Lick Pick Kick
2021
VR installation
4×4 m, sculptural furniture in fake leather, ‘wands’ 3D printed on wall, desk with Gaming PC og HTC vive, VR session approx. 8 minutes.
An Extended Reality installation that deals with the school and the classroom as an institution. I focus on the phenomenological experience of Virtual Reality (VR), the duality of our perception of the environment with a focus on the visually recognizable in VR and the tactile IRL. The technology is used as a tool but also an analogy that the experience of one’s own body and identity is defined by external standards. By using ‘gamification’ (‘quest’ and ‘spells’) and by manipulating and sensory processes in ‘everyday scenarios’, I invite you to see these structures we relate to, in new ways.
«The physical states of the brain are closely connected to the social posture of the body, the way in which they fit into the space of the community»
Morphing intelligence. From IQ measurement to artificial brains. Cathrine Malabou. 2019
The script that guides you, uses Maren’s usual method of blending quotes borrowed from a wide range of sources, including science-fiction, games, and popular science. In the same vein, the title is based on research in neurological science. In a study by Olaf Hauk, Ingrid Johnsrude, and Friedemann Pulvermüller (2004) fMRI was used to examine how the brain operates being exposed to passive reading tasks of worlds like Lick, Pick and Kick. These action words activated areas along the motor strip that either were directly adjacent to or overlapped with areas activated by actual movement of the tongue, fingers, or feet. This means that when we read a word like Kick, we activate the same areas in the brain as we use when we do the motion with our foot.
The VR work is made in collaboration with Breach VR and the sound is recorded and produced in the UK by Soundcuts. The voice-over actor is George Weightman. The Interaction objects are made in collaboration with Simen Brekke.
Lick Pick Kick installed at TEKS detail images below
