EMPTY VELOCITY 2000
http://www.turbulence.org/works/empty
Moving Image Gallery

Commissioned as a web project for Turbulence.org in 1999, Empty Velocity was later installed at Moving Imaging Gallery as a web based installation the following year. Mimicking the lobby of an airport, viewers gazed with headphones at a projection of the live site while one viewer navigated. A processed video of tai-chi mixed with graphical layouts of airport charts looped on a screen. Sumi ink paintings of various types of body energy paths were painted on airport emergency cards mounted on the wall.

Empty Velocity is a project dedicated to the digital nomad experiencing emptiness, impermanence and ubiquity. Readings of Taoism, Buddhist philosophy, and contemporary discourse on sociological effects of the technological era supported the development of the site. Charts of airport layouts are the foundation of each screen in which text and animation are overlaid. Taoist text is quoted and paralleled to an action or experience of the digital individual. "By not setting foot outside the door, one knows the whole world...”, "Moving in one direction simultaneously aware of other possibilities...", "Open and closed simultaneously".

Images of transport accidents are interspersed in the background to illustrate the Yin and Yang of all things in the world including movement and interactivity. Speed a reoccurring image throughout the site is balanced with captured images of tai-chi movement. By combining these forces of technology and the wisdom of emptiness the site ultimately describes the contradictory nature of life.