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Chris Salter

Artengine's ARTIFICIAL IMAGINATION

Chris Salter, an accomplished artist and Concordia University professor, shared insights into his groundbreaking work during a recent artist talk. Salter, operates at the intersection of new media technology and sensory experience, holding a dual role as a professor of Computation Arts and co-director of the Hexagon Network.

In his talk, Salter contrasted two divergent projects to illustrate varied approaches to immersive experiences. The first, a large-scale Hollywood venture called “Alien Zoo,” backed by industry heavyweights like Steven Spielberg, leverages virtual reality to create a fully immersive, sensorially rich environment. This pop-up experience, a testament to the evolving cinema landscape, offers a visceral blend of virtual and tactile engagement, aiming to redefine entertainment through advanced technology.

The second project, “Haptic Field,” which has been exhibited across Europe, embodies a mixed reality approach, focusing on sensory deprivation and enhancement. Participants navigate a controlled environment wearing suits that obscure vision and enhance other senses, moving through rooms that vary in sensory input. This project challenges traditional sensory perceptions and social interactions by altering how participants experience and interact with their environment and each other.

Salter discussed the profound psychological and physical reactions participants have to these environments, from feelings of terror to ecstasy. He emphasized the transformative potential of such experiences, where the removal of visual cues and the enhancement of other senses can alter human behavior and interaction. His work not only pushes the boundaries of artistic expression but also serves as a powerful commentary on the relationship between humans and technology-driven environments.

This presentation was part of the symposium ARTIFICIAL IMAGINATION which unites innovative artists engaged with emerging technologies. This focused on exploring and sharing their individual practices, experiences, and insights related to algorithms, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. It served as a platform for an enriching exchange of ideas between the artists and the audience, aiming to contribute a distinctive artistic viewpoint to the ongoing discussions about our evolving relationships with machine collaborators. Each session, including this one, highlighted how these technologies are being integrated and reflected in contemporary artistic processes, encouraging a broader understanding and appreciation of the creative potential of new digital tools.

As of July 2022, Christopher Lloyd Salter, until now Professor of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, will take over the Immersive Arts professorship from Christian Iseli, who will retire at the end of the Spring semester.

Christopher Lloyd Salter, an internationally known artist and the codirector of the Hexagram network for arts, culture, and technology, is the author of many publications, among which the acclaimed book Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance (MIT Press 2010).

There’s an incredibly wide range of experiences that people describe from terror to ecstasy to a kind of meditative state. I see my work as a relation between people and their environments and how those things are merging and interacting with each other. So here’s a little bit of it, just a short impression of this.

Imagine you step into a virtual world and you are part of it and you're part of the storyline, you're part of the experience.