[-empyre-] Adam Nash Intro

[Adam Nash <adam@yamanakanash.net>]

Greetings All,
Great to be involved with this month's -empyre- and I'm looking forward to 
stimulating discussion of web-based 3D, with artists whose work I have long 
admired, and with those whose work I have enjoyed discovering through 
Web3DArt2003.

I am interested in Web3D in two distinct areas:
- (In multi-user form) as a live performance medium.
- As a sculptaural medium. The spelling is intentional and explained below.

As A Live Performance Medium:
I'm interested in non-representational avatars as live performance devices 
within multi-user spaces. Currently I use a slightly modified version of 
VNet, much like Melinda does, to realise this. I am attempting to develop a 
performative vocabulary for 3D MU space that uses the qualities and 
properties of the space itself, rather than attempting to mimic or 
replicate physical space. (For this reason, I eschew the use of the term 
"Virtual Reality" which happily has more or less fallen out of fashionable 
use anyway. Likewise, I find the term 'avatar' problematic, both because it 
has quickly come to imply a direct representation of the user and also 
because of its dodgy etymology. I struggle, however, with suitable 
replacement terms). Currently I am working on a major performance project 
called "Scorched Happiness", based on Toccata and Fugue for the Foreigner 
by Julia Kristeva - a project that will really attempt to test these 
notions of building a vocabulary for non-representational live performance 
in an MU space by attempting to perform Kristeva's highly intelligent and 
emotive work about foreignness. Details are available at 
http://www.yamanakanash.net/scorched_happiness/index.html

My piece in Web3DArt, Memory Plains Returning, 
http://www.yamanakanash.net/3dmusic/mprintro.html is more or less a sketch 
out of the above ideas, using a personal exploration of memory as the 
conceptual performative impulse.  As a composer I am very much drawn to the 
spatialised sound capabilities of the 3D space working in concert with the 
visual sense, and I see this interplay as an integral part of the experience.

Along with two other performers, John McCormick and Kema T. Ekpei, I will 
be presenting a live MU verson of Memory Plains Returning at Folly Gallery 
(and online of course) towards the end of this month.

As a Sculptaural Medium:
In a far more personal way, I am deeply attracted to 3D space as a 
sculptural medium with built in spatial sound. Sculptural + Aural = 
"Sculptaural". I am thinking of sculpture in the sense of Moholy-Nagy when 
he said "The organization of light and shadow effects produce a new 
enrichment of visions," Moholy-Nagy eliminated shapes reminiscent of nature 
and sought to explore the relationships of light, colour, tone and 
non-objective form. I find sonicised 3D space to be a wonderful medium in 
which to explore these notions within the new context of the internet.

Two pioneers who have really influenced me are joining in this month's 
discussion: Melinda Rackham and Steve Guynup. So, I'm really looking 
forward to this forum, and hearing everyone's views.

If you're not bored enough already by my ramblings, below is a short 
rundown of how and why I got involved with web-based 3D in the first place...

Warm Regards,
Adam

Performing professionally since the age of 13 in many media, I have been 
constantly searching for a performance arena that would allow a 
performative vocabulary equal to the multi-sensual experience that is life 
in our world. In 1997 VRML seemed the best contender yet. At that time I 
was composer and performer with The Men Who Knew Too Much (www.tmwktm.com), 
an internationally recognised group of live precision absurdists who had 
long before moved outside (literally) to large public spaces to present 
large scale architectonic, cross-media works. It was natural that 
cyberspace would beckon as the biggest public space of them all, and thus 
Virtual Humanoids was conceived as a live and online performance piece. It 
premiered at the brand new Melbourne Planetarium in 2000, using a 
combination of live performers and their avatar counterparts performing in 
a wildly surreal virtual architectural space. The show was very popular, 
but I quickly became dissatisfied with the process of trying to force 
representations of the physical world into the 3D space, which struck me as 
having its own unique properties that would be very interesting to explore. 
Once Virtual Humanoids was wrapped up after a show at GammaSpace gallery, 
Melbourne in 2001 and a season at Digital Summer in Manchester UK in 2002, 
I struck out on my own to explore the 3D space on its own terms.