Józef Bury
Cyberspace and the Local Illusion - Working notes, 2002-2004

The unrestrained force that pushes me to make continuous observations is undoubtedly the remains of conditions of the natural world in which the incessant evaluation of the situation and continuous tracing the unfriendly surrounding had been the question of survival. Surely other important sight sensations we do experience during our childhood. The first reach of the hand towards the visible world, which is subsequently confirmed by all other senses, thus informing us that this world really exists is undoubtedly a fundamental experience. The credibility of the image is also confirmed in the process of shaping the consciousness of our own separateness and uniqueness of our body. The observation of shadow and mirror reflection allows noticing that both our body and other objects can be represented in a situation that can be visually perceived. These common examples explain why, in spite of our knowledge that it’s only an image, we subconsciously identify the image with the reality. Our later experiences of the world prove us that the image unnecessarily laps with reality, however we still have the pleasure to be consciously cheated. It’s the part of the game, a therapeutic play allowing us to rest from the load of reality. It may, however become a trap, when because of tiredness, the lack of time, the fears, desires and frustrations we "remain" in the image. To remain in the image is a kind of resignation to verify it, to identify the reality to which it refers us (the history of unfaithful Thomas teaches us that the need of poly-sensory verification of the image is not only a question of age). This resignation implies the belief, and hence the impossibility of seeing the very picture and the mechanics of its imaging. This belief in the image puts us in the situation of particular adoration (the trust, the fear of loss and the necessity of return...), and therefore the weakness and cognitive helplessness. This "stay in the image", I mean this relation of dependence on the image, I call here the local illusion. [...]

The risk of "staying in the Internet" is a modification of the category of place, time and distance, the dissociation of time and space, and in the end, the loss of the time/spatial reference data of experience, or a kind of achronic topological hysteria. This includes the multiplication of sites, the timelessness of places of virtual journeys, the subjectivity of the time of stay, the overlapping (the simultaneity) of time, the tele-presence, i.e. simultaneously in a few "sites", and the mediated distance of live and in situ experiences. The experience modified in this way is accompanied by the virtualisation of the space-time continuum (the impossibility of localisation of the site, and time incommensurate with the "paced" distance) as well as by the uncontrollability of the source of emission and of the credibility of transmitted data (it is impossible to confirm the experience with the whole sensory apparatus). In result we get the chronic local illusion and the inhibition of cognitive processes. The apparently poly-sensory reality – accessible through the mediation of vision-helmets and touch pads and screens – is a reality experienced "out" of the body, that is beyond the reach of the sensory apparatus. The illusion is possible thanks to the de-materialisation of the space-time continuum, or the digitalisation of topological co-ordinates and physical states of the matter (the movement of air, temperature...) as well as their modelling – that is a "translation" into sight incentives. The gesture made in the virtual space is visually controlled. In spite of many promising attempts to include other sensory channels in the technology of communication, there is still a long and "bright" future before the visual channel. [...]

The above-mentioned notes are to a large extent a result of thinking that accompanies the performance practice and traditional production of the image. I mean painting as covering and overlapping, or as a filter that permeates the vision in time measure. I mean long exposed photography as a way of experiencing the world by means of technical apparatus implying the perception, cognition, memory and record of variable reality, as well as performance treated as the subjective and poly-sensory experience of the space-time. Therefore the signification of these reflections – which are by no means any exhaustive analysis – consists in the fact that their origin is situated within traditional artistic practice enriched with everyday banal relations with new technological reality that stimulates the spontaneous and intuitive acceptance of changing environment. Therefore I incline to claim that even the most classical artistic experiences undertaken today (dance, singing, painting, sculpture, architecture...) differ from those we practised before the era of the Internet and new technologies of communication just in this awareness of the state-of-the-art. Creating traditional painting in the situation when we are aware of the methods of production, recording and transmission of the digital image, as well as experiencing the space-time of performance when it is enriched with the consciousness that there are sensors able to catch the movement and record it in the language of digits, should be included in the forms of multimedia art (the Internet art, computer art).