Tom Leeser: Indiscriminate Visions

 
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Artist(s):


Collaborators:


Title:


    Indiscriminate Visions

Exhibition:


Creation Year:


    1994

Medium:


    Interactive Installation

Category:


Artist Statement:


    “Indiscriminate” is used to describe something that is chaotic and random in nature. “Vision” is defined as the physical act of seeing. It also refers to a dream, trance, thought, or mystical appearance, or an idea, an object or the imagination. Indiscriminate Visions is a virtual environment that presents personal visions in a format designed to promote cross-cultural dream sharing.

    Using video animation and editing, common dream elements are extracted from different dream­ers: people with diverse cultural, economic, and religious back­grounds. The act of dreaming becomes transformed from a per­sonal and private ritual to a shared experience, framed as a part of a greater collective sub­conscious.

    The interactive video piece is installed as a virtual space that insulates the viewer from all exte­rior distractions. The room is similar in design to a photo booth or a church confessional. Inside, there are two video monitors: one nine-inch black and white monitor and one 12-inch color monitor, mounted side by side. The black and white monitor dis­plays dreamers recounting their visions, while the color monitor plays back the video collages.

    Unlike typical interactive pro­grams that include viewer choices and branching capability, this sys­tem is random. The video has been transferred to a video disc controlled by a computer that randomizes the playback of the video each time a new viewer activates a sensing switch by entering the space. By exposing viewers to random collections of images and text, Indiscriminate Visions reintroduces people to their dreams and gives them a connection between an external media- and information-based material world and the internal visionary subconscious.