Image Trace comments on how the image as a visual experience
shifts through digital transference. This concept is
bounded, to a degree, by what Smith sees as "related
to the whole of the digitalization of our sense of space
and spatial relations, whether it be vector graphics,
x, y, z coordinates on a web page, or GPS locations."
With the advent of computer technology, society has
"defaulted to seeing all relations, spatial as
well as other forms, as mathematical and numerical."
Thus, in Image Trace, visuals are stripped down to their
essential structure, or code, which computers read in
order to project an image onto the screen.
The most important aspect behind Image Trace is how
it attempts to make "viewers" consider how
they interact with computers. Users who didn't bother
to read "more on [the] project" encounter
blank looking screens when prompted to "feel images."
In anticipation of what they are supposed to be "seeing,"
users scroll and click on empty pages, only to find
that nothing changes on the screen except for the numbers
coordinates (x, y values). Eventually users realise
that these numbers indicate where the cursor is located
on the screen. Smith says that he "intended to
focus the "viewer's" experience on the mouse
as an extension of the hand, as if the viewer is tracing
the image with the finger as a direct contact based
experience of the image."
Spectators who engage with the piece's text expect
to see nothing. These users know that by moving the
cursor across the image space, they are an extension
of the mouse and are supposed to feel the image being
traced across the screen. In attempting to "touch"
the image by scrolling over the black space, users navigate
through the space by looking at the constantly changing
x/y variables for any differences in how it "looks"
or "feels." This is similar to how one would
approach one of Rauschenberg's White Paintings - looking
for imperceptible differences in how the light affects
the surface of the canvas, thereby making each encounter
with the painting different as it is viewed in different
lights - or in Smith's case, scrolling over the image
choosing various paths in an attempt to see or feel
these differences. On a side note, it's interesting
how programmers have tried to evoke the conceptual sensation
of touch through the mouse by creating cursor icons
for the computer that resemble mini hands. "Viewers"
use their mouse/hands to guess at what the image is
by "feeling" their way across the space looking
for an outline - using the coordinates to see if a sense
of depth or height can be interpreted from the dissipated
image, like a computerized Braille - only to realize
that this option is not possible. Depth is denoted in
vector graphics by a z coordinate and these images do
not offer the option of seeing a third point. Regardless,
in an attempt to understand what is being seen or rather,
not seen, users change their approach to how they experience
the images both sensually and intellectually.
In keeping with the playful aesthetics of Fluxus and
Conceptual artworks, Image Trace subtly points out the
nature and limitations of our experience with digital
art. Ironically, the very same conversion that was used
to "heighten" our sense of tactility in the
digital realm, results only in the "collapse of
a whole range of complex sensations, most particularly
the image itself, into a flat designation," which
we as users are inevitably unable to touch. The perception
of Image Trace as a "successful" net art piece
depends on whether the viewer is able to detect and
appreciate the irony of the work. Thus, to some, Image
Trace may be confounding; to others it is brilliant
and goes beyond the possibility of what a webpage can
offer.
Footnotes:
8
9
10
|