contact sponge	We are bombarded by banner ads, radio jingles and brand logos whose meanings are tightly coded by their designers. We even catch ourselves speaking in macros, using runs of speech automatically, almost without thinking. All these media icons are stamped into our psyche and our imaginary with the full force of mass media technology and the persuasive rhetoric of design. The Sauna are a series of mediated zones which immerse you in ambient media, allowing you to steam such media icons out of your body. Sauna Prototype 001, realized at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival 2000, consisted of a 10 x 14' enclosed room within which was positioned a 4 x 8' tank-a half cylinder resembling an MRI tube. The Sauna tube was constructed out of a large sheet of bowed polycarbonate which was covered by a rear screen projection material. The rear screen made it possible to see the projected images in wraparound from above while inside the tube. The prototype Sauna was built for one person at a time. Each visitor lay down on a gurney and was fitted with a pair of headphones. Once comfortable, the participant was rolled into the tube and immersed in an audio-visual program which lasted about 5 minutes. The images ranged from those of intense acceleration or slowness: extreme motion through darkness, water, snow, REM-like flashes, slow mutations of solar and lunar eclipse, stuttering sweeps of light. The imagery was shaped by the architecture of the tube, transformed into a depthless field by the curved edges of the plastic space.				quicktime: 944k quicktime: 892k
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