Impact, MUSE, Trento, Italy, 2013
IMPACT
This project ties into a series of works in which the artist, Marcos Lutyens ‘channels’ external events or relationships and feeds them into works of art created directly from his unconscious mind. Suspicious of the conscious mind’s hedging process within the artistic practice, Lutyens has developed a way in which his sensory feeds, in this case sound and sight are translated automatically into a series of mental traces. As Lutyens watches explosions on a display screen, an EEG headband around his forehead picks up his brain wave response. The console to his right is picking up his brainwave state and mediating the small robot renderers as they navigate their way through contained spaces. The colors used are synesthetic and correspond to the color key of the word IMPACT
As the work proceeds, external events are internalized, consuming, as it were, the electronic ether, and at the same time, the autonomic nervous system is extended. This is equivalent to a centrifugal activity of the self vs. centripetal flows of external influences.
The work raises the issue of how we deal with the violence around us, how it affects us, how to live with it, whether it is experienced directly or witnessed through the media.
In this particular case, there are several different layers of reality:
a) Media in the form of short video clips
b) The simulated event as in the case of the showcased explosions that were created with the help of a special effects supervisor
c) All events, whether simulated or real, if experienced, become real through a witnessing process.
This work includes an HD video (6’ 11”) as well as a drawing of ink on Kochi Mashi paper 213 cm x 183cm both completed in 2013