, have fun. Very many interactive media art installations fail because the interface is either unclear or is too fragile, ending up with the “waving arms around in a dark room” syndrome. Inflatables also allow us to create easily transported (and stored) large scale environments. In many ways we create real-life virtual environments when we transform gallery and museum spaces to vividly coloured interactive domains. The “art space”, quiet, white, guarded, with “don’t touch” signs prominently displayed, is transformed to a place of fun, adventure and transformation – even liberation. For many adults experiencing our works, it is the first time since pre-teenage years, that they feel able to let go with their own bodily emotions, actually play like a child. For others, it is the memory of a familiar museum space before and after our “occupation” that is a revelation – the space will never be the same again even when returned to its previous context.

It is quite clear that although the medium we are currently using for our art works has changed, the methodology and background motivation has evolved out of our previous internet and virtual world projects which have always been media critical. We have sought to provoke debate and highlight issues that we believe are important, like racism or ecological destruction.

Within the space of a few short years, the terms and conditions for “the Media” have shifted radically. New digital technologies have put the means for expression within the reach of millions who earlier were the passive receivers of information from above. The viral growth of the Internet has forced the traditional media (such as print and television) to reinvent itself, while online media itself has gone through many growing pains already and we are sure to see huge developments in the years to come as social media networks continue to grow and mobile technologies become more and more ubiquitous. The concept of virtual communities has changed from being a desirable design element for online media into the core of all content. The Web depends on community – without social interaction it is dead. But the trend towards audience participation is not limited to the web, television has also succumb to reality. The show Big Brother^[1] was one of the forerunners of this trend (and it is still going strong around the world), but in its wake have popped up countless other so-called Reality TV shows – quasi documentaries, game shows, adventures – this list goes on and on. Is this the realisation of Andy Warhol’s^[2] 15 minutes of fame, or a manifestation of some wider need within human society? We are social creatures, preferring to live in groups than alone, yet more and more our modern technolocal societies condemn individuals to extremely solitary lives both at work and at home. Maybe the phenomenon of the “Real” in play and entertainment is a symptom of the lack of human contact in our day to day lives?