Title:
The Garden
Studies for the Garden
Artist(s):
Tamas Waliczky
Brief description of the work:
In 'The Garden' Tamas Waliczky created a VR environment of a waterdrop perspective of a child playing in a garden. The child takes her center of the world with her as she moves. When objects enter her world they appear larger, when they leave they appear smaller.
Materials, dimensions, duration:
"The Garden" (21st Century Amateur Film)", 1992, Computer animation, video installation, 4' 27"

"Studies for the Garden", 1992, Computer animation, 4' 24"
Location (venue & dates, public/ private):
Completed in 1992, available at ZKM Karlsruhe archive
Audience information (size, mode of participation):
Viewer(s) can observe the changing perspective as the video plays. Peggy Phelan writes about the space between first and second experience, the performer as a medium to relay an experience to an audience and through re-enactment to remind them of a first experience, a mirror in which to see themselves. In 'The Garden', the child enacts her world by touching, smelling, exploring, and by doing so, she draws us into an experiential world where "the space can literally change, becoming a mirror of the user's subjectivity." (Manovich, 269)
Other information (reviews, collaborators, funders):
Collaboration with Anna Szepesi, programmed by Imre Kovats, music composed by Tibor Szemzoe
Floorplan, scheme:
 
Visual/ audio-visual reference:
Key theme(s):
Awareness of illusion of consciousness and limitation of perception
Further context:

In 'Studies for the Garden' (1992, ZKM) we are able to follow the making of this artefact, and to watch the construction of Waliczky's waterdrop-perspective. By frequently switching between the child's perspective and the adult observer view, we compare the distorted perspective with the way we usually see the world.

'The Garden' explores a world where the division between subject and objects has not yet occurred. In the video we can observe a child's experience "for whom the world does not yet have an objective existence" (Manovich, p. 88). Using the waterdrop perspective Waliczky succeeds in visualing the connectedness to our surroundings, which remains otherwise inaccessible to us.

Links and further references:
Scepesi Anna, 'Tamas Waliczky: The Forest' essay published on 'artintact 2' (DVD archive), ZKM 1995/ 2002
http://www.c3.hu/scca/butterfly/Waliczky/project.html