Shaman in the Loop, Vanderbilt University
New media installation, designed in collaboration with Clint Sleeper
dimensions variable
2023
Using MAX MSP, an interactive software program, a random image generator was specially designed for this piece by my collaborator Clint Sleeper, an artist and creative coder.
This installation utilizes that image generator to create a computational abstraction of a collection of jpegs and mov files. This collection of media represents my family and ancestors, the material bodies that exist and have existed in the natural or “ordinary” world, saved in digital formats to be conjured up at will on a computer screen. It’s as if the machine has been taught to stand in for a spiritual medium in a séance.
These ever-changing images give the viewer slight and fleeting glimpses of bodies and faces combined with specific geographies as the program randomly cycles through hundreds of files in the two folders. Through this obfuscating algorithm the images are never completely rendered for the viewer. This temporality suggests a ghostly reality in virtual space, or in shamanic terminology, a non-ordinary reality, as well as a consistent sense of loss through the process of mediation.