Seven Easy Steps
Installation
How to Lose Weight in Seven Easy Steps! - utilizes virtual reality, stereoscopic projection, surrealistic narrative, and comedy to explore the movement of consciousness from seeing the world (and ourselves) one way to another. In abstract, it traces the trajectory of mental illness from darkness to light, or on its narrative surface… one obese man’s weight loss.
There are three major components to this project: the virtual reality experience, the stereoscopic narrative film within it, and the cinematics which are shared on social media.
The SESVR allows the audience to explore the seven steps themselves - going through each one, step by step, experiencing what it is to really “change”. The stereoscopic film follows a surrealistic narrative through “Seven Easy Steps”, tracing the frankscuzzo’s slow change of consciousness (and weight loss). A mandatory stereoscopic experience, it utilizes the depth effect inherent in stereopsis as a metaphor for seeing the world, expanding and contracting, as the protagonist comes to realize his predicament.
You Have Nothing to Worry About!
When you are anxious for no reason, and just worry about whatever comes to mind, you have what is known as “free floating anxiety”.
Untreated, it can shrink your reality to the edges of your own bed. While most don’t approach this level of mental illness, the truth is that we all have anxiety at some level. It is a fundamental part of life. A little balloon hanging from our sides, slowing us down, or pulling us in the right direction, depending on your particular inclination. So when raw reality pushes up against our worldview, it is anxiety that forms in the cracks; creating a painful lattice outlining the form of our current distorted version of reality.
It’s ironic that only mental illness allows us to see reality in relief like this, how deformed it can be, and for what it is.
If one posits that the mind can skew perception and that we all have anxiety in some way (a mental illness), then one possible interpretation of reality, is that reality itself is virtual.
We are all wearing virtual reality goggles.
We don them at birth and the straps tighten each moment we live, as cognitive dissonance, the invisible hand, guides our physical movements through space. Soon we will have to make a choice between this version and another. A mediated one - under our control, or the wild one - out of control. One could say the many world-views we already take on, were precursors to this “FPVU”, First Person Virtual Universe.
Formally my work must then not exist in this reality. A critique of my own current reality. It’s actually not so bad, in this space things open up quite creatively; one has control over aspects not possible in the real “raw” world. Gravity, time, point of view, anything and everything - are all malleable.
But just to reassure the anxious, this augmentation has already been in effect for many years albeit in more subtle ways. For example, Velveeta cheese is not really cheese. We are already replacing real objects with fake ones. Thus, we might as well just have fun with it.
You have nothing to worry about:)