James Pollack
is a creator of both digital and non-digital works of fiction, poetry, drama, and art.
WORKS
work 1
title “SPHIROS” —
Interactive fiction w/text, video, music (Sigur Ros), animation
year of production 2009
used technology (software etc) Adobe Flash, Jason Nelson’s WithinSpace interface.
required plug-ins Flash Player
“SPHIROS” presents the fictional tale of what happens when a timequake creates a world that really is open source.
Art is in the arrangement — The screen is a projection of infinitesimally small physical components onto a wall that we can manipulate. If we press our fists againstit, we may hammer away at it like a door to no avail– now we open it as a curtain and peer into the room beyond. We construct narrative as a synthesis of our own experience in combination with an experience the materials that the author presents to us. We pick up a book and we put it down: narrative cannot be so contained.
Installation History:
Version using custom head tracking software, infrared glasses, and Wii Remote for navigation presented May 2009 in Maya’s Room [named after Maya Tanaka Hanway ’83], the only undergraduate art gallery at Yale.
Created as an independent project for credit in Yale University’s English Department under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Pressman.
work 2
title “Digital Diving” w/Noa Kaplan-Sears –
Interactive digital sculpture w/ music (John Cage)
year of production 2009
used technology (software etc) Adobe Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Jason Nelson’s WithinSpace interface.
required plug-ins Flash Player
1st Grand Prize @ the 2009 Yale Innovation in Digital Environments Awards
“Digital Diving” imagines what it is to be in a landscape. The depth of the digital world is its greatest asset. Kaplan-Sears and Pollack have taken a piece of three-dimensional sculpture and staged it in what is traditionally thought of as a two-dimensional medium of display: the screen. Breaking past the initial top-layer and exposing the infinitude of digital space is a refreshing, unique experience. So dive right in!
Installation History:
Version using Wii Remote for navigation presented December 2008 in the Green Gallery at the Yale School of Art
work 3
title “m u s h”
year of production 2010
used technology (software etc) Adobe Flash, Jason Nelson’s WithinSpace interface.
required plug-ins Flash Player
M U S H by James Pollack is an interactive video which takes as its subject matter articles that appeared in the New Yorker magazine and in the UK’s Guardian about “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction (Or, Why Mush Will Never Triumph).” It is without musical, or sound, accompaniment. It may be unfinished. It may be part of a very influential body of video work by the artist.
from the New Yorker blog post about the piece:
(“Mush Triumphant” by Macy Halford, 3/11/2010 — http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/03/mush-triumphant.html)
Book Benchers, I thought I’d never see the day when a blog post inspired by a news article would inspire a work of art, but life is full of surprises.
work 4
title “a hot number”
Interactive mashup w/ music (Animal Collective), video
year of production 2010
used technology (software etc) Adobe Flash, Jason Nelson’s WithinSpace interface.
required plug-ins Flash Player
“a hot number” is an interactive video/sound installation that explores sexual tension using an early video of Geri Halliwell, famous as “Ginger Spice,” stripping. The video, ripped from a pornography website, is set to the song “Guys Eyes,” by psych-pop superstars, Animal Collective. Three angles on the scene are presented using the same video feed, which results in the strangely voyeuristic experience of simultaneously perceiving distinct perspectives where there are none.
work 5
title “Of Paradise: Scene 2″
Interactive play w/text, video, music, animation.
year of production 2009
used technology (software etc) Adobe Flash, Jason Nelson’s WithinSpace interface.
required plug-ins Flash Player
This is the second scene from a play for the internet, “Of Paradise.”
It’s been more than a few years since Dugan fell into a coma. All but forgotten in an out-of-the-way hospital, one researcher takes a gamble on him with a new technique: using brain imaging for communication. Taking place inside of a scanner, from the patient’s perspective, “Of Paradise” explores questions of consciousness and divinity through the use of both modern technology (fMRI & TMS) and traditional mythology (the Iranian Huma Bird). Will the researcher get through to Dugan? And if he does, will Dugan be able to give up the world he knows and return to our reality? Based on interviews with researchers in Sleep & Consciousness studies at Yale University and University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Of Paradise” promises to fuse art and science into one cohesive whole.
This scene introduces Dugan’s mysterious lover, Lily. Together, in Dugan’s mindspace, they share a bond so strong that he can’t imagine living without her. If it were all to end today, it would just be Dugan and Lily. But is Lily a force for good, or for evil?
Music by Cinematic Orchestra.
work 6
title “Of Paradise: Scene 5″ –
Interactive play w/text, video, music, animation.
year of production 2009
used technology (software etc) Adobe Flash, Jason Nelson’s WithinSpace interface, MetaSynth, StructureSynth, Sunflow
required plug-ins Flash Player
This is the second scene from a play for the internet, “Of Paradise.”
It’s been more than a few years since Dugan fell into a coma. All but forgotten in an out-of-the-way hospital, one researcher takes a gamble on him with a new technique: using brain imaging for communication. Taking place inside of a scanner, from the patient’s perspective, “Of Paradise” explores questions of consciousness and divinity through the use of both modern technology (fMRI & TMS) and traditional mythology (the Iranian Huma Bird). Will the researcher get through to Dugan? And if he does, will Dugan be able to give up the world he knows and return to our reality? Based on interviews with researchers in Sleep & Consciousness studies at Yale University and University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Of Paradise” promises to fuse art and science into one cohesive whole.
This scene finds Dugan fighting with Lily about his frequent thoughts of death. Soon, Dugan questions the very value of the imagination. Are we what we create? The imaginative object varies across traditions. But what if, when you look inside and discover that your own imaginative object is… nothingness?
Music by Colorpulse.
work 7
title “the imagination outliving the imagination”
–
interactive mindscape w/photography
year of production 2010
used technology (software etc) Adobe Flash, Jason Nelson’s WithinSpace
required plug-ins Flash Player
on “the imagination outliving the imagination”:
The Dao is a mess of inactive ingredients — we churn a path through the fabric, making sense out of abnormality, assigning value to our fictions.