projects

 

The Many Lives of Matilda Tar

900x35cm rainbow hologram. To be made in South Australia in 2010.

Selected A3 size 2D transparency images

There will be twenty-three transparency images in the final nine metre hologram. They will appear as 2D rainbow images. Each will also have an overlapping 3D rainbow image of an object that will relate to the transparency image; in the case of the "First Life" transparency there will be a 3D framed birth certificate image.

The theme of this large scale white light hologram centres on current theories which conjecture that what we call reality might be a virtual simulation similar to the Internet's Second Life. The idea is that sometime in the future, programmers of virtual worlds (which might be interpretted as Gods) have built in the potential for the avatars to create their own simulated worlds, and that what we regard as reality might in fact be one of these virtual worlds. The question raised is, "How does an avatar of Second Life know that they are not real?" And would they be able to answer it with any more certainty than if we were asked the same? The title follows the many lives or transformations of a particular avatar who I have called Matilda Tar. The name Matilda was chosen because of its Australian heritage and the surname Tar is short for avatar.

This nine metre hologram was scheduled for production at RMIT, Victoria in October, 2009, but the holography table proved to be too short for the complex optical layout I wanted to use. The initial idea was to utilized simultaneously, two different optical layouts using one of my newly built holocamera. It is intended to be rotated 180 degrees between exposures; in one direction it would record a real 3D object and in the other, a 2D transparency. The final hologram will be illuminated with twenty-two white LED lights for the twenty-two frames, each displaying a rainbow coloured 2D transparency and 3D object.

Many of the transparency images have been appropriated from the Net which emphasises the theme of the hologram of regurgitating data to make new forms of objects. Many have been reworked with original imagery and text.

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Zippod

200x100cm, animated stereogram.

The viewer will see an animated image of a zipper opening from left to right, and as it does a pair of ipod earphones will be seen emerging horizontally from the space between the open zipper. Behind will be a 3D computer generated cityscape created using Autodesk 3ds Max. The viewer will be tempted to walk forward and place their head between the projecting earphones. The hologram will be interactive; music and dialogue will be heard as the viewer gets closer.