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Prix1996
Prix 1987 - 2007

 
 
Organiser:
ORF Oberösterreich
 


HONORARY MENTION
sense:less
Knut Mork, Kate Pendry , Stahl Stenslie , Marius Watz


Knut Mork (N) is a software engineer, writer and electronic artist. He has worked on VR development at Norwegian Telecom. Kate Pendry is a classically trained actress, with 15 years performance experience in the UK and Europe. Ståle Stenslie is an artist and media designer working with VR and communication systems. Marius Watz is a graphic designer. He was the exhibition coordinator for the electronic art exhibition Electra 96 at the Henie-Onstad Art Center.

"sense:less" is a place for humans to experience a strange alternate reality. Through VR technology and a custom-made body suit, "sense:less" puts the user in a multi-sensory environment. This is a dramatic space, influenced by theatre, and the users' journey through the world is an exploration of multiple personalities. People watching the installation can see the users' travels as they are projected onto the walls of the "sense: less" egg, a five metre high construction of plastic and steel.

The user stands inside the semi-transparent plastic egg, which is inflated by a cool air fan and suspended by metal arms over a steel platform. Video images of the virtual world are projected onto the egg's walls, and these images are seen by both the user and the spectators outside the shell. A speaker system broadcasts everything the user hears to the audience.

Five creatures live in the virtual world of "sense:less". The creatures have human voices, alien bodies and distinct personalities. They are based on real people and personal experience, and each has a story they need to tell. The virtual world the creatures live in, is a constantly changing network structure based on realtime data derived from a World Wide Web server. In this way, users on the Net become points on this network, indicating Net activity and the virtual presence of other human users. These human users are represented by mechanoid "agents" who constantly roam the virtual world, changing shape and direction depending on the users' behaviour in the hypertext structure of the World Wide Web server.