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Themesicon: navigation pathOverview of Media Articon: navigation pathPerception
 
Tunnel (Demand, Thomas), 1999Modern Minimal Disco (Sonntag, Jan-Peter E. R.), 1996Pol (Granular Synthesis), 1998
 
 
 

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III Physiological Effects and Extensions

The interrogation of ordinary perceptual experience is also illustrated in attempts to connect various areas of perception with one another or to trace out sensory experiences in the area of consciousness. Works like «Tap Dance»[37] by Willie Walker or «Tunnel» (1999) by Thomas Demand point to the link between sensory perception and cognitive experience. By provoking particular associations, they allude to the mechanisms of perception, which almost unavoidably produce certain impressions, but are nonetheless physically not represented. What one imagines one is perceiving is not really shown. Willie Walker plays with the supplementary knowledge of the observer when he performs a tap dance in which only his upper body is visible in the image; he produces the sounds with his mouth. Thomas Demand takes abstraction a step further when he sends the viewer on a camera ride through a paper model of the tunnel in which Princess Diana was killed in a car accident. The information stored from the repetitions of the images of the site of the accident in the mass media produce while watching the feeling of being the witness of a situation

 

that, although really hardly seen by anyone, seems to be part of the collective consciousness.

In contrast to more or less analytic observations in the visual media, artists like Jan Peter E. R. Sonntag in his installation «modern minimal disco» (since 1995) or Granular Synthesis in their performance «POL» (1998) exert direct influence on the physical perception of the spectator and produce synaesthetic experiences. By transferring sensory impressions from one medium to another, as with the transformation of sound to vibration, the usual link of their mode of representation to certain media is broken through and extended into other areas. In installations or performances, they make sounds physically felt and add an additional sensory element to acoustic perception.

Perception spaces

The interest in the study of optical phenomena has also always existed beyond the framework of classical communication media like film and video as well. An extended concept of media art leaves behind the borders of pure image transmission and brings other

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