Digital art as a response to science
Data collection and its analysis is normally pursued with
a scientific aim in view. The scientist may have a
theorem that will only stand up to the scrutiny of the
scientific community once it can be presented in the
context of statistics derived from such data. Loc Reverb
was developed against a context loosely defined by
scientific methodologies.
Loc Reverb is an installation and a CD-ROM. It is an
attempt to provide a dynamic non-scientific simulation
of the way in which the human visual system deals with
a landscape. It tries to show dynamically the
mechanisms for analysing visual phenomena; the
methods used for comparing memories in both short
and long term memory; the movements of the eye as it
scans up, down, left and right across a scene, and the
processes by which the eye estimates distances and
visual relationships between features of the landscape.
Loc Reverb responds to movements of the trackball to
create a series of horizontal and vertical grid lines
across the moving background image and these
redefine their own position and motion. These lines
combine with transparent gradations that interfere with
a reading of the image and provide a metaphor for the
way in which human visual perception needs constant
revision as it is confronted by contrasting glimpses from
different parts of the scene.
The piece is designed to illustrate the perceptual
accuracy and recognition of precise detail in vision and
the way the viewer also has a simultaneous sense of
the whole and the expanse of space on a much broader
scale. The desire to measure and record is contrasted
with the impulse to scan across the view with one
sweeping movement of the eye.