Mondrian in Action! Internet Art Build Using the VR Technology

Abstract

Western aesthetic is built on empiricism that severs the unification of reality and metaphysics of ancient times. This restricts knowledge to the world of senses consequently shaping our modern way of operating in the world that tends to objectify and separates the world from the self. In doing so, the sense of ‘I’ enforces a viewer to externalize the world. However, with experiential technologies such as VR, this external, objectified world collapses as the viewer becomes immersed in a particular, virtual environment – overcoming the limitation of physicality by being engrossed in information as an extension of self. This paper argues such experience is reflective of an epistemology coming from Eastern cultures and philosophy. Specifically, by examining an early internet art build on VR technology called ‘Mondrian in Action!’ the article critiques the idea of High Art to resist secular fence of knowledge that marginalize other ways of experiencing the world.