| Apart from the sheer size of Seven
Worlds, Steina's fifteen large video monitors
stacked in three rows gave the show its dazzling
keynote image. Each screen projects one or another
of several variations of a computer-generated
sphere, each one a transparent globe or oculus
in constant kinetic and acoustic permutation.
The images evoked in the glass orbs range from
microscopic to macroscopic: micro-organisms, crystalline
sphaeraphides from plant cells, steep canyons,
ocean surf, vast seas on a distant planet's surface.
The spheres float unmoved and unmoving as their
surfaces transform, at times turning inside out;
or they spin slowly in place about an imaginary
axis.
The simultaneous projections of these kaleidoscopic
globes produce the monumental effect of some
distant galaxy, yet the breadth, beauty, and
kinetic rhythm of these patterns, modeled on
nature and natural process, create a harmony
of the spheres whose reference is always the
earth - as in fifth largest Planet in the solar
system. For all the visual draw of these stunning
images, the result is more than mesmerizing.
Vasulka succeeds in transforming the electronic
moving image into video metaphor. It is almost
immaterial whether viewers' thoughts turn to
global warming, the Kyoto Accords, or the first
time they peered through a telescope. What is
material is the act of thinking: the movement
from passive response to active reflection. |
