Matthieu Adrien Davy De Virville
Pharmakon - Installation - 2010
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 12
Installation
The work proposes the co-existence of a real sculpture and its virtual counterpart in the same space, by creating at the same time a reflection and an extension of the real object in the virtual. The proximity of a real body and its virtual avatar creates a continuum, from a real environment to a virtual environment, but also from a real materiality to a virtual materiality and vice versa. This prototype is a new tool that is aimed at replacing a natural vision of our environment with a virtual and ideal vision, the symbol of a renewal of the real. The prosthetic and anthropomorphic aspect is necessary and should evoke the promise of the sensorial and imaginary continuation of man in technology, and the idea of going beyond ones own nature in the man-machine fusion. The function of this prototype is to choose an individual amongst those persons situated in its direct environment. The person chosen is followed in his movements and according to the point of view of the latter, the sculpture is both reflected and extended deep into the virtual space. On the screen, the extension of the prototype into the virtual universe takes the appearance of a reflection. Only the virtual sculpture faces the real sculpture but this reflection develops in time and in the depth of the digital environment. Each person, according to his behaviour faced with the sculpture, experiences the gain or loss of the feeling of immersion and permanence between the real sculpture and the virtual sculpture. This behaviour is the result both of the optimal dysfunctioning and functioning, according to who is chosen by the sculpture. In Ancient Greece, pharmakon represented a substance which was both a remedy and a poison. This polarity is at the centre of my work. This project for a piece situated between art and technology is an interpretation of the McLuhan principle: "See, feel or using a extension of ourselves in technological form means necessarily accepting it." M.A.D
