The Leonardo Gallery is a feature of
L E O N A R D O O N - L I N E and the
print publication L E O N A R D O,
the Journal of the International Society
for the Arts, Sciences and Technology,
which is published by the MIT Press.
!MIT/Leonardo article!
INTERACTIVE MACHINE ART AS INTERFACE FOR RITES
OF PASSAGE using FEAR, EROTICISM,
VIOLENCE, TRANSCENDENCE & TECHNOLOGY
or Machines for Saving and Taking Lives
by Kal Spelletich
The Myth of Sisyphus, 2001
steel, pneumatics, hydraulics and propane apparatus.
(ŠKal Spelletich. Photo:Tim Timmermans)
I build machines and robots that I allow my audience to operate. All of
my pieces are kinetic. Most are extremely dangerous and incorporate
fire. Fire is the ultimate medium and the original paint. It warms,
cooks and protects, but it can also burn down your home and kill you.
These are hand-made machines, robots, inventions, crazy
contraptions, industrial and Rube Goldberg-like. They are primarily
made of steel, found objects, pnuematics, hydraulics, valves, wood,
organic matter and pyrotechnic apparatus. I fabricate everything in
my shop here in San Francisco.
I give each of them names like: Good Student Chair, FIRESHOWER,
Fire Vortex, 3-Headed Dog, Flaming Bed, Fire Walker, CREEP,
APHRODITE machine, Kali Throne, small walker-switch-Bright idea
Helmet, 0-Gravity Chair, Whiskey Pourer, and Harley Davidson Throat
Singhas.
I re-appropriate technology, improvising with what I can obtain, for
there is enough "stuff" in the world. This re-appropriation of materials
and technology for application-less engineering attaches a political
comment to my process. In addition, the work gains symbolic and
metaphoric depth by drawing on the previous histories of the
materials.
American culture and society is becoming increasingly passive and
risk free. I use technology to put people back in touch with intense
real life experiences. Fear of death brings about social change. As
man conquers Everest and disease, he searches for other things,
extreme sports, extreme lifestyles (ie: sex, drugs), extreme
scholarship and extreme entertainment to challenge his mortality, to
make him feel alive; this is euphoric and it is addictive. The work is
fun and quite sexual. Participation in a piece becomes a rite of
passage and theatrical. This ritualized experience siphons off
aggressive energies, combating the collective response of fear, hatred
and intolerance expressed in war, bigotry and other forms of mass
psychosis. I use Fear as a medium. I think of myself as a connoisseur
of fear, looking for the "right" kinds of fear, fear that leads to
transcendence.
The audiences at my performances volunteer to operate and interact
with my work. It is a thin line between scaring them off and winning
them over. I never operate my work. It is all done by the audience, my
own form of telepresence. The volunteers get the experience; THEY
become the hero/star of the show for they are the ones who conquer
their fears and perform acts of superhuman endurance and
fearlessness in front of a live audience. Through technology, fear, and
the realization that there is something more important than this fear,
the event validates and affirms their existence and enables them to
get in touch with a mythic reality. The barrier between passive
audience and art(ist) is shattered.
So far I have conducted over a thousand such experiments.
Ninety-nine percent of the time the audience is clamoring to
volunteer. People are quite ecstatic to operate the machines,
sometimes running to be first; it is always a celebratory experience.
The pieces become a form of interpersonal communication through
touch and force-feedback technology, a project to explore intimacy
and social interaction. In a fun, conceptual way my work attempts to
generate the kind of enlightenment gained by some after near death
experiences.
In the future I hope to create machines that lure you to a spot, then
send you off on a "journey" ie, withdrawal and startle response.
Example: Build a machine with an infinite learning curve and keep
building experimental systems to test out these ideas.
I also hope to give machines and robots emotions that respond to
their volunteers (audience). To engineer systems that exhibit
intelligence, problem-solving skills, cunning, empathy, soul, and a
genuine interest in one's human condition, that listen and watch,
converse and interact in other complex ways.
Kal Spelletich
1043 Marin St.
San Francisco, CA 94124
E-mail: kal@seemen.org
Web: http://www.seemen.org
