Consulting The Oracles: Analog | Digital Cleromancy, 2017-2018

20-23min, 1920 x 1080 HD

 

Consulting The Oracles is a collaborative performance of Leslie Rollins & Eric Souther that engages multiple agencies of the I Ching through interactions within analog/digital sound and visual systems. During the performance, Leslie manipulates and counts with traditional yarrow stalks to consult the oracle, a meditative process which in time, builds one of sixty-four possible hexagrams.

 

The performance uses an analog-video synthesizer to enhance and expand video feedback (created with a video camera and CRT TV), which is partially controlled by an infrared sensing array placed in front of Leslie during the consultation. His analog stream is mapped onto three-dimensional shapes of Chinese ideographs associated with the trigrams and hexagrams. These digital generated shapes are manipulated in real-time via a hand tracking sensor. The hand and digital form share the same X, Y, & Z spatial relationships combining in organic live animation coaxed from Eric's performance. This animation is composited on top of the consultation via a web camera allowing for digital and physical entanglements as the process enfolds