Frank Popper - Virtual Art

Virtual Art

Following this inclination he took interest in the works of Piotr Kowalski, Roy Ascott and many others working with the early concept of networking. These artists confirmed his interest in spectator participation, which brought him to the late 1980s and the 1990s when immersive virtual reality and digital art began to become established. Popper began to investigate a range of works emerging in this era, including that of Shawn Brixey, Ebon Fisher and Joseph Nechvatal. To explain and illustrate the emergence of a techno-aesthetic Popper stresses the panoramic and multi-generational reach of virtual art. As regards to virtual art, openness is stressed both from the point of view of the artists and their creativity and from that of the follow-up users in their reciprocating thoughts and actions. This commitment to the teeming openness found in virtual art can be traced to the theories of Umberto Eco and other aestheticians. Recently Eco has expressed a consideration of the computer as a spiritual tool.

Popper uses the term, "virtual art," in reference to all the art made with the technical media developed at the end of the 1980s (or a bit before, in some cases). These include human-machine interfaces such as visualization casks, stereoscopic spectacles and screens, generators of three-dimensional sound, data gloves, data clothes, position sensors, tactile and power feed-back systems, etc. All these technologies allowed immersion into the image and interaction with it. The impression of reality felt under these conditions was not only provided by vision and hearing, but also by the other bodily senses. This multiple sensing was so intensely experienced at times, that Popper could speak of it as an immersive virtual reality (VR).

In his book "From Technological to Virtual Art", Popper traces the development of immersive, interactive new media art from its historical antecedents through today's digital art, computer art, multimedia and net art. Popper shows that contemporary virtual art is a further refinement of the technological art of the late twentieth century - and also a departure from it. What is new about this new media art, he argues, is its humanization of technology, its emphasis on interactivity, its philosophical investigation of the real and the virtual, and its multisensory nature. He argues further that what distinguishes the artists who practice virtual art from traditional artists is their combined commitment to aesthetics and technology. Their "extra-artistic" goals - linked to their aesthetic intentions - concern not only science and society but also basic human needs and drives.