The root "tele," comes from the Greek, meaning "distance." Telepresence is the possibility of being present in different locations at the same time. Artists have been experimenting with the notion of telepresence and telecommunication and telerobotics since the development of the technology that enables this exploration. The works often explore the possibilities and implications of presence and communication over a distance.
Telepresence transports you into another environs through your eyes. And many of the artworks that utilize the concept of telepresence also comment on the act of seeing and the visual technology of our bodies.
Eduardo Kac's Rara Avis (1996) is one example of a work that playfully explores the possibilities of telepresence through combining technology, and organic and artificial life-forms. The piece is a hybrid work that consists of a site-specific installation with networked transmission. It uses video, virtual reality and internet resources.
The installation consists of a telerobotic macaw, which has video cameras as eyes. The rara avis (rare bird) is in a cage filled with 30 real birds. When the viewer walks into the gallery, they put on a virtual reality headset that transports them into the cage. The installation is designed so the viewer sees from the point of view of the telerobotic bird, witnessing the activities of the organic birds.
The head of the macaw was controlled by a servo-motor that received directional information from the headset. The video feed was also broadcasted live over the internet, and web viewers could use microphones to trigger the vocal machinery of the telerobotic bird.
The work is a sophisticated and colorful one that melds together the human and the animal, the self and the environment. It explores identity, technology and control. "Rara Avis erased boundaries between points of view, bodies, and locations at the same time as it reaffirmed them, raising issues about what constitutes identity" (Paul, Digital Art). It also explores ideas of immersion and insertion that technology provides and allows.
Kac, Rara Avis (1996)
The work is a sophisticated and colorful one that melds together the human and the animal, the self and the environment. It explores identity, technology and control. "Rara Avis erased boundaries between points of view, bodies, and locations at the same time as it reaffirmed them, raising issues about what constitutes identity" (Paul, Digital Art). It also explores ideas of immersion and insertion that technology provides and allows.
