{"id":681,"date":"2011-01-11T17:31:38","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T01:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/artwork\/virtual-mirror-rain\/"},"modified":"2021-01-04T11:38:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T19:38:55","slug":"virtual-mirror-rain","status":"publish","type":"artwork","link":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/artwork\/virtual-mirror-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtual Mirror &#8211; Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-681-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/vimeo\" src=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/10002754?loop=0&#038;_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/10002754?loop=0\">https:\/\/vimeo.com\/10002754?loop=0<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>Artist Tao Sambolec&#8217;s expanded conception of art emphasizes tactility, embodied experience, affect and perception in space, often involving displacements that heighten our sensory awareness. In this respect, his work finds good company with pioneering contemporary artists from Marcel Duchamp to <a title=\"Weather Project link in AEM-OC\" href=\"http:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/?post_type=artwork&amp;p=706\">Olafur Eliasson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-12386 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pasted-5-300x229.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"394\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pasted-5-300x229.png 300w, https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pasted-5-1024x781.png 1024w, https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pasted-5-768x585.png 768w, https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pasted-5-1536x1171.png 1536w, https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pasted-5.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A case in point is one of his remarkable installation <em>Virtual Mirror \u2013 Rain<\/em>, which received Honorable Mention in 2010 at Prix Ars Electronica, the most important international competition for media art.\u00a0 When he told me the concept for this project &#8211; that rain falling from the skies outside the gallery would be measured in real-time and trigger an equivalent amount of rain falling up inside the gallery \u2013 I didn\u2019t believe he would be able to do it.\u00a0 I enjoyed receiving updates from him during the many months of development, and was amazed, and deeply impressed, by the work\u2019s premier at the Museum of Modern art in Llubjiana.\u00a0 <em>Virtual Mirror \u2013 Rain<\/em> makes weather into the subject of art.\u00a0 It offers the viewer an embodied, situated experience that conflates interior and exterior spaces.\u00a0 It transforms the liquid and tactile quality of rain into an artistic medium.\u00a0 In doing so, it poetically challenges one\u2019s preconceptions about fundamental phenomena, enabling the viewer to contemplate a parallel universe that operates under different physical laws than our own.\u00a0 Virtual Mirror \u2013 Rain takes the further step of permitting the viewer to actively participate in this parallel universe:\u00a0 through the work\u2019s interactive affordances, the upward flow of rain can be modulated by the viewer\/participator.\u00a0 Historically, this work finds precursors in J.M.W. Turner\u2019s painterly studies of weather, the fluidity of interior and exterior space in Le Corbusier\u2019s architecture, the heightened perception of space provoked by Alvin Lucier and Olafur Eliasson, <a title=\"Mallary, Six Levels of Cybernetics\" href=\"http:\/\/www.robertmallary.com\/Commentary\/artforum_09-1969.htm\">Robert Mallary\u2019s cybernetic theories of \u201ctransductive art,\u201d<\/a> and the tradition of interactive and participatory art.\u00a0 That is to say, the work is deeply embedded in the history of art and is engaged in several key discourses simultaneously.\u00a0 It also demonstrates the progressive development of conceptual continuities in Sambolec\u2019s oeuvre, as it is related to but significantly expands on earlier works such as <em>Virtual Hole \u2013 Wind<\/em> (below).<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-681-2\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/vimeo\" src=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/10181575?loop=0&#038;_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/10181575?loop=0\">https:\/\/vimeo.com\/10181575?loop=0<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>As Sambolec writes, &#8220;The installation <em>Virtual Mirror \u2013 Rain<\/em> is a part of a series of installations, entitled Virtual Holes and Virtual Mirrors. The series investigates the relationship between weather conditions and the built architecture in urban environment. By letting the outside weather phenomena indoors, or by mirroring them inside, Virtual Holes and Virtual Mirrors annihilate the protective function of architecture. They are undoing architecture in order to heighten our sensibility of the immediate surrounding, transforming the ephemeral and evanescent weather phenomena outside into significant and poetic events inside.&#8221;[1]<\/p>\n<p>Rain was also the theme of the remarkable\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/artwork\/rain-room-2\/\"><em>Rain Room<\/em><\/a>, 2012 created by rAndom International.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[1] Tao Sambolec, Virtual Mirror &#8211; Rain (artist&#8217;s website) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taogvs.org\/VirtualMirrorRainMain.html\">http:\/\/www.taogvs.org\/VirtualMirrorRainMain.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":546,"featured_media":12386,"template":"","artist":[841],"streams":[8,17],"keywords":[2243,2149,2082,2457],"decade":[5544],"media":[5547,5550,5546],"class_list":["post-681","artwork","type-artwork","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","artist-tao-sambolec","streams-charged-environments","streams-simulations-and-simulacra","keywords-environment","keywords-installation","keywords-rain","keywords-weather","decade-2000s","media-image","media-installation","media-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artwork\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artwork"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/artwork"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/546"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artwork\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12394,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artwork\/681\/revisions\/12394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"streams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/streams?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keywords?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"decade","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/decade?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"media","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}