I feel someone holding my hands as I dance. I am told that my name is Johan and, looking down, I am dressed in a man's shirt and tie. It all feels very real. Things get stranger by the minute and my identity seems to be slipping away. I'm not even sure who I am anymore.
I am, in fact, wearing a pair of video goggles and taking part in The Show of your Life, a one-on-one theatrical performance by Me and the Machine, which premieres this week. It's one of about 40 performances, installations and exhibits at Frequency digital arts festival in Lincoln, UK. Some are thought-provoking takes on digital culture, while others demonstrate the immersive power of the medium.
Sam Pearson from Me and the Machine says The Show of your Life was inspired by an article in New Scientist . "We use the body-swapping illusion in our performance. We're interested in how technology can make people feel like they're in control in a theatrical experience."
Moon movie
Elsewhere in the city another world premiere is taking place: the screening of the entire 13-hour NASA archive of footage from the Apollo missions, put together by science film-maker Chris Riley. This is the first time most of the clips have seen the light of day after sitting in cold storage for 45 years.
The fuzzy, often obstructed shots provide an interesting alternative to the more familiar views of Earth. It is also the first time the 15-minute journey of three lunar rovers through the mountains of the moon has been shown in its entirety. "It's quite ethereal to watch," says Riley. "Driving a car on another world for the first time is an extraordinary jump in history."
The missions are shown in chronological order, without any sound, starting with the dramatic rocket launch of Saturn V in 1967. The film ends with jerky, but oddly revealing footage of Ron Evans, commander pilot of Apollo 17, on a deep space walk, retrieving a camera somewhere between Earth and the moon. "There's a lot of fanfare at the start but the last shots are very underwhelming," says Riley. "It reflects the public's loss of interest over the course of the missions."
Beautiful biology
By contrast, Chaos Contained is pure fantasy. This installation by Alexis Rago, at the National Centre for Craft and Design in nearby Sleaford, is a collection of intricate, totem-like clay sculptures that look as if they are made from natural organisms.
Some of the tall, thin ceramic works have protruding tentacles and the reproductive organs of a flower. One of the pieces is enhanced with a sea-like projection around it, while another conceals hidden speakers, which play back the sound recorded while it was being made.
Rago worked as a biologist and his artwork is inspired by the Cambrian explosion, when diverse life forms rapidly evolved. "Simple body plans suddenly developed into the variety of life we have today," he says. He crafts his sculptures by hand, which allows him to let them take shape while he works, unlike digital techniques such as 3D printing. "Physical work allows for imperfections whereas 3D manufacturing is more polished," Rago says.
Chart show
Other artists find digital techniques more powerful than traditional media. Take the exhibits in Where are we now?, a show running alongside Frequency, which tracks the history of mapping, from 15th-century hand-drawn maps to images from Google Street View.
While charting the world, Google's cameras have also unintentionally captured crime scenes as well as some randomly beautiful shots, as Jon Rafman's stunning photographic prints show. Artist Paolo Cirio's work is also a twist on surveillance: he found images of people picked up by Street View cameras in Lincoln, then printed them out life-size and repositioned them in the place they were captured.
Digital technology still poses challenges for the artist. Copyright laws, for example, remain vague: scanning a work of art to produce a virtual model is not regulated the same way as physically reproducing it, making artwork more vulnerable to plagiarism across different media. Artists are still working out how to value digital art, available as electronic files, or as multimedia performances.
As The Show of Your Life ends, and I emerge from behind my goggles, I'm not sure exactly where I am, or how far I've travelled. But I can see the value of digital technology in playing with my perception, inspiring me to be creative – and even helping me escape from the real world for a while.
The Frequency digital arts festival runs until 26 October.
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