The Convergence of Virtuality & Digitality in the Art of Mathieu Gallois (Fine ARTS‪)‬

This article considers the possibility of an aesthetic of 'virtualisation' in recent Australian visual culture, using the work of a contemporary Australian artist, Mathieu Gallois, as a case study. 'Virtualisation' can be understood as the communication of the self through tropes of digital media and theory, so as to be understood, or 'signified'. The artistic use of actual digital tools and devices--such as computers, binary code and so on--are incidental to virtualisation in Gallois' aesthetic. Instead, broader signifiers of digitality--such as machinic interactivity, hypertext and especially digitised rave music and dance performatives--are crucial to the models of communication and self-identification for his audiences. This article stems from my Masters thesis at the University of Melbourne's School of Fine Arts, entitled Virtualisation: The Convergence of Virtuality and Digitality in Contemporary Australian Art and Architectural Representation. My thesis explores a theory called 'virtualisation', which is a social operation located at the convergence of two concepts: 'digitality' and 'virtuality'. Before precisely defining these terms, we must recognise the importance of this theory, which lies in its refusal to confuse these two concepts. This confusion often occurs in both digital theory and practice (the bases of 'digitality'), through the use of terms such as 'virtual reality' (or VR) or 'virtual space' that signify, or are synonymous with, computer-generated environments and programs. (1) This confusion ignores the important philosophical reflections of 'virtuality' as a concept dissociated from digital media, as espoused by theorists such as Pierre Levy or his mentor, Gilles Deleuze. (2) My work separates the discourses of 'digitality' and 'virtuality' and then analyses how they converge in recent Australian art. By separating the terms and then understanding how they can converge in non-digital artwork, my thesis provides broader reflection on constructs of perception and the body in aesthetic discourse, and their relation to contemporary digital media. As this article also outlines, this revitalised concept of virtualisation provides greater awareness of similar convergences of 'virtuality' and 'digitality' in discourses beyond art, as in the social phenomenon of raves. Australian art is increasingly alluding to the youth-driven currency of rave cultures--both representationally, as with the paintings of another artist, Steven Cox; and through an audience's engagement with artworks--as I examine towards this article's conclusion in relation to the practice of a Sydney-based artist, Mathieu Gallois. By reading audience engagement through contemporary performance discourse, we can reach new understandings both of perception's role in contemporary art and of the relationship between performance and aesthetics as they inform and revitalise each other today. By so doing, we can locate the importance of contemporary communication practices (such as the Internet and DJing) to our general means of perceiving and communicating with other people and objects on a daily basis.