Dedicated Control Mechanism

Dedicated Control Mechanism is an exploration of the role of spatial orientation in the construction of consciousness. It functions psychologically to engage the viewer with a striking human face as it rotates through 360 degrees. The viewer may be engaged by the stare of the face, the way light plays across it, or its unusual appearance. The viewer may even recognize it belongs to Mime, the smith from Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen, watching as Siegfried forges his sword. In any case, there should be a kind of pulling of attention in two different directions. The sound, slowed down and looping forward and backwards, adds a further element: the paradox of reversibility. V2N turns portraiture into intellectual history. It creates a parallel use of visual morphing over time and transformative spatial structuring of sound. The result of this combined experiment in form and content is a paradoxical experience: the viewer realizes something is happening, but can't quite track it on an experiential level because it is happening so slowly, like a natural process. This glacially slow approach runs counter to current trends in media which seek to maximize speed, to overpower consciousness. My aim is to induce self-reflection. Contrary to what Mr. Virilio has told us, speed isn't everything. (Keith Sanborn)