Exploring Splendid Immersion
On Saturday 28 May a special public presentation forum will be moderated by V2_ curator Stephen Kovats, featuring the exhibition participants. This forum is aimed at architects, designers and artists who explore notions of Splendid Immersion in their work.
Approximately three quarters of the Earth's surface is covered by water with depths and volumes greater than any above ground mass. This unfathomably vast realm of terrestrial space is one in which human discovery and perception is still in its infancy. We dabble along its edges, skirt its surfaces, hesitantly prod its depths. We gaze into it, in the same way as we gaze into the infinite realms of outer space, in order to understand our own being, and dream ourselves into realms of conquest, discovery and opportunity. Since the invention of optical and protective devices with which to immerse oneself, or to extend our vision into the aquatic realm, artists, in tandem with scientific researchers, have been exploring the nature and structure of this dense, obscure and seemingly borderless parallel world for centuries.
As a carrier of signal, ionic flow and matter, water, the seas, and the fluid physical nature of electromagnetic charge define the very essence of electronic media arts. Within the metaphorical and physical structuring of the concepts of cyberspace, with its endless, non-Cartesian directionality and notions of immersive space, coupled with the perpetual ionic flux linking Earth's liquid materiality with the extraterrestrial forces of outer space, a significant core segment in this field of art finds its resolution.
Special thanks to Fondation Daniel Langlois (Montreal), Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (Amsterdam), Fleur Groenendijk Foundation (Rotterdam) and Willem de Kooning Academie (Hogeschool Rotterdam).
