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INTERACTIONS, ATTIMOS, TRANCE, AND RITUAL The interactive system stimulates the biological system. On the other hand, the body as a living organism stimulates the environment in one's own way. The trance that occurs in the installation is provoked by concrete experiences in that very moment and place - in states of hic et nunc, maximized by interactions that are enhanced by intervals or attimos. In my installation, attimos are present moments built up in the intervals of the symbiosis of the body and the system. The present time is only a present in itself that occupies an interval. By interacting, an interval occurs through the transit of the data that becomes a living and present time. Interactive art is related to rituals and requires the repetition of actions through devices that respond in real time, simulating a kind of ceremony mediated by technology. According to the Italian philosopher Mario Perniola, the trance state does not demand to repeat something as a dynamic experience. A trance means to take possession of the present time. Perniola defines the present time of the trance as attimos and not instants. An instant is a mobile boundary between past and future with something always lacking, whereas attimo is a present time connected to an experience of time in total possession. It is in this situation of constructed time, during a living experience of time totally possessed, that interval zones are generated. In TRANS-E, the intervals are interstices between things placed closely together at the same time by the connections between the body and technology. This idea of present time that comes from the stoic philosophy permits the body to inhabit an unfolding physical and conceptual existence. The exchanges produce chains of meanings in a sensitive multiplication of experiences, and the body exists as the measure of its connections. The stoic aesthetics of the ephemeral, of the mutant, of the indefinable is confirmed. INTERACTIVITY AND IN-CORPORATED ENTITIES With the digital technologies of interactive art, the body experiments the cognition connected to the networks and sub-networks of technologies. To interact is to connect and incorporate "identities" that are stored in databases as potentially subjective states that can be called into being. To do this, digital circuits and their memories process the identities and place us in the midst of guarded information that relates to habits, ideas, fears, beliefs, and desires. In Afro-Brazilian religions, there are entities such as Ogum, Oxum, and Iemanjá, and others that a person can incorporate during states of trance. The entities are called "guides" of our identities. To reach the altered states of consciousness in a trance, the rituals of the body at that moment and place are to turn round, smell, talk, sing, and other participating actions. The actions determine the incorporation though the behavioral repetition of structures that achieve the state of trance. RITUAL, CANNIBALISM, AND IDENTITY The metaphoric trance that I propose in this installation is not related to the sacredness of rituals - it is only an electronic ritual. In rituals, the body is offered during the ceremonies. The idea of sharing the body is common to many rituals of different religions. In Christianity, the body and blood are offered to be eaten and drunk. "This is my body, this is my blood" - the phrase recited during the Christian ritual implies an invitation to act as cannibals. The body is also present in other rituals of sects that offer the body of animals. Similarly in TRANS-E, I ask for the action of the body and I offer blood - something that looks like blood, not real blood. The blood moves inside a bowl placed in the middle of the room, triggered by an infrared sensor from the body heat of people that approach the bowl. When moving on the ground, the bodies of participants are also swallowed by the electricity and sent into the machine. The participants don't know that a net of electricity is connected to the body at the device. In the cavern where the installation is placed, nobody can escape the action of the devices. And in return, the bodies gain sounds and images. This dialogue with the bodies that is offered by the interactive systems gives my poetic intentions to the participants. With my ideas, I am giving the obverse side of my body that is my sensorial apparatus and concentrates my cognition about life. During the interactions, people can collect sensitive moments and revitalize the bricolage, as in the anthropological perspective of Lévi- Strauss. The interaction with the context of the environment offers the knowledge of scientists and artists in a mytho-poetic way because when we interact, we are recycling data in an endless road. By interacting, we are immersed and have experimental attitudes of scientists and artists in their attitudes of bricoleur living moments of epiphany, coupled structures of the system. By interacting, participants collect ephemeral ideas and process their symbolical power, assisting the human desires to reach other stages of life. Interactive systems enable people to eat the artist's ideas, and the back-propagation of the NNs place the human central system into sensitive moments by propagating the images and sounds of life. The poetic substances implied in these exchanges result in several modifications to our previous level of consciousness. The unpredictability of the phenomena projects new paths of self-identity. The artists are spiritual leaders, similar to the shamans who lead the spiritual life of their tribes. Interactive art works with the body, placing it in a living spiritual process in relation to the systems. By interacting, people, as cannibals, try to incorporate other identities to take their power. Interactive art is a fertile field for the artistic and scientific research to spiritualize humanity in this post-biological era. Translated from Portuguese by Milton H. Bentancor.
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