The Netherlands, 1983
pk-8.nl

The 'Real' and The ‘Virtual': Opening Up the Space of Immersion

In todays modern Western society digital media systems have become an all-encompassing 'skin' of culture, one that has outplayed the analog signal. The analog seems to be forgotten.

In his graduation work, Wouter Smit sets out to rediscover the analog signal in its poetic significance, if not its mesmerizing magic. He simultaneously humanizes and mythologizes these digital media set ups, by transforming them by means of analog signal processing and transduction, their subsequent digital representation and by means of a stint of artistic alchemy.

By offering the visitors of his installation an immersive meditational space he provokes a stretching and expansion of their sensory perception.

This expansion into an open space fuels a rethinking of modern day media systems, and the immersion in them. How to re-address the connection between the analog and the digital, how to re-invent the connection between the 'real' and the ‘virtual'?