Resisting the narcissistic conflation of vision and domination in Western culture that Luce Irigaray first diagnosed in Speculum, and which philosopher Stephen Pfohl(1992:72) evocatively summarises as the ‘flight from a world of fleshy contradictions into the inner curvature of an eye/"I" that knows no others’, in Warm Worlds… I wanted to use the hacked headset as a tool to create the conditions for an immersive experience within our bodies, rather than without it. In this work, the eye/”I” is always grounded within a body that feels its location within strange surroundings, responds to shapes, sounds and colours as they emerge around it, and is compelled to movement in both actual and virtual space-time. I wanted this work to touch other senses beyond the visual—to be,in the words of Luce Irigaray, ‘experienced more than it is seen’ (2019:93).This desire compelled the expansion of virtual storyworlds from within the headset out
into the gallery space through interactive painting objects, projected light, andspatialized and haptic sound.
Anna Bunting-Branch, "Practising the Difference: Reading Luce Irigaray with FeministScience Fiction," practice-related research degree, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, 2022
Central to the award winning installation Warm Worlds and Otherwise is META (2019), an experimental 360-degree animation transforming Anna Bunting-Branch’s hand-painted characters, props and backdrops into an immersive virtual storyworld.The work is underscored by ambient soundtracks created by artist Aliyah Hussain to be in sync within and without the Virtual World. Providing a continuous immersivesoundscape, as you move between the different storyworlds you become Othered byputting on different virtual skins - human and nonhuman - which you see when you look down at your virtual body.
In Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's work Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism, published in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Vol. 4, No. 3, Sep., 1998, pp. 469-488), the author explores cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism. In this work, de Castro posits that masking in the Amazonian perspective aims to not so much conceal a human essence beneath an
animal appearance but rather to activate the powers of a different body. The animal clothes that shamans use to travel the cosmos are not fantasies but nstruments: they are akin to diving equipment, or space suits. The intention when donning a wetsuit is to be able to function like a fish, to breathe underwater, not to conceal oneself under a strange covering. This is akin to the transformation of being
which occurs every year at J’Ouvert, the sacred night Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago. It suggests a distinction between a universal, human-like essence shared by all living beings and the variable outward appearance specific to each species, perceived more
as changeable and removable clothing than a fixed attribute. The concept of 'clothing and or masking' becomes a significant expression of metamorphosis, illustrating the prevalent belief in transformation across various entities—Gentleman Jim or Gentleman Devil who wears a top hat and a scissor-style tailcoats, La Diablesse, a beautiful woman in a long dress with one foot like a cow’s; spirits, the deceased and beings shifting between human, plant and animal states—in the richly transformative world envisioned
by Carib ontologies.
into the gallery space through interactive painting objects, projected light, andspatialized and haptic sound.
Anna Bunting-Branch, "Practising the Difference: Reading Luce Irigaray with FeministScience Fiction," practice-related research degree, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, 2022
Central to the award winning installation Warm Worlds and Otherwise is META (2019), an experimental 360-degree animation transforming Anna Bunting-Branch’s hand-painted characters, props and backdrops into an immersive virtual storyworld.The work is underscored by ambient soundtracks created by artist Aliyah Hussain to be in sync within and without the Virtual World. Providing a continuous immersivesoundscape, as you move between the different storyworlds you become Othered byputting on different virtual skins - human and nonhuman - which you see when you look down at your virtual body.
In Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's work Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism, published in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Vol. 4, No. 3, Sep., 1998, pp. 469-488), the author explores cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism. In this work, de Castro posits that masking in the Amazonian perspective aims to not so much conceal a human essence beneath an
animal appearance but rather to activate the powers of a different body. The animal clothes that shamans use to travel the cosmos are not fantasies but nstruments: they are akin to diving equipment, or space suits. The intention when donning a wetsuit is to be able to function like a fish, to breathe underwater, not to conceal oneself under a strange covering. This is akin to the transformation of being
which occurs every year at J’Ouvert, the sacred night Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago. It suggests a distinction between a universal, human-like essence shared by all living beings and the variable outward appearance specific to each species, perceived more
as changeable and removable clothing than a fixed attribute. The concept of 'clothing and or masking' becomes a significant expression of metamorphosis, illustrating the prevalent belief in transformation across various entities—Gentleman Jim or Gentleman Devil who wears a top hat and a scissor-style tailcoats, La Diablesse, a beautiful woman in a long dress with one foot like a cow’s; spirits, the deceased and beings shifting between human, plant and animal states—in the richly transformative world envisioned
by Carib ontologies.