BBC

Net artist Michael Atavar gives BBCi Arts an insight into his compelling online artworks. The interview was conducted via email – the following format reflects Michael's responses. RA: Your work seems to be the antithesis to all the speed and madness of the www. How did you begin to take control of the medium and slow it to your own pace? MA: I didn't have a plan. The first thing I made online was a letter [I'm probably referring to email delivery, which seemed at the time to be a complete novelty – a piece of magic]. Just simple pages. With links. So that became the blueprint for all the works that came after: www sites, Virtual Reality, e-says. One thing to say is that my work is very slow moving. But it needs the messiness and white noise of the www environment in order to make something that runs contrary to it. Also (just a note). You can't take control of the medium. LOL! It's already beyond our control and that's what makes it interesting. Just accept what it gives you and try to make something with it. That's all. RA: What's the process of creating these journeys of discovery and what does the internet user gain from embarking on them? MA: That's hard to say. I think it comes out of what I would call the emotionalcomputer™, a feeling for the user, a kind of sympathy between user and screen, a sort of intimacy. Also, an abstract quality, of light, that's only available on the computer monitor, just pure colour, straight into the living space. Out of these two qualities – intimacy and light – the work comes (how they are actually made is still obscure to me). But a journey is a good way to put it. Often they are journeys into ideas, or form, or just a journey is enough. The first page is literally a step. RA: Your works act as conversation between you and the user in an unusually personal way – were you surprised by the sensuality of your work? MA: I'm glad you use the word sensuality. I think it's very underestimated. I hope that my work creates atmosphere, welcoming, presence, being there; allowing the user to stay for a long time. And some other things – the ability to say anything and to just go as it says something endlessly. Actually I just finished a Virtual Reality work .sciis and I think that VR is very sensual. It seems to me that we've dreamed up the technical possibilities of Virtual Reality in order to 
enjoy the sensuality of open space – a freedom that's becoming hard to find in our real- life lives. Sensuality, physical presence, being there. In the digital environment these are the things that are going to become more and more important to us. RA: How did you get into net art? Did you have any formal training? MA: No, not really. I usually learn enough HTML to make each piece (and I'm lucky to have enthusiastic collaborators). I used to make 3-D works that were live so I suppose my work and interest in time and 3-D virtual and kinetic spaces goes back a long way, twenty years. RA: Do you work with other digital artists? MA: I work with programmers (who are also artists). RA: What/who are your influences? MA: The things that influence my work are very small, insignificant in a way, like a particular kind of light or atmosphere in the city. A plastic bag blowing down the road, some street lights, the evening sky. Walking down the stairs the other day in my block at 5pm, the sun low down was coming in through the front door and creating a block of iridescent colour on the floor. I stood and looked at it for a while. And it's these kinds of small things that come through in my work. Otherwise a lot of painters, quite a long 
list. Recently I've been looking again at the American colorfield paintings of Barnett Newman. He's an influence. RA: Do you show your work in traditional galleries? MA: I recently showed .sciis as a large projection at the ICA in London, in a gallery. I'm very interested in data projecting my work, very big, so that the user can actually walk into the monitor, like it's a landscape, with life-size physical representations of themselves on screen. RA: Do you have any favourite creative websites? MA: I really like screensavers (works that only live on screen). So, even though it's obvious and commercial, I would say After Dark. In the early 90s Ben Haller made two screensavers for Berkeley Systems, Satori and Rose that I really like. I'd love to do a commercial screensaver or a project with my kind of slowness for a commercial site, bank, a supermarket chain, an airline. RA: What is your next project? MA: I'm making another interactive Virtual Reality project that I hope will be shown online and also in an electronic CAVE™ (a 3-D immersive environment) [this became iamme (2003)]. It follows on from .sciis and uses natural forms and imagery that can be manipulated by the user in a very kinaesthetic ways. And yes, it's another journey. Thanks. Rain Ashford BBCi Arts for BBC 01/02