Performative holography: The hologram and the experience with its image

Abstract

Holographic works can be considered interactive, although they do not cover all possible types of interaction. The exploration of the holographic image invites the self-knowledge of the relativity of our perception and, consequently, of the vision of our cognitive universe. My research has been about the aesthetics of light, as an entity in itself, and how the viewer interacts with it; holography is one of the media that I have used in this process. Developments in the techniques of producing pulsed holograms and holographic stereograms have combined to provide high-quality three-dimensional movement and illusions. In the new era of holographic image and the creation of digital holograms, imaging systems are being developed to capture dimensional content and also possible software to edit it. In this paper, the creative process and the experimental techniques of digital holographic image are analysed from the point of view of the visual arts. In view of these digital holograms, attention is drawn to a set of situations, which require a global activity from the participant who is in the space of the work. Through the movement of the participant's body and the time taken, a set of relationships is established between the real space, in which the participant moves, and the virtual space of the digital holographic image, shaping a series of actions that transform what is perceived and become the specific performance of each participant. That dynamic experience of seeing a digital hologram where the image is not static, but in a non-stop transformation, questions us about the act of seeing. Understanding holography not to “reproducing” the world but opening new formal play and unexpected imagery, perhaps could be a land to develop new ways of seeing ourselves, the world and what we take to be “natural”.