Jeffrey Shaw

ARTWORK

installation art / video art

3D / earth / painting / photography / virtual reality

1994

The conceptual and iconographic references are largely derived from two sources: Baroque ceiling paintings and aerial/satellite pictures of the Earth's surface, which alternate in a kinetic digital trompe l'oeil that deconstructs and manipulates the constituent pixels of the original images into a virtual three-dimensional space. The awesome contemporary view down from space inverts the ecstatic Baroque gaze upwards, and the viewer today finds him/herself in a vertiginous axis between an above and below that has lost its qualitative distinction. The video imagery is projected onto a horizontal screen suspended above an equally large mirror on the floor upon which the viewers can stand. The architecture of the installation, and the digital trompe l'oeil and anamorphic image transformations, directly address the spectators, drawing them physically and emotionally into the virtual space of the imagery, and dissolving the boundary between material and immaterial identity. (...) (J.S.)

The Butterfly Effect - Current Coordinates