Tobias Klein¡¯s ¡°Augmented Mask,¡± an installation that incorporates an elaborate 3-D printed mask, colorful projection mapping, a virtual reality headset and references a popular Chinese opera, looks a lot like future art as imagined in science fiction.
Appearing at the small The Container venue in Meguro, which has the same dimensions of a shipping container, the piece is designed so that it can only be fully experienced by one person at a time. That experience, afforded by the VR headset, places the user into a continually morphing 360-degree landscape in which a bodiless insectoid-looking head, also continually changing in shape, hangs in the air and moves in sync with the viewer¡¯s own head movements.
There are direct visual similarities to the giant floating head in the dystopian sci-fi film ¡°Zardoz,¡± and the color-inverted landscapes in the final scenes of ¡°2001: A Space Odyssey.¡± However, at a more general and conceptual level, ¡°Augmented Mask¡± resembles instances when filmmakers have tried to imagine art for fictional audiences who are accustomed to technology, forms and abstractions as yet beyond our understanding. A recent example of this would be the opera scene in the Star Wars prequel ¡°Revenge of the Sith.¡±
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