pop~TOPIC Stahl Stenslies work in Cyber SM

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Many things interest pop~TARTS about Stahl Stenslie: his effort as an artist to build a new body, to discover new possibilities to relate across time and space, will certainly revolutionize and ultimately utilize tele-tactility for a useful purpose. But this energy, which seeks to find that new frontier for wo/man, recognizes that:

the body as we have come to know it does not longer exist; ...only ...new technologies allow us to perceive and experience it in radically new ways.

Stahl Stenslie

If successful, then we need not fear aging, wrinkles or impotency any longer. Nor will we feat the distances demanded in modern life. Like the tele-office, tele-games and immersive communities on-line, the body suits designed by Stahl Stenslie will be familiar to us, and will allow us to transcend our physical impairments, and enjoy physical contact with our desired partners - where ever they may be.

Media Art Aggregate

At the discussions Media Art Aggregates, oganized by Knowbotic Research mem_braneand curated by Andreas Broeckmann, V2 Rotterdam Stahl Stenslie explained some of the working conditions for his highly specialized and technically advanced interface projects. Stahl will also take part at the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival DEAF 96in Rotterdam.

On July 5, 1996 in Cologne, at a meeting called Media Art Aggregates, pop~TART Margarete Jahrmann joined the discussion with Pit Schulz, Nettime-Moderator Berlin, Nils Röller, Theoretician of the Art School of Cologne, Knowbotic Research, and also the Gallerist Michael Chrome of the Galerie Schipper-Krome, Cologne. Stahl has shown several installations at the Galerie Schipper-Krome, for instance in 1994, during Art Cologne the prototype of his biomachine system was presented.

Art as applied research for virtual reality communication systems

Stenslie defines himself mainly as a high tech artist with well done, poetic works reflecting human and machine relations. His develoment work for SGI applicationis has caused interest in art as well as in the industry context. He could be an optimal example for the circumstance that art can develop experimental systems with a surplus for industry and society. His only disadvantage in comparison with cyberslacker projects without compromise is that he is always on the border of dependancy on funders and sponsors and for industrial hard and software. Even if he is developing his own software, together with colleagues. This problem is a very interesting issue for techno-art, which became very obvious at the mem_brane discussion.

The Refrigerator Problem

The refrigerator problematic - exhibition makers must spent a lot of money for machines, therefore, they have to reduce the artists fee. For new productions, this is a very difficult situation.
Stahl is also working on an applied research in his job at the Norwegian Telecom. He is developing communication systems in VR environments in interaction with graphic data representation for platforms such a PC and comparable low end technologies. He sees this as a technical challenge, to use -for example- a Pentium 200 as a visualization system in the hardware configuration. The DATA WORLD he is developing, maintains a maximum of 4- 6000 polygons, thereby transforming a sophisticated SGI concept as a cheap visualization.