"The Body w/o Organs" 1999-present
In 1999 I began to shift from the representation of constructed online identity
(A Manifesto for Avatars) to the representation of identity to the
interior of the self through the construction of immersive virtual environments.
These environments were constructed from recombinatory instances of collected
qualia, forming visualizations of consciousness. Qualia collected from a large
number of people across a range of geographic and cultural locations forms a
model of consciousness that is distributed, dynamic, and multi-nodal.

The virtual environment combines anatomical datasets from medical imaging sources
including the virtual human project, with a three-dimensional laser scan of my
body skin. These objects contain instances of qualia collected from a number of
individuals. The goal of the project is to create a immersive anatomical landscape
that mixes collected instances of conscious experience and anatomical data across
the body in an evolving and recombinatory way, for the purposes of embodiment and
self-reconfiguration. ‘The Dance of the Body w/o Organs’ is the result of my
desire to build a new relationship to my flesh, ‘The Flesh’ (Merleau-Ponty 1968: 140),
and to the body politic. The current status of this project, in collaboration with
social scientist Dr. Brian Betz, and artist/aesthetics researcher Dr Dena Eber,
explores the relationship between levels of participant presence, through
quantitative and qualitative measures, to the degree of their aesthetic experience
(Little, Betz and Eber 2004).

Although the work has been exhibited in a number of contexts, including high-end
CAVE^TM and HEMISPHERIUM^TM environments, the current iteration has been exhibited
as a stereo-optic rear projection on a 6 x 9 foot screen, by 2 dlp projectors with
circular polarizing filters, driven by a single Windows-based PC, a 5.1 surround-sound
audio system, and a wireless RF Gyromouse^TM.

Exhibition Requirements