Only the Envelope: artistic interpretations of eye-tracking imagery

Vahri McKenzie

Only the Envelope (OTE) combines several research methodologies to investigate the ways we share personal information in the public sphere. This exposition presents video and video stills as primary artefacts in a discussion about a live artwork that dramatises the act of looking. In a live art installation, a ‘scientist’ invited visitors to be involved in an ‘experiment’ — namely, viewing a film while wearing a wireless eye-tracking device. This surveillance technology generated data about viewing behaviour. However, of greater interest was investigating how engaging with OTE as creative arts research led to unanticipated findings. Also interesting were the new audiovisual documents created through a re-enactment of the visitor’s experience, in which the eye-tracking device was redeployed as a head-mounted camera. In the artistic research context of OTE, the re-enacted videos led to new data being collected and analysed, leading to novel insights. These show that OTE’s ironic performance of science, employing the coercive power of complex technologies, maintained rather than undermined the compliant behaviour of participants. At the same time, the artist’s re-enactment of the visitor’s experience makes it possible to imagine, represent, and discuss such an act of subversion by illuminating the complexity of viewing behaviour when considered within the politics of the gaze and representation. This complexity is a reflection both of the emergent nature of a process-driven creative arts research enquiry, and of the work’s investigation of data retention.

Conclusion

OTE enacts a version of the twenty-first-century social contract in which participants are offered a free experience if they consent to surveillance, and in this exposition, we interpret audiovisual documents generated by eye-tracking technology within an artistic research context. Rather than challenging expected findings regarding viewing behaviour, eye tracking is used to create an encounter between viewers of art and the apparent power of technology. The project’s contribution to new knowledge emerged out of process-oriented arts research methodologies — namely, through the deployment of the eye-tracking as a head-mounted camera to re-enact the viewer’s experience, using the artist as ‘participant’. This process created new audiovisual documents that extended the work’s artistic outcomes, which could then be interpreted as data within the research project. As an unanticipated outcome of the live art installation, the artist’s re-enacted videos re-stage the encounter between artwork, viewer, and surveillance analyst.

By reframing these documents as primary artefacts — that is, as artwork — new viewers add another layer to this drama of looks: looking at the analyst looking at how people look at art, through the eyes of the participant who is asked to look at people in a work of art. These outcomes show that the ironic performance of science employing the coercive power of technologies maintained rather than undermined the compliant behaviour of participants, a finding supported by the interpretation of images presented here. At the same time, the artist’s re-enactment of the participant experience makes it possible to imagine, represent, and discuss such an act of subversion by illuminating the complexity of viewing behaviour when considered within the politics of the gaze and representation. This complexity is a reflection both of the emergent nature of a process-driven artistic research enquiry and of the work’s theme: digital surveillance and sharing personal information in the public sphere.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of research assistant and performer Rachelle Rechichi; all participants; Edith Cowan University’s eResearch Coordinator Heather Boyd; and Edith Cowan University’s School of Arts and Humanities, and the eResearch Technology Funding Scheme, for financial support.

Tip

Tip