Uzume

Uzume is a virtual environment that bodily immerses participants in a three-dimensional, human-scale dataspace. The work challenges common assumptions about the non-physicality of 'virtual realities' and how it legitimises a determined control over the body's messy and noisy conditions.

Immersed in Uzume, an abstract, dynamic and sensitively responsive environment surrounds the visitor. Its whirly, transitory nature is based on spatial representations of the temporal behaviour of nonlinear, chaotic systems, so-called 'strange attractors'. Due to the indeterminability of the system's response, communicating with Uzume is similar to pursuing a dialogue without knowing the language of the other: we are always subjected to the uncertainty of our interpretation; the actual meaning is never revealed, never completely decoded, never fully confirmed.

The work was realised in collaboration with cyberneticist Roland Blach and composer Nicolaj Kirisits.