The Project

Virga is an interactive multimedia installation exploring themes of creation, the passage of time, and life and death, challenging visitors to contemplate their role in the cycle called life through engagement and sacrifice.

Summary

Virga is an interactive multimedia installation that delves into themes of creation, the passage of time, and the cyclical nature of life and death, highlighting humanity's involvement in these processes. It merges various elements of art and technology to bring our idea to life and emphasize its futuristic projections of the viewer's life. Some uses include video projection, electronics, and sculpture. The installation features physical components like a tree stump with a plaster cast of hands and a button, a realistic heart, and a mouth with a speaker, all interconnected with wires resembling veins, suggesting a disjointed entity. The narrative unfolds through a video and a spoken manifesto that alternates between the perspectives of the creators and the independent identity of the being, with scenes of conflict and debate over its interpretation. Interaction is key: visitors activate the heartbeat and audio by pressing a button, engaging with a manifesto that plays as long as they choose to listen, implicating them in the being's "life."

The setup explores themes of sacrifice and compassion, as the duration of engagement directly affects the experience, the full message of the being revealed to only those who commit their time fully, showcasing the ephemeral nature of connection and understanding.

An In-Depth Look

Virga is an introspective piece ruminating on humanity’s role in the world. The project encompasses many facets of art and technology, ultimately creating an experience that is both tactile and contemplative.

The project includes a variety of physical objects arranged in front of a projected video screen: a tree stump with a plaster cast of hands and a red button on top, a realistic heart on the ground, and a mouth with a speaker inside. Each of these items are connected to one another with electronic wires disguised as veins, creating an eerie disembodied being. The video is a looping set of shorter segments that explores the combative narrative of two varying perspectives of how the being should be interpreted. One, as an extension of Bella and myself as creators, and two, as its own identity and self. A variety of scenes will take place with Bella and myself as performers: ranging from circling to fighting one another as each tries to convince the other of their viewpoint.

The experience includes a person walking into the area, a looping video of a flower playing with muffled audio coming from the speaker. Once a person holds down the button, the heart (Arduino-powered) will “beat,” sound will play from the speakers clearly, and the video will change. For as long as the person chooses to hold the button down, a manifesto will be read aloud - seemingly from the being itself. If the visitor lets go of the button for a certain amount of time, the video will reset to the looping flower, and the experience will repeat.

Creating an experience where the audience is personally responsible for the “life” of another being - or at least the choice to listen to its thoughts and stay for as long as possible - is an intriguing idea that plays with ideas of sacrifice and compassion. The audience member can choose to hold the button down for as long as they’d like - at the cost of spending extra time at the installation. As we plan for the video to last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, this will most likely result in the video resetting before the end. As such, only a few visitors will hear the being’s full speech, and hear the full journey that has been cultivated.