Interacting through art by Matthew Hawn

“In most of my works, like sculptures and photographs, I need the wall as a support or a point of reference,” says artist Margret Wibmer. Now Wibmer is challenging herself, and the audience, to move beyond such points of reference in a new interactive installation, appropriately title Off The Wall , which debuts in March at De Beyerd Museum in Breda, the Netherlands. Wibmer calls Off The Wall “a virtual reality opera. ” In truth, the piece is harder to pin down – it mixes digital video representations of  the artist as a kind of virtual sculpture with unique three-dimensional soundscapes, both of which are manipulated by the audience. To create this unusual interactive sculpture, Wibmer was captured on digital video wearing a yellow rubber suit that obscured her identity. She was videotaped from all angles. “The suit functions as a second skin, a protective layer, a sealer and a wrapping.” she says. “It also works as the interface between the public and the virtual space.” Wibmer’s collaborator, Austrian composer Günther Zechberger, contributed prerecorded sound clips that create a three-dimensional sound environment around the audience. Members of the audience, meanwhile, become a part of the performance as they simply move through the exhibition, manipulating the video and audio. “The public plays the side parts but also can take the function of the director, the sage designer, the conductor and the choreographer, ” Wibmer explains. Wibmer who lived in Austria and New York City before settling in Amsterdam, says she has long been interested in exploring movement and sound.  When she was an art student in Vienna in 1982, she made clay disks and then listened tot eh crashes tehy created when she threw them against the wall in an industrial complex. She photographed the results and presented them as archeological findings. Now, with Off The Wall, Wibmer continues to explore the relationship between sound and image, using high-tech tools. She is also working on CD-ROM and Web (www.off-the-wall.at) versions of the installation, which iwll allow users to mnaipulate Wibmer in her suit. “The text [of the Opera} is replaced by pure image, movement and sound, “she says. “I consider this virtual reality opera a case study for human behaviour with new communication technolgies.”

– Matthew Hawn.