Hallucination

Statement

"Hallucination" was the first artwork that I created and I had unreal expectations of trying to make people understand what it might feel like to be mentally ill (even if just for a moment). In this regard the work was a complete failure as it’s too entertaining for such a complex topic.
People were entertained to see themselves on TV, which (surprisingly to me at the time) overpowered the response of seeing themselves on fire. In the second version of the work I tried a number of different things to try to get people to see more than just themselves. For example the work freezes an image of the viewers while they were not seeing the image creating a series of candid snapshots (i.e. they cannot pose because they do not see themselves as in a mirror). And then a short time later this candid snapshot would appear with the viewers frozen image on fire. This delaying process confronted the viewers more than the live flaming image.
I think that for this project the time differences between the digital space and the physical space were fundamentally more important than the image distortions in making the viewer aware of the digital space defined by the computer program and electronic processing.
Moreover, I think that for these kinds of works there is a psychological projection that happens where the viewers project attributes of life onto or into the work. Because there was a virtual woman in the digital space in this work there is a confusion as to where the viewers project onto or into. Do they project into the woman or into the screen or into image or into the box or into the program?

Many of my earlier created artworks were based on ideas that I started to work with in "Hallucination". Particularly I continued to explore ways of using time and delay and memory to disrupt the immediate feedback problem of cctv interactivity (e.g. people waving at their own image). "Memory/ Recollection", "Digital Watch" and "Ruins of Light" were 3 of my works that grew out of Hallucination.
(Jim Campbell)

Sekundärliteratur

• Morse, Margaret: "Threshold Experiences: Incendiary Bodies and Frail Machines". In: "Jim Campbell: Transforming Time, Electronic Works 1990-1999". Catalogue of the Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe 1999.
• Marchessault, Janine: "Incorporating the Gaze"; in: Parachute Contemporary Art Magazine No. 65 (The Immaterial Body II), 1st Quarter, Montreal 1992.