Page 253 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

236 Socially Intelligent Agents

(Canada) based artist Catherine Richards appeals to the kinesthetic sense in her
installation Virtual Body (1993), by having the viewer insert a hand into what
appears to be an old-fashioned "magic lantern" type of box. Peering in through
a lens on the top of the box, the viewer sees behind their own hand a rapidly
moving video pattern on a horizontal screen, which translates into a sense of
one’s feet moving out from underneath as one’s hand seems virtually to fly
forward. These kinds of works make a very direct appeal to a fuller human
sensorium than traditional works of art.
Complicating this portrait of recent shifts in creativity, virtuality or simu-
lation in art objects is often seen as inspiring disembodiment or even outright
obsolescence of the body. The Australian performance artist Stelarc describes
his work with body prostheses, penetration of the body with robotic objects,
and digitally-controlled muscle stimulation as an obsolescence of the body,
although he qualifies this as the Cartesian body that has been thought of as
distinct from and controlled by the mind. Some artists and cultural critics argue
the opposite, that there is always a sensory experience even in virtual space.
Jennifer Fisher describes Montreal artist Char Davies’ virtual reality installa-
tion Eph´em`ere (1998) as notable for "its implications for a haptic aesthetics
– the sensational and relational aspects of touch, weight, balance, gesture and
movement" [2, pp. 53-54]. This work that requires a headset for the viewer also
uses pressure sensors in a vest that respond to the expansion and contraction of
respiration (as you inhale, you ascend in the simulated world; as you exhale,
you sink), and another set of sensors that move the world in response to the
tilt of the spinal axis. It is described as a fully immersive experience, meaning
whole-body involvement. However, other writers such as robotics artist Si-
mon Penny propose that the computer itself, with its central role in generating
virtuality, reinstates Cartesian duality by disengaging and de-emphasizing the
physical body from its simulated brain processes [6, pp. 30-38]. There is no
singular way of approaching embodiment in art discourse, but one operative
principle is that multi-sensory tends to equal greater embodiment and that this
offers a fuller, richer aesthetic experience.
Traditionally, experiencing an art work means that the viewer should ideally
understand its impact as a gain in self-awareness. Art is about human nature, its
innate features and how it unfolds in the world. In the European tradition art has
always been directed toward a profound identification between humanism and
selfhood in its impact on a viewer, reinforcing these qualities at the centre of
a very large opus of philosophical speculation about the meaning of creativity.
This idealized picture of aesthetic response is of course a simplification, since
critical understanding of the exchange between viewer and art object in prac-
tice has many variations. Much discourse of the past three decades especially
has shifted art into the arena of social and political meaning. But it remains
individual subjectivity that is most often solicited in both the creation and dis-