Short Form: The Rearranged World of Jennifer Steinkamp
By Holly Willis
Published February 2000, Ifilm.com, San francisco, CA.


While the world goes crazy over the wonders of Internet distribution and the thrill of watching movies on the little screen, there's an interesting counter-phenomenon brewing. People are getting into images. Literally. And LA-based digital diva Jennifer Steinkamp is leading the way.



Let me explain. In 1970, film scholar Gene Youngblood published "Expanded Cinema," the now-classic text of new media which, looking back from the present, seems to be a curious mix of '60s cosmic hyperbole and rather prescient musings on nonlinear image environments. What interested Youngblood, and what he tried to explain and advocate in his book, was what he called "synaesthetic cinema," namely a cinema that envelopes the body while creating a "new consciousness" (remember, it's 1970).

Taking the pervasive interest in the body and body art, Youngblood described the creation of images and spaces where people lost track of the difference between their bodies and their environment.

And this is what digital animator Jennifer Steinkamp does. She makes short animated films on her computer, stores them on laserdisc, and then projects her work onto various walls and screens using multiple projectors. The projections fill the space with layers of images, and as viewers move through the darkened space, their bodies dissect the projector beams, and the various shadows and motions become part of the artwork.

But more importantly, as you move around in the space, your sense of its contours and edges shift, and you feel immersed in a sea of pixels and sounds, and you feel yourself merging with the light. And that's what Steinkamp is trying to achieve.

"In painting there is a lot of discussion about the representation of light," explains Steinkamp by way of introducing her influences. "I recall studying the Impressionists and how some of the artists emphasized light over form or subject. Certain ideas capture your fancy, and I've always been intrigued by the idea of representing light because it is not corporeal."


What's She Doing to Buildings?

In describing her art, Steinkamp is very direct. "Basically, I use light to dematerialize architecture," she says. "I do this by placing an illusionistic space inside of a real space."



Steinkamp, who cops to inspiration from Youngblood, as well as experimental animators Ed Emshwiller and Oskar Fischinger, explains that she does this by taking the geometric space from the computer and remapping it into an architectural space. "This creates an in-between space, a space between the computer and the real," she says. "In this process, the architecture has been transformed into a hybrid by projected imagery. As a result, an intriguing phenomenon occurs: Light which is not physical creates a physicality."

While the animation component of Steinkamp's work is clearly central, the artist says she starts a project by contemplating the space where the artwork will be installed. She studies its shape and contours, and imagines ways to restructure the space. Sometimes she can create vertiginous spaces by projecting images that seem to have depth onto the floor; other times she dissects rooms with strips of imagery. The most exciting projects, however, tend to be the large-scale projections that completely fill a room, allowing viewers to get lost in the animation's layers.


Warping Waves

One of Steinkamp's recent projects is "A Sailor's Life Is a Life for Me," which she completed in 1998. Featuring brilliant pastelly colors in the shape of digital waves washing rhythmically over the walls, and the whoosh of water and the bleating of foghorns, the installation is breathtaking, and you feel your body swaying in motion with the waves as you stand in the gallery space.



In describing exactly how she made the animation, Steinkamp explains that she used a tool called a warp. "The warp is a primitive shape, in this case a sphere which sculpts the surface. I started with a flat plane. Then I positioned five or six warps bobbing along, creating waves. I generated eight wave strips reflecting different colors, and then I cut and pasted the strips into another scene. It makes a kind of collage--the image is a collage, and the multiple projections are collaged throughout the space."

Steinkamp dips into heady territory in explaining what intrigues her in all of this. "One of the ideas that I consistently experiment with is manipulating the Cartesian coordinates that make up 3-D graphics. I play with them in different ways, distorting them, messing them up, and basically changing the dimensions so that I'm no longer limited to a 3-D space. When you fool around with Cartesian coordinates you get to reconsider the relationship between the viewer and the subject. Subject and object are no longer a singular binary relationship."

And it's true! When you're inside one of Steinkamp's spaces, you don't feel disconnected--a subject in a world of objects--but instead caught up in an almost oceanic merging of self and space.


Adding Interactivity

Steinkamp's newest installation is currently on view at the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, through April 23. Titled STIFFS, the piece was made in collaboration with Jimmy Johnson, who worked with Steinkamp on the sound, and Sarah Johnson, who did the programming. This project illustrates Steinkamp's newest interest--interactivity.

"About a year ago," explains Steinkamp, "I was considering interactivity as another method to involve the viewer as part of the art work. Since then I've had the opportunity to work on two interactive projects, and I like contemplating the interaction and giving over more play to the viewer."

Steinkamp achieves interactivity by placing various sensors throughout the gallery that, when triggered, affect images or sounds in the piece. Sometimes the images seem to arc, as though your body's own electromagnetic output is affecting the world. "When the image arcs," says Steinkamp, "it's forming an image around you--the images are figurative, and the way they reiterate the figure seems to be another way of drawing people into the work."

Steinkamp is currently designing an interactive project for the children's section of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The piece will incorporate a swing set, and the projected images will move and tilt in response to the movement of children swinging. "Children really respond to my work," says Steinkamp. "They immediately realize that you get to play, and that's what I'm interested in--these projects open up the ability to play."

And in the process of playing in the field of the image, she hopes that we're transformed somewhat. "I think about the way we perceive our experiences and how these experiences can be transformative," she says. "I enjoy the feeling you get when you go to a movie and walk out feeling completely different, and I'd like my audience to have this kind of transformation in a physical space. I think a room can have this effect on you, and I use virtual imagery to push this effect."

February 2000
http://ifilm.com/main.taf