Recorded livestream single-channel video, "Commentary version"

  049 An Infinite Density Over Zero / 2021  

  Single-channel video version on Vimeo  

  Ambient/electronic music album on Bandcamp  

“An Infinite Density Over Zero” is an installation, performance, and music album informed by the idea of “ambient narrativity”, exploring audiovisual composition and control within an interactive virtual environment. Using a wireless game controller, the player is able to navigate along a path and interact with the simulated landscape, causing various sonic and visual events to unfold. Contrary to a supposed “open world” game, here the path propels the player towards an unknown purpose. Choice is an illusion. The piece explores several formal-theoretical questions involving simulated reality, the tension between materialist and semiotic philosophic worldviews, the thickness of the virtual made possible by intersubjective reality, the possibilities for sound and music composition in the interactive game format, the poverty of true choices, and the way that technology has changed the way we create and view images.

An enduring influence in not just this work but also previous bodies of landscape-themed work, including Loci_ and Strata Systems, is the writing of cultural geographer Don Mitchell. In one article, titled “The Lie of the Land”, Mitchell critiques a fellow geographer who believes that one can glean any truth about a given landscape – its history, geology, class structure, etc – simply by looking at it. Reality is an open book. In truth, Mitchell claims, landscape hides more than it reveals. The idyllic California landscape doesn't tell you about the experiences of the migrant laborers that have shaped it. The material truth is not found on the surface.

In “An Infinite Density Over Zero”, the landscape is a digital 3D model created by scanning a hiking trail in the Grand Canyon with a smart phone sensor and app. The model becomes an indexical print – a beam of infrared light is shot out of the camera sensor, then bounces off of a physical surface like a rock, then returns to the sensor. The physical space is reconstructed digitally by calculating the nanoseconds it takes each infrared beam to leave, touch something, then return. The resulting model is a hollow shell – a surface that seems to have mass and density, but actually has a depth of zero. The backface is co-existent with the front face. The player, as some sort of dronecopter camera, is able to fly directly through the terrain surface without collision. Thinking about Mitchell's critique above, the substance of this landscape must be found somewhere else.

The dronecopter mechanics – a floating, swerving sort of flying accompanied by a droning ambient sound of whirring motors – is inspired by the confluence of virtual and real camera movements found in contemporary movies. Made possible by the development of sophisticated CG techniques starting in the 1990's, viewers began to see wildly impossible cinematography. Common examples include swirling fly-through sequences that speed through a landscape then enter a building, dramatic shifts from macro to micro, orbiting cameras that encircle an object of attention – these cinematographic moments became overused and largely pointless. For contrast and historical context, one may consider the stunning rectilinear cinematography of Ozu's “Tokyo Story” (東京物語, 1953)¹ and the perfect blocking of Kurosawa's “High and Low” (天国と地獄, 1963)² [See also the 2010 single-channel video sampling this latter film titled High and Low (Relational Wavespace)]. In the present we see a confluence of the so-called virtual and the so-called real, made possible by dronecopter technology and the reduction of camera size and weight. Those same ridiculously impossible camera movements found in movies like “Harry Potter” are now possible and desirable to shoot physically, in live-action. We've developed the ability to see our physical world as if it were a video game.

Sonically, the confluence of physical and digital materials is also emphasized. The ambient sound of the dronecopter motor was recorded using a small cooling fan usually found in computers and other electronics. The fan was attached to a wooden board, causing vibrations that were then picked up by a contact microphone and input into software. In addition to the droning dronecopter sound, the fan provided a unique set of harmonics that became the musical scale for the other synthesized, electronic musical elements. Using a custom pitch-follower software module, the resonant frequencies found in the fan's vibrations of the wooden board were turned into lilting electronic sound.

At the piece's conclusion, the player – who up to this point has most likely identified themself as the floating dronecopter-like being navigating the landscape – undergoes a transformation. Confronted with a void, with no more discernible landmarks or horizons, the only perceivable thing left is the player's representation on the map – a tiny blue dot. This simulated representation of self is the Borgesian map that is co-existent with the territory. The blue-dot-self must wake up, sense the environment, and complete one final task in order to conclude the experience.

1. Cinematography by Yūharu Atsuta
2. Cinematography by Asakazu Nakai and Takao Saito

  Single-channel video version on Vimeo  


Install shot, "Place/Displace" exhibition at Schafler Gallery, Brooklyn


Install shot, "Place/Displace" exhibition at Schafler Gallery, Brooklyn


Click to see high-res version


Click to see high-res version


Click to see high-res version


Click to see high-res version

  Single-channel video version on Vimeo