Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.11.2016, Blaðsíða 28

In 1935, the American author Stanley
G. Weinbaum wrote what many be-
lieve to be the first fictional model for
what we now know as virtual reality.
“Pygmalion’s Spectacles” features a
small “gnomelike” professor with a
Berkeleyan slant who creates a pair of
goggles that submerges its users in “a
movie that gives one sight and sound
[...] taste, smell, and touch. [...] You are
in the story, you speak to the shadows
and they reply, and instead of being
on a screen, the story is all about you,
and you are in it." The first US mili-
tary flight simulators emerged around
the same time, and variations on the
theme of total immersion were pro-
moted by gaming enthusiasts like Sega
over the next couple of decades. In 1987
the term “virtual reality” was coined
by Jaron Lanier, founder of the Visual
Programming Lab (interestingly, he
also developed one of the first head-
mounted displays, which he dubbed the
“EyePhone”). In practice, the develop-
ment of virtual reality has been driven
primarily by military and gamer inter-
ests. It was not until a couple of years
ago that the medium began to invade
the realm of pop culture. Filmmaker
Andrew T. Huang is on the front lines.
Tell don’t show
Andrew hates the colours of the south-
west United States. Born and raised in
Los Angeles, California, he was always
put off by the desert oranges, browns,
tans, and turquoises that surround-
ed him. It’s a surprise, then, that his
breakthrough short film ‘Solipsist’
(2012) is drenched in these tones. Then
again, there is a lot that is surprising
about this film. ‘Solipsist’ was a way
for Andrew “to confront ideas that I
thought I hated,” as he says. When he
graduated with a degree in fine arts
from the University of Southern Cali-
fornia in 2007, he immediately found
success as a more commercial direc-
tor (his references include contacts
like Lexus and J.J.Abrams). By 2011,
Andrew was ready to be his own client.
He scrapped his film reel and began to
explore more personal subjects. Sub-
jects like human connection, bodily
form, and colour palettes.
It began with puppets. “I really en-
joy puppetry, because it allows you
to perform while hiding at the same
time,” Andrew explains. “You can feel
the humanness and the locomotion of
a human body but you don’t actually
have to show it. A lot of my work has to
do with hiding yourself but showing
yourself at the same time.” It is not
far-fetched to draw the line between
Andrew’s beginnings in puppetry and
his more recent endeavors into virtual
reality. Both require the imagination
and a technical ability to create entire
worlds—worlds and characters that
reference the human form, without
necessarily showing it.
The strangeness of one’s own skin
recurs throughout Andrew’s work. “I
am really interested in demon posses-
sion,” he says, “the idea of being ridden
by something else and your body being
a vessel.” In 2013 he directed the video
for Sigur rós’s track “Brennisteinn,” a
seven-minute exorcism—brutal and
beautiful—coloured in black and white
and neon yellow. In “Family”—one
of Andrew’s virtual reality pieces for
Björk Digital—viewers dissect and
resew Björk’s open heart wound. In
his most recent short film, a personal
project called ‘Interstice’, Andrew casts
his dancers in a silky red veil which he
describes as “a self-contained magic
trick: a shapeshifting second skin load-
ed with potential energy to manipulate
identities and dimensions [or] other-
wise be rendered immeasurable in its
absence.”
All the feels
Given that his films delve into the diffi-
culty and grace of the human form, his
recent collaborations with Björk seem
like a natural union. “I’ve always loved
Björk’s work because she is not afraid
Art 28
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 17 — 2016
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Words
PARKER
YAMASAKI
Art
ANDREW
T. HUANG
The New Soundscape
Andrew T. Huang’s Virtual Realities
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