screencube
bonnie lenore kyburz
Abstract
This installation is a contemplation on a process of desire. It projects a sense of how digital tools afford us emergent action as we grasp at a vision. Infused with Sirc's (2004) "Box Logic," Deleuzian (1986) emergence and a healthy appreciation for theories on affect (Massumi, 2002) and performance (McKenzie, 2004), screencube likely evokes additional worries and delights; I leave you to those, and I hope you experience pleasure.
Initially, I had wanted to create a very minimal space, which would require something like four full-blown walls. I wasn't sure what would happen in the space, but it would involve image and sound. I had been wanting to create private pleasure in a public space, as we experience with certain museum pieces. I had been vibing out on memories of Marco Brambilla's (1999) Cyclorama, "a cylindrical white room, featuring nine video monitors displaying separate views from revolving rooftop restaurants in nine North American cities." I knew that my space would not feature many videos, but I wanted to create a similarly lovely experience; it was a wildly ambitious desire.
I drew up several schematics. Nothing seemed just right, but I kept collecting the drawings, some images ... and I put them in a box. The box became a short film. I projected it into a white "skubb" (the white cube object I happily tripped over at IKEA, just when I had nearly given up the idea of an installation). Two empty skubbs rested nearby. I provided headphones so that each viewer could experience a private immersion. To help you sense the gallery scene, screencube(pre) includes stills and video taken at my home office; the isolated capture may help radiate what happens in the immersive experience. In screencube(post), I conclude with clips of viewer experiences of the installation, along with some of their comments, many of which dissolve more generally toward questions on digital scholarship, alt panels (such as this one at MLA), and more.
Transcript
Please download the descriptive transcript of this video.
References
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