Experimenting with Adobe After Effects software, I have been theorising the ramifications of the different styles of graphics included in the virtual. Through experimentation, analysis and valuation, I have deduced that the creation of the hypersphere (the co-dimensional performance space) is affected by another variable: realistic representation and abstract graphical objects. The world of the virtual – synthetic, made of text, mathematics; not a representation of the real, but no less part of the real. Steven Parrella writes: ‘The division between real and virtual, an operative division, is illusory. The virtual is an extension of ourselves into a manufactured and constructed space. It is not a separate space but an extrusion of being. The virtual recreates the specific and local conditions of our bodies and projects. Virtuality represences our work through the technotranslation (coding) of our actions’ (Parrella 1997: 64).
Representation of the real, on the other hand, whilst maintaining its attachment to the real ontologically, is all the while twice removed from the real.
As a result of such theorisation, I hypothesise that the inclusion and oscillation between the varying degrees of representation and the virtual will impact on the virtuality of the hypersphere.
So, as you can see, I propose that the more representational (closer to the real) the graphics, the more augmentation within the nexus of interconnections within the hypersphere. The more abstract (closer to the virtual) the graphics, the more virtuality within the hypersphere.
Using literary sources and artistic idea generation, I have tested the results of each variable using Elleström’s model for media analysis, to determine what medial components affect the ontology of the hypersphere.
Observing Change
To determine the transformation properties of the media at play, I have analysed the results from my perspective, using reflection in and on action to determine results. To begin, I observed the material, sensorial, spatiotemporal and semiotic values of the hypersphere including realistic visual graphics. Particular attention was directed towards the spatiotemporal, as I hypothesised that it would be that modality that would be most greatly affected by this variable. I then repeated this process for the more abstract elements of the visual graphics. The results of this test do not rule out one variable over the other; but merely observes the changes in the ontology of the hypersphere as a result. As such, each variable does not result in failure to produce the co-dimensional hypersphere, but consequently changes its position amongst the virtuality continuum.
Realistic representation
Material
The hypersphere consists of both static materials and a fixed sequence of moving images.
Sensorial
The image is primarily perceived visually, but contains associational sense-memory data. I indirectly feel the tactile qualities of the space through sense-memory data. In this way, the hypersphere maintains its material dimension and attachment to the real. The movement of light within the hypersphere seems to affect the tactile qualities of the hypersphere; as the pixels adjust the visual data thrown out by the hypersphere, the indirect tactile qualities of the real illuminated by the virtual consequently change. In these lighting conditions, it is difficult to discern between the visual data of the real and the virtual in isolation (a crucial component of the ontologically whole hypersphere), and as such the sense-data of the real and the virtual, in being mutually affective, lose their independence; in that we, as perceiving human agents, can no longer discern between the real and the virtual any longer. Crucially, the tactile qualities of the hypersphere in this representational experiment draw their sense-memory data from the real world. In this way, our sense-memory is awakened through our previous tactile contact with such surfaces. We associate the perceived texture quality of the image with our memory of similar surfaces.
Spatiotemporal
The virtual, in its spatial perception of 3-dimensional depth, is embedded into the 3-dimensional real space due to the lack of light illuminating the real space. The perception of depth is now reinforced by the actual depth of the space, which thus creates a meta or hyper textual contamination between the real and the virtual. The real lends actual depth to the virtual, and the virtual lends a perceived, augmented depth to the real. Such an extension of space into the hypersphere complicates the church’s real spatial co-ordinates and Euclidean space. The hypersphere exists within it’s own dimension, and through the isolation of visual sense-data to the hypersphere alone, it is thus deterritorialised. Crucially, it appears and disappears in a number of perceived locations that take their spatial construction from that experienced in the real world. Some images are drawn from the real world itself, through photograph (including those of the church), however some are created using graphical rendering to mimic the real world. In this way, representation can include images that are purely virtual, in that they are entirely synthetic. Spatially, however, images that take their spatial construction from the real world are remediated, translated and constructed from the virtual. But, due to the hyper nature of the hypersphere, in being something above and beyond the virtual and the real, in it’s mutually affecting properties and shared ontology, the virtual can no longer exist as a separate entity. As such, they are deposited back into the real, but cannot be regarded as real because it is deterritorialised, extended and hybridised.
Temporally, notions of clock time are represented through perceived lighting conditions: the representation of a night sky, for example. These temporal flows interact with, converge and diverge with the atemporality of the hypersphere as a sequence of moving images; images which do not belong to any GPS location, but which tie themselves to the GPS location of the real in being situated there. The notion that the hypersphere is located in the spatiotemporal framework of the church is complicated by the hybridisation of the hypersphere’s spatiotemporal framework. Images from unknown places in the world that were captured in the past and presented in the present, now intertwine with the space of the real, in the present. But because the real is no longer an isolated component of the hypersphere, these images exist within themselves; they are atemporal; their ontology is that of something above, beyond, in excess of the real and the virtual. Within such atemporality, any linear notion of time no longer applies. Spacetime interconnects through a nexus of disappearing trajectories that span past, present and future. As we take the leap from linear, clock time to the next, atemporal moment, our experience of time is no longer that of a continuous present, but a continuous future. All space and time inside the hypersphere appears, disappears, converges, diverges, interacts, flows, shifts and resonates as something other, beyond and above.
Semiotic
The use of realistic representation seems to bring forth elements of the real, from various times and spaces, and fuse them with the real church space. Whilst this is a simulation, the effects of the church’s spatiotemporal and ontological transformation within the hypersphere is nonetheless real. Whilst the hypersphere is something above and beyond that which is real and virtual, our reading of the signs within the hypersphere are related to those which exist within the real and as such cannot the real via semiotic association. We will always take meaning from the realm of the real world, and as such the hypersphere will always retain a semiotic connection with the real.
Abtract virtuality
Material
The hypersphere consists of both static materials and a fixed sequence of moving images.
Sensorial
The image is primarily perceived visually, but contains associational sense-memory data. I indirectly feel the tactile qualities of the space through sense-memory data. In this way, the visual data of abstract graphics still retain the visual texture and indirect tactile qualities of the real components that it illuminates. As light moves to display various abstract flows of information, the texture of the real space is relocated within the luminosity of virtual, abstract space and vice versa, and as such the sense-data of the real and the virtual, in being mutually affective, loses its independence; in that we, as perceiving human agents, can no longer discern between the real and the virtual any longer. In contrast to the representational experiment, we can no longer associate the indirect tactile qualities of the hypersphere with sense-memory data, because the abstract does not exist as a tactile quality of the real; it is but a manufactured and constructed extension of ourselves into virtual space.
Spatiotemporal
The virtual, in its spatial perception of 3-dimensional depth, is embedded into the 3-dimensional real space due to the lack of light illuminating the real space. The perception of depth is now reinforced by the actual depth of the space, which thus creates a meta or hyper textual contamination between the real and the virtual. The real lends actual depth to the virtual, and the virtual lends a perceived, augmented depth to the real. Such an extension of space into the hypersphere complicates the church’s real spatial co-ordinates and Euclidean space. The hypersphere exists within it’s own dimension, and through the isolation of visual sense-data to the hypersphere alone, it is thus deterritorialised. Crucially, in contrast to the representational experiment, the abstract holds no origin in GPS location or clock time; it is wholly synthetic. The ties to the real, here, are through the hypersphere as a co-dimension, rather than through the virtual as representation of the real. This relationship exists through the hypersphere’s relationship to the real, in that it embodies elements of the real in it’s complex web of spacetime in a shared ontological dimension. The spatial construction of these graphical elements are something other; and as such they place the hypersphere further away from reality on the mixed reality continuum than that of representation. This dimension seems to have no Euclidean boundaries, no fixed GPS position, and thus removes the experiencer from the world of representation (the real) they have left behind.
Temporally, the abstract graphics contribute to the atemporality of the hypersphere quite significantly. In being synthetically removed from the spatiotemporal framework of the real (insofar as they are non-representational), they exist as myopic visions of an atemporal dreamworld; they do not represent clock time and exist purely as virtual time. These temporal flows interact with, converge and diverge with the atemporality of the hypersphere as a sequence of moving images; images which do not belong to any GPS location, but which tie themselves to the GPS location of the real in being situated there. The notion that the hypersphere is located in the spatiotemporal framework of the church is complicated by the hybridisation of the hypersphere’s spatiotemporal framework. Images from the virtual world now intertwine with the space of the real, in the present. But because the real is no longer an isolated component of the hypersphere, these images exist within themselves; they are atemporal; their ontology is that of something above, beyond, in excess of the real and the virtual. In contrast to representation, abstract graphical objects go further in this direction; they detract the hypersphere further away from reality than the reality of appearances in the representation experiment.
Semiotic
The use of abstract graphical elements as metaphors for reality (or rather, the reality beneath appearances) seems to bring forth elements of the other, as if from nowhere, and fuse them with the real church’s spacetime. Whilst this is a simulation, the effects of the church’s spatiotemporal and ontological transformation within the hypersphere is nonetheless real. The hypersphere, now further beyond that which we consider to be real in this abstraction, gives it’s signs from the world of the mystical, the dream-like, the synthetic and manufactured, and in this way, is associated as being separate from the real. Whilst this is a false distinction, signs here, seem to originate from ambiguity, ephemerality, metaphor, poetics and symbol.
Conclusion
As hypothesised, the inclusion of abstract graphics spatiotemporally and semiotically shift the hypersphere closer to the virtual end of the mixed reality continuum. Representation, in reproducing the image of external reality through remediation and translation, is closer to augmentation than the virtual, in that they draw their spatiotemporal and semiotic construction from our experience in the real world of appearances. In being hyper, these connections to the real are hybridised with a nexus of shifting interconnections within a co-dimensional experience, and as such are never truly tied to the real world of appearances. Such is the mutually interdependent and affecting nature of the hypersphere. Abstraction, in acting as metaphor for reality; in being a synthetic extrusion of our being and our reality, is made of text, symbol, and is closer to the inner realm of poetics, experience and metaphor; a domain that further transcends spacetime and the reality of appearances. As Parrella points out, ‘[w]e explore the unknown through a superpositioning of the known’ (1997).
throughthehypersurface 