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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00241
- Thesis Title
- Rain Remediation
- Author
- Anney Bonney
- E-mail
- anneybonne AT aol.com
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- M.F.A.
- Year
- 2008
- Number of Pages
- 24
- University
- School of Visual Arts
- Thesis Supervisor
- Joe Dellinger, Russet Lederman, Grahame Weinbren, Kathy Brew, Paul Ryan
- Supervisor e-mail
- joed@mfaca.sva.edu, russet@mfaca.sva.edu
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Computer Art
- Copyright Ownership
- Anney Bonney
- Languages Familiar to Author
- French
- URL where full thesis can be found
- www.mfaca.sva.edu
- Keywords
- Ecology, Shamanism, Water, Rain, Dreams, Video, Installation, Environment, Interactive, Video Art, Audio, Media, Remediation, Collective Unconscious, C.G. Jung, James Hillman,Terence McKenna, Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin, New Media, Transparency, Acou
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- Rain Remediation is a site-specific audio visual installation that explores the refashioning of analog technologies through new media and urban Shamanism. It references the theory of remediation (Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin) using hypermediated video and sound to merge the immediate experience of rain with transparent states of dreaming. Designed to accommodate different sites, the installation’s form is defined by a configuration of suspended scrim material. The scrims create a curved diaphanous enclosure for the audience to enter. The room is dark except for the videos projected onto and within the semi-transparent enclosure. The installation presents two distinct but overlapping experiences: one outside the scrims representing the physiological (weather as rain), the other inside representing the psychological (dreaming) -- both expressed by their respective projected video content. Close to the room’s entryway is a bench with headphones that play sounds ranging from generic rainfall to raindrop compositions sampled in the audio application Structure. From the bench, the patterns of projected rain are most discernible. These images are not algorithms, but actual rain captured in various video formats. The images bleed through the scrims to the walls behind them, where they are repeated and enlarged. It is not clear that the scrim and wall imagery come from the same source. As in Marshall McLuhan’s notion of “acoustic space,” images behave as sound, filling the room. The viewer’s perceptual system is challenged. Rainfall exists only in transition. Its rhythmic atmosphere transports people to another state of consciousness: a place of neglected power, the landscape of C.G. Jung’s Unconscious and home of James Hillman’s Mediatrix. Media presents one way to access the Collective Unconscious; dreaming is another. This installation uses both. Inside the enclosure is a second bench with headphones. This one has a step sensor that triggers video dream sequences to play when someone sits down, otherwise the video pauses on a still image and lingers. Audience movement and chance determine the relationship between the rain and dream imagery. The installation is layered literally and conceptually to emphasize transparency and dimensionality. The term remediation applies both to media theory and ecology. Ecologically, it is a process of purification. In the installation, remediation carries cultural and spiritual associations aligned with Shamanism. Shamans, known as rainmakers and dreamers, see through multiple levels of invisible and perceptual reality simultaneously. Awakening the potential for this awareness is the installation’s intention.