Rebecca Edwards and Doron Altaratz in conversation in Hebrew
(translated from Google Translate)

Hi Doron,

For me too there is an interesting link between the act of pilgrimage and the process in which virtual reality functions – a parallel of transcending boundaries through space though virtual reality and the ritualistic journey of pilgrims.

Within the idea of visions comes the idea of a mirage. As well as being an optical illusion, the etymology of the word means simply to look at, or wonder at. There is this detachment you speak of between consciousness and a perceived consciousness of what is really there. Do you think virtual reality could ever have the same power of giving the notion spiritual transcendence? Or does the very medium itself become too defined to be able to allow for an otherness, or an alternative way of seeing?

Text can be described as a simulacrum for speaking, for conversation and for thought. When transcribing a text from one language to another, meanings can be altered through the lack of hearing intonations in the voice as well as the gestural characteristics of the speaker. It is here that language is flattened and becomes fragmented or dissolved. Of course, this is not the case for all things written - think scripts, stories or poems – but often the way in which we write now does not allow for this sense of all-encompassing disposition. Through the immediacy of needing to act quickly to work emails for example, simply leaves us unequipped to manifest a kind of slowness in this very profoundly accelerating flux. We relentlessly search for an agency with which to position ourselves but it is fragile and mostly constructed to adhere to capitalistic modes of productivity, leaving our ideas of relationships stretched beyond recognition.

Digital media does not decompose in of itself; the process of sharing a file to different people or different platforms will eventually corrupt it and either make it unintelligible or severely pixelated or “glitchy”

The same can be said for memories which through sharing and retelling take on different iterations each time. It is the classic case of Chinese whispers. 

Tell me what you mean by your “own artefacts”. Are these memories, or are they objects, and how do you see them changing over time? Can new artefacts be added to the collection?

Rebecca

Hi Rebecca

I was glad to hear that you are interested in thinking together with me about the possibility of exploring the connection between reality, virtual reality and pilgrimage.

The concepts of phantasmagoria and optical illusion are of great interest to me because a great deal of my work as a photographer and media artist relates to these concepts exactly. Another thought I had was related to the meaning of the term "indexality" (the concept that Roland Barthes refers to in relation to photography) following my use of raw materials and the gap between reality and virtual reality.

Do we need to relate differently to virtual reality based on raw materials from an optical source (such as cameras)?

Virtual spaces derived from 3D modeling software created from zero in computerized software? Take the Chapel of St. Helena, for example: a 360 degree photo of the Chapel and the use of visual raw materials through technological means (through VR glasses) for a virtual experience can be a different experience for the viewer from looking at a virtual and imaginary world that comes from 3D software. In computer games, for example, the alternative reality in the VR helmet is based on agreed rituals of digital culture, computer graphics, space movement and accelerated time perception (Paul and Relio refers to it in his texts). On the other hand, what I'm trying to do is give the transcendent value you talked about to the virtual space.

I will create in the studio through the New Jerusalem project. Does the connection between the viewer's understanding of what he sees really exist somewhere (the chapel in Jerusalem exists, he sees its optical drawing in the VR glasses) for virtual viewing (putting the helmet on the eyes and moving in space) can create new meaning for a virtual experience.

I think that the symbolic value of the VR experience should be created from the context of the viewing experience and the viewer's connection to the subject he is watching. It seems that a Christian and a believer will respond differently to the possibility of being "inside" the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem through technology than to suppose a person who has no connection to Christianity or Jerusalem. I think it is precisely the viewers who give the meaning to the virtual experience, similar to the meaning that pilgrims give to the objects they bring back to Europe.

Hey Doron

Virtual worlds, reality, new, old, originals, copies... these are all interesting points when we’re thinking about a pilgrimage, or journey, from Jerusalem to London City Island. I’ll come back to a couple of these in a second.

I think there are two things to consider for your question about relating to VR based on raw materials; firstly, virtual reality can be a speculative tool to suggest created worlds but it can also be used as a simulation for real world scenarios, therefore I think the act of being “transported” to somewhere different than where you currently are gives the same effect whether the footage is fictional or existing.

Secondly, I also think that the symbolic value of the VR experience should be created from the context of the viewing experience. I often find that VR experiences in galleries exist only inside the headset. This limits the viewer’s experience but also puts a lot of emphasis on the world inside the headset giving all content and context to the project. There have been a couple of exceptions – namely Ed Fornieles’s The Truth Table Experience at Carlos Ishikawa – but mostly the headset either hangs or sits patiently on a plinth. How do you see the VR things you’ve been working on occupying space? Will they demand a certain position for the viewer?

Let’s talk a little about the 3D print we recently got made of a part of a wall in St Helena’s Chapel. The piece is an exact copy of ancient carvings by crusaders from the 11th Century and it shows colour, texture and form true to the original. The most interesting part of this piece for me is that I can touch it – in the Chapel, visitors aren’t allowed to touch the walls; they’re holy and sacred and need to be protected. For me, this is almost the same as a VR experience, as in, being shown something which I cannot access in person.

There’s a lot going on in this and perhaps you could expand on ideas of the simulacrum, iconoclasm and copies?

Best,

R

Rebecca

You bring up very important points about the difference between a virtual world created from nothing, for example a designer or artist who is building a real-world 3D modeling program, and the use of optical means such as a camera or a laser scanner to produce simulation based on field work and existing facts. To me, a 3D artist is a kind of sculptor who sits in his studio and uses the technological means available to him. He can work on experiences he saw with his own eyes, but, he can also use his imagination to create invented worlds.

There is a very dominant layer of interpretation in the work of the sculptor. Even the photographer has the ability of interpretation but is more hidden. In my view, the experience of virtual reality based on photography relates to the process of creation, as well as to the viewer in a different way. A virtual reality experience based on photography has the ability to convince the viewer that "this thing really happened", that "it was there" that this is reality. I think that the so-called real nature of photography is a little dangerous because convincing a viewer of the veracity of visual things can be manipulated by the creator.

You mentioned the viewer's lead to another place and I expanded the experience of virtual reality based photography into an experience that creates a kind of dissonance in the viewer, between a natural vision process in which I focus on a particular area of bservation, Directs you where to look. There is also a question related to the history of photography, always in the photograph was a frame behind which was the photographer in a photograph of 360 or virtual reality experiences there is no frame and the photographer is not found anywhere. There is no longer the photographer behind the camera.

The question of how to present a VR experience in a gallery is an excellent question. There is something very isolated in the experience of virtual reality viewing as it is today: the user puts the imaginary reality glasses on the head and disconnects for a moment from the environment. This is an experience that is now a little foreign to the experience of wandering in a gallery or museum but we see many trends to change this situation. a few days ago

Which is now a little foreign to the experience of wandering in the gallery or museum but we see many trends to change this situation. A few days ago I was sitting in the Lee Bull's karaoke car in the center of Southeastern. It was an alternative virtual reality experience that interested me because she looked critically at the culture in which the artist lived, but I also saw here a statement about how we experience the reality around us.

In my opinion, one way to relate to the use of virtual reality in an art gallery is to adopt the technical limit of the virtual reality glasses and to share the limit with action. If the viewer is isolated from the environment when he is wearing virtual reality glasses on his head, perhaps he needs to create an isolated environment for him in a gallery where the viewer is comfortable and safe to put the imaginary reality glasses on his head and disconnect for a few minutes from the original environment. I believe that with time we will see more and more works of art in galleries and museums, adopting the technology and allowing it to exist in an artistic environment.

As for the printed wall section of the chapel of St. Helena, you gave an interesting distinction when you noted the original wall in Jerusalem, the wall on which the print is based, can not be touched, while my three-dimensional printing can be touched. This is definitely one of the reasons why I chose to work with three-dimensional printing. It was important for me to print this section of the wall out of my need to return to physical objects outside the digital world. Objects that can be sensed by hands, hold them, and understand them also finite.

The sense of touch. Most of the time I work in front of a computer monitor and felt that I had lost touch to the reality of the object. To me, 3D prints based on photography (like all elements of my exhibition) are a kind of three-dimensional photography. Here are all the processes we know from the world I came from (I am a photographer): using the camera, creating virtual dots in virtual space based on light (just like pixels in digital photography) and printing.

Another reason I chose to print the stone from the wall is my need to complete a move and return to the starting point of the work. I began the process of "New Jerusalem" from a research project I conducted with my research colleagues in the Chapel of St. Helena. The source of the photograph in the chapel is scientific and in cooperation with researchers from the Antiquities Authority of the State of Israel. The digital files I took in the chapel came with me (just like a pilgrim to the Holy Land returning to Europe from the Crusades and returning presents with stones, wood, holy water, etc. I brought digital files (with hard drive) to the island of London. To revive the original object that I brought with me and gave it physical reality.

Printed is almost identical to the wall of the chapel and therefore the emotional value of the object is so high. His reality, and the knowledge that he is based on the original wall, give him his symbolic value. Is a copy of the photographic means of a source that takes on a new meaning, and this is also what I see as representing the whole process I wanted to create here in the artist's stay in London. All right, Doron