Immersion

Robbie Cooper (b. 1969) is a UK based artist who’s practice deals with issues around presence and identity in a technological landscape. He works in various media, employing photography, video and video game modifications. He has exhibited widely, including at CCC Strozzina in Florence, Museum der Moderne in Salzburg, Kunstlerhaus Vienna, The Science and Media Museum in the UK and Multimedia Art Museum Moscow.
Robbie is a self-taught programmer, 3D artist and sculptor and has worked on commercial projects for the R&D departments of tech corporations, AAA video games, Virtual Production for broadcast TV, as well as experimental marketing projects for major brands. Currently he is creating an experimental VR game, using the breath as an input device.
From 2008 – 2014 Cooper worked on the Immersion project, in which he recorded the expressions of people watching TV, playing video games and using the internet. “Cooper’s work creates a dual feedback: the players react intensely to the images they see on the screen, whereas we – the observers – react with our own feelings to their powerfully emotional facial expressions that to us, in turn, are just another image on a screen”. The project captured people of all ages immersed in digital
media. Media used in the Immersion project included video games, pornography, children’s cartoons, comedy, atrocity videos, sports, horror and music videos.
The technique used by Robbie Cooper for Immersion is inspired by a method developed by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. Known as the Interrotron method, Morris used the process to interview people directly through the camera lens. A modified autocue, the Interrotron uses a one-way mirror to reflect an image towards the viewer whilst they gaze into the camera. Morris connected a live video feed of himself into the Interrotron so he could ask questions and the interviewee could retain direct eye contact with him, whilst expressing themselves straight to the camera and the audience. Cooper adapted this approach, plugging video games consoles and computers into the autocue, as well as creating a studio environment which he has described as an “anti-shoot”, in which the attention of subjects is diverted away from the purpose of the activity.