디지털 아바타와 감정표현 - 에드 앳킨즈의 [더 웜 (The Worm)] (2021)

Abstract

This paper investigates how human emotions are portrayed through digital avatars created with computer graphics in media art. As overwhelming numbers of images we face in our everyday lives become digital, artists have begun to express not only the physical appearances but also the emotions of human beings via CGI (computer-generated imagery) or with other digital graphic devices. Prominently, the British media artist Ed Atkins uses cutting-edge technologies such as HD graphics and motion capture in his hyper-realistic animation works. One of these, The Worm (2021), casts a hyper-realistic digital avatar purchased from a 3D model creator's website to stand in as the self-image of the artist, showing the avatar making a call to his mother on a phone. Their 12-minute conversation would be a perfect condition to observe the visualization of the emotional expression of the digital avatar, as it involves one of the most advanced techniques to not only graphically realize the image but to capture the facial as well as other physical expressions of a human being. However, the perfected mechanical style of the graphic image seems to work against such identification. Per the artist’s intention, viewers are made to realize how technologically advanced hyper-realism does not immediately guarantee the realistic portrayal of the emotional and sentimental sides of human nature.