Common Grounds
"Common Grounds" is a project of Workspace Unlimited (Thomas Soetens and Kora van Bulcke), who investigate the relationship between real space and virtual space.
Common Grounds
COMMON GROUNDS brings the realities of the physical and virtual space closer to each other by creating an intermediate third space that opens new perspectives. The installation raises questions about presence, representation and identity as a reflection on mediaculture where the relation between real and virtual take more and more complex forms. A virtual simulation of the exhibition space of DEAF07 is connected to the Common Grounds network of virtual worlds (IMPLANT, DEVMAP, EXTENSION), they will all be simultaneously accessible from the terminals in DEAF07, Montreal, and Gent.
What happens when a body is present in first life but also as an avatar in a virtual space visible on a screen? What kind of relationship do these spaces -- ontologically separate but linked by communication -- enter into? What happens when different real spaces are connected in virtual space? Workspace Unlimited's installations seek to bring the two closer together and, as they put it, create a kind of intermediate space: a third space in which a new perspective on the relationship between the real and virtual can arise. In Workspace Unlimited's installations, various virtual worlds in the Common Grounds network are linked together. The viewer is confronted with an experience that makes him think about presence (including his own), representation, and identity in media culture.
