February 13, 2006
Perfectly Normal:
Video Therapy Dispenser
PerfectlyNormal is an interactive web based video project that presents a working model for a virtual therapist using the visual and written language of both the pharmaceutical industry and alternative medicine. Based on the user's description of their current mental state a "diagnostic video therapy dispenser" offers one of fourteen short video therapies. The therapies were created modeled on actual current and past healing techniques pulled from a number of different practices.
PerfectlyNormal toys with the conventions of both the western healthcare industry and it's rival the alternative medicine industry. By presenting video art in the ironic guise as therapy, it demonstrates some similarities between art and therapy. Both affect physical and mental states in unintended or unforeseen ways.
PerfectlyNormal is a web-based project commissioned by Soil Digital Media Suite, Neutral Ground Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Michael Stecky is a composer and new media artist whose videos have screened nationally and internationally, most recently at the Microwave Media Arts Festival in Hong Kong. His video work will next be seen at the "Supernovas" exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and at the MAI, in Montreal during "Mini-Projo", Festival of Projection.
Posted by jo at February 13, 2006 06:34 PM
