3D-graphic of the space
interface

video stills

Pleasure machine -interactive performance 1999. The performance occurs inside a capsule. We may control the avatar of the performer through a remote computer. The distance between the audience and the performer is set to 7 metres. We may type words, wishes or commands from our keyboard directly to a video-viewing system she wears (Sony Glasstron glasses). There are no limits to one's wishes. The whole performance is also available on the Internet where the viewer watches her real time reactions through a video-window. The work was programmed by Prof.N.Sgouros in Java and was produced by Master in Digital Art, School of Fine Arts, Athens. First performance was presented at :Digital Art Lab, Athens 8/11/2000. Performer : Silia Rouka.

The artificiality of experience and the artificiality of pleasure: To experience "artificial pleasure" does not presuppose that we have to define the concept of "pure form of pleasure". The Pleasure Machine is not a mechanical device programmed to expand pleasure but an interactive system between humans and machines which transforms pleasure. Is it then possible to pass from the self-possessed body to the collective-possessed one? Or further, from "body - body" to "body-system" pleasure?
Pleasure machine as a simulating machine. The art of simulations instead of the art of representations... Simulation is defined as the imitative representation of the functioning of one system or process by means of the functioning of another, or the examination of a problem often not subject to direct experimentation by means of a simulating device. In systems like these, we are interested to the similarity of action instead of the similarity of structure. Bodies are often assumed to be the repetition of the cells and societies as the repetition of the bodies. The substance of the simulation problem is in space, not the agents. As space provides the main information, we tend to construct the environment first -and after this the unit. Instead of constructing space and then adding the "agents", we construct the physics of space and the agent reacts automatically.[Elp.Tzafestas] In a non-determined environment we tend to respond to information flux in a chaotic way. Information is in the environment, giving orientation to our wishes. When we think that a wish belongs to us, we experience the domination of the environment. Controlling our speech or our orientation does not mean we have control of our performance. We are losing control of our presence while our performance is dominated by information of the environment. Nature, as a term, stands out of "moral" or "immoral" classifications. In constructed environments, space data is stronger than agent data.
Requirements :
PC with Matrox card [video output],
3D Java,
Java 1,3 Beta,
Java Media Framework,
Java Plug-in.
The work was presented at the 8th New York Digital Salon, November 00.

videos of the work:
www.geocities.com/melanitisvideos