On November 8th, 1999, I voluntarily died a symbolic electronic death, abruptly severing contact with friends known and unknown, family members, strangers, and enemies. After settling myself from the shock, I set about creating a eulogy for myself, a space which would serve to comfort those who knew me, as well as introduce myself to those who never would.

In this collection of pieces, I am dealing with issues of presence, as well as with the concepts of personal value and space. In each piece I try to examine an issue in terms of a summing up, the idea of which fascinates and frightens me. In a society where an ever-increasing portion of our lives are recorded and catalogued, it could become feasible to find the sum total of an individual’s accomplishments, compare them to that individual's intentions or goals, and perhaps even determine a relative personal worth. Also important to the overall project is the idea of physical space, especially as a meeting ground and basis for interaction. Simply by constructing a virtual space, it is suggested that physical space is becoming less relevant, but the tone of the work is meant to be reactionary to this concept. By forcing all of my personal interactions to lie within the physical realm for a time, effectively shrinking down my presence while reinforcing the importance of my body and surroundings, I put myself in an interesting position to examine these topics. The overall work is meant to progress not only in depth of topics covered, but also to progress in the extent to which I become aware of the effects of alienating myself what I believe to be a very immersive culture.

References and Influences:
Neil Postman- "Technopoly"
Kurt Vonnegut- "Player Piano"
Red Monkey- "Difficult is Easy"
Kevin Kelley and Adam Heilbrun- "Virtual Reality-An Interview With Jaron Lanier"
Paul Virilio- "The Lost Dimension"