Fabian Lehmann & Yannick Harter
66 Mio Views, 2019
VR experience for HTC Vive
Moving through the world wide web means being exposed to a variety of content in a high tempo which does not always attract you, but can also seem revolting to you. The resulting emotional state of the user - a feeling of being overhelmed and a certain unsteadiness - is the starting point of the work "66mio views". The viewer is sitting inside a room filling installation. Head mounted displays enable him to be part of an immersive VR enviroment in which he faces irregular shapes and so called "non-player characters" (NPCs). The shapes are textured with videos from common Image- boards (4chan, 9gag...) as well as viral YouTube videos. Their content is diverse and evokes not only positive emotions (e.g. videos of puppies), but also very negative emotions (e.g. so-called gore videos, videos of violence). In a self-developing rhythm of motion, the forms relate to the position of the viewer, move towards him, go through him and move away from him. Various NPCs from 3D-model databases approach the viewer and recite text-sequences from the videos in varying tonalities. The immersive installation understands the technical infrastructure (computercases, cables, ...) as an instrument which designs and shapes the space. It is being expanded with ropes as well as pictures and text ragments from the videos. Stacks of prints show extracts from the videos and thereby display their content transformed and adapted to an anlalogue medium. The visitors are invited to take these prints with them and transform the content once again by removing it from its original place.
IMAGES
VIDEO LINK
ABOUT THE ARTIST
In their work, Harter and Lehmann focus on the computer as an every day device and its influence on human culture. The focus here is on the creation of emotional states in digital space. With their work, Harter and Lehmann question the concept of the internet as a connecting infrastructure and try to understand the human perception of the world in virtual space. Fabian Lehmann *1988, Castrop-Rauxel / Germany, Graduated at University of Apllplied Sciences, Bielefeld (2015) with degree Bachelor if Arts "Photography and Media". Since 2016 he is studying "Media Art" at the "Academy of fine Arts, Leipzig" in the class "Expanded Cinema" / Prof. Clemens von Wedemeyer and has studied "Fine Arts" at "Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design" in Jerusalem during an exchange semester. Yannick Harter *1990, Worms / Germany, Is a trained productdesigner, who worked in branches like automotive industry and medical cybernetics. Since 2016 he is studying "Media Art" at the "Academy of fine Arts, Leipzig" in the class "Installation and Space" / Prof. Joachim Blank and has Studied "Visual Communication" at "Latvias Art Academy" in Riga during an exchange semester. Hist artistic practice oscillates around the intersection between art, science and society. Yannick Harter and Fabian Lehmann are founder of the media art collective "This is Fake" which mainly works with XR Techniques.
If you are interested in exhibiting or viewing this artistic VR experience, please send an email to us.
CATEGORIES