Public Avatar & RoboVox

Public Avatar - Slovenia

Slovenia

PUBLIC AVATAR a new project documenting the relationship between virtual reality and our perceptions of self and society. This performance will allow a global audience to explore real-world locations remotely, and to interact with objects and people in those locations through real-time control of a human test subject. As digital and physical worlds collide, the boundaries between self and other, reality and simulation are constantly challenged and redefined.

During these events, users will be able to login at www.public-avatar.com. Each logged in user will be placed in a queue and wait for his turn, when he/ she will be able to give simple instructions (such as ‘Turn’+’Left’, ‘SAY’+’hello’ etc) to the avatar for a limited timed period. Users will be able to see and hear what Public Avatar sees and hears via live video stream.

The project explores real virtuality, by which we mean the echo of virtual reality in reality itself. It examines the essence of reality and explores the borders between virtual and real.

Presupposing that virtual reality, internet applications, networks and games not only reflect the society and reality, but also predict its development (e.g. Ghost Recon), we can say that Public Avatar explores social reality of the present and the future.

Interested in becoming an Avatar for a day? Check this opportunity here!

Public Avatar at FACT: www.fact.co.uk/projects/robots-and-avatars/martin-bricelj-public-avatar/

ROBOVOX is a person sized talking robot which invites you to text your thoughts and ideas to a dedicated SMS service. A tool for an individual, whose voice usually gets lost in the crowd, RoboVox will say out loud your statement, protest or declaration of love, just text 07593959917 during the exhibition period.

Martin Bricelj

Martin Bricelj is a visual media artist and cultural activist.

His interactive works, audiovisual performances and collaborative work research the relation between man and machine, social aspects of contemporary pop culture, future monumentalism and political dimensions of our mediated realities.

He has exhibited in many galleries and spaces worldwide: ICA in London, Sonar in Barcelona, Columbia University in New York, Centro cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires, Kunsthaus Graz, Kaapelithas in Helsinki, Museums Quartier in Vienna and many others.

His recent project RoboVox- a large interactive public sound installation has recieved Europrix Multimedia Award in 2008. He is the director of Festival Pomladi in Ljubljana (an open air festival of electronic music and related arts) and started artistic-curatorial initiative MoTA – Museum of Transitory Art, which is the first AiR programme in Ljubljana and a network of foreign artists, curators in the so called ‘East’.

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