The Implicit Order is a multi-sensory VR installation about FOMO (fear of missing out), produced for the Montag Modus’ Ecology of Attention series. The installation connects analog and digital spaces via sensors and actuators - responsible for moving and controlling a mechanism or system - with use of an MQTT protocol; for example, the data from the breathing sensor in one room may control the light sources in the other rooms of the installation. At the same time, participants in the digital realm can also influence the analog space by triggering actuators such as fans, which can be turned on and off via the multiplayer platform. In this multiplayer game, the audience can log in from anywhere in the world through their browser and interact, communicate, and explore with each other through digital avatars.
The Implicit Order pursues the question of how to generate collective experience in times of physical distance and travel restrictions. What might a performative artwork, one which also functions globally and not only takes place in front of a screen but also involves the body and its senses, look like? And how can this generate not only a collective experience but also a more lasting exchange in these distance-based formats?
The on-site installation was divided into different rooms. One room was a meditation room using breathing as a practice against FOMO anxiety. This room also made use of a breathing sensor, and the breath of the visitor influenced the virtual environment (causing avatar bubbles to grow and shrink) as well as several actuators such as the light in one of the other exhibition rooms. There was also a VR station connected to the online multiplayer game. It was also possible to influence the analog rooms from the digital world, for example by switching a virtual fan on and off in order to control an analog fan in the meditation room.
How does it work? The Implicit Order is built on Unity with Blender—Unity sends MQTT messages (protocol) from the multiplayer environment to an MQTT broker (distribution program) on a cloud-based server. ESPs (Wifi-enabled microcontrollers) then convert the MQTT messages—in our case into DMX signals—which allows different actuators to be controlled via a dimmer switch.
The online multiplayer game can still be accessed via http://www.divert.space
2020, VR Installation
The work was presented at Ecology of Attention #1: FOMO, and Ecology of Attention #2: Ignition Cycle
Janne Nora Kummer works as a director, performer, and media artist. She teaches and researches in the Spiel und Objekt MA program at the HfS Ernst Busch on the effects of digitalization on the perception and representation of bodies. Her research areas include techno/cyberfeminism, new materialism/other-than-human agency and anthropocene discourse. In her artistic practice, she is currently developing interactive multimedia installations that serve as interfaces between analog and digital experiential spaces and organic and inorganic life-worlds.
In addition, she is continually refining a contemporary artistic practice that utilizes the subversive and creative potential of new technologies. Her focus is on the development of alternative narratives and narrative formats that address the complexity of a technologized, digitalized and globalized world and that operate beyond the structures of established power mechanisms.
She is a fellow of the interdisciplinary collaborative project DiGiTaL—Arts and Science and an alumna of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
Anton Krause studied direction at the ADK in Ludwigsburg, after which he worked for three years for the Thalia-Theater in Hamburg. Since 2018, he has been studying within the framework of the Spiel und Objekt MA program at the HfS Ernst Busch. He works at the intersection of theater, games, and installation. He is a core member of the “anne&ich” collective and also collaborates with machina eX and doublelucky productions.