Gazing Figures

The photo is filled by a person who is wearing a dark, self-made Virtual Reality Suit that consists of a hood for the head in which a VR headset is hidden, a large shirt that has webcams attached to it, and leggins. They are crouched down, with one leg extended and one leg holding their weight. Their arms are reaching towards the sides of the image. Webcams are attached to their wrists, and to both knees.

Performance and installation, with Jasper Meiners, 2018. Photos by Mario Strahl

Gazing Figures is a performance piece in which the artists wear self-constructed VR suits powered by Raspberry Pi Computers that shows them live webcam imagery recorded from cameras attached to their wrists and knees. This multi-eyed perception of space is accompanied by a nonhuman companion, the jumping spider Phidippus Regius.

A performer wearing a Virtual Reality suit is sitting on the ground and exploring visual input directed towards a VR headset in a dark hood via webcams that are attached to their wrists and knees. Their legs are turned slightly outwards to the left and their right hand in positioned in between the legs. Above them, a video screen attached to a large staircase shows the four video streams that the performer can see through their headset. These images are blurred in the photo.

As part of the installation of Gazing Figures, a terrarium is positioned in front of a large staircase in the exhibition space. The terrarium is placed upon a black, high pedestal. Within it, two pieces of tree bark provide housing to a jumping spider. The spider is not visible.

A jumping spider is photographed from the front so that its two front legs and four of its eyes are visible. It is sitting on a piece of tree bark that is positioned diagonally in a terrarium. The spider seems to have something in its fangs, perhaps a fly.