‘Deviced’: The Transformation of a Tiny (Virtual) Cosmogony
This text proposes to discuss the sojourn and transformation of a tiny artwork created in the metaverse – a virtual construct that is so small that it easily fits onto the fingertip of an avatar; so small indeed that it cannot be seen with the naked avatar eye. As such, the object is one that can only be scrutinized by using a device that stands in lieu of a microscope, in this instance the metaverse viewer’s camera, which can be used to zoom into the object at a micro level. However, even this method is precarious in that it requires considerable experience in using the software, given that when used as a zooming device at such ambitious levels the camera tends to lose focus and/or tremble, turning the pinning down of the viewpoint into an onerous undertaking. Thus, given that the viewing of it seems to largely depend upon a documentation through video and/or screenshots that can only be accomplished through the usage of a specialized device, the project has been called ‘Deviced.’
The undertaking takes its inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges’s story of ‘The Aleph,’ which revolves around a wondrous artifact, a miniscule shining sphere that is “one of the points in space that contains all other points… [ ] …Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping or confusion.”
My personal journey with ‘the Aleph’ started out as a tiny solar system that was created in a virtual world, the metaverse of the OpenSim. This tiny architecture was named ‘Azimuth,’ in accordance with some of the Cartesian signifiers that I wished to deconstruct by bringing them together to make up a decentralized planetary system that nevertheless revolved around a centralized solar diagram. The idea was to turn something that we automatically tend to think of as infinitely large into something that was very small, and thereby establish the very contradiction that lies at the heart of ‘the Aleph.’ However, this initial construct was soon replaced by a second one which was re-named as ‘Cypher,’ since a grasp of ‘the Aleph’ seemed to be best possible through an acknowledgement of it as an ‘enigma,’ as a presence that defies definition and description – indeed a non-presence, that may however yet be grasped through a visual conglomeration of ‘code’ as an identifier of enigma.
The extended text, for which this submission is made, will investigate these changes; how the usage of something as predictably concrete as a solar system in the visualization of a thing that is as complex as ‘the Aleph’ became transformed into an investigation of ‘code’ as a basal, life-giving presence that is nevertheless abstract, enigmatic, hermetic, and complex in its essence – a thing to be pondered upon and deciphered, a system that does not reveal itself readily to the uninitiated. Which may well be what lies at the essence of ‘the Aleph’ also – the talismanic object whose very perfection seems to point at the perfection of ‘code.’
Elif Ayiter, aka. Alpha Auer, is a designer, educator and researcher whose creative interests are based in three dimensional online virtual worlds and their avatars, as well as in developing and implementing hybrid educational methodologies between art & design and computer science, teaching full time at Sabanci University, Istanbul. Her texts have been published at academic journals such as the Leonardo Electronic Almanac, the Journal of Consciousness Studies, and Technoetic Arts and she has authored several book chapters in edited academic anthologies. She has presented creative as well as research output at venues including ISEA2011, Siggraph, Creativity and Cognition, and Computational Aesthetics and Cyberworlds; and is the chief editor of the academic journal Metaverse Creativity with Intellect Journals, UK.