Residency Artist from UK. Paul Sermon's HEADROOM

Venue: Xinyi Public Assembly Hall, Taipei

Dates and Times: April 4th to 20th 2006, 9.00am to 5.00pm

Paul Sermon's work in the field of telematic arts explores the emergence of a user-determined narrative by bringing remote participants together in a shared telepresent environment. Through the use of live chroma-keying and videoconferencing technology, two public rooms and their audiences are joined in a virtual duplicate that turns into a mutual, visual space of activity.

HEADROOM is a juxtaposition of Paul's experiences in Taipei, between the way people live and the way people escape, as an analogy between the solitude presence in the bedroom space below and the divine telepresent aspirations in the Internet space above. This installation is also referencing Roy Ascott's essay, "Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace?" (1990), where Ascott addressed a common concern amongst critics that technology would dehumanise the arts. But if telematic art had the potential to embody love, it would not be paradoxical for art to be electronic and simultaneously serve humanist principles. Reminiscent of Nam June Paik's early Buddha TV installations, HEADROOM is a reflection of the self within the telepresent space, as both the viewer and the performer of this intimate encounter. The television 'screen' is transformed into a stage or a portal between the causes and effects that simultaneously take place in the minds of the solitary viewers.