concept
& artistic production:
Johannes Birringer (USA/Germany)
Sher Doruff (Holland)
Orm Finnendahl (Germany)
production collaboration
Arjen Keersmaat (Holland)
Simon de Bakker (Holland)
Assistance:
Tijmen Zonnevijle
Motion tracking design: Frieder Weiß (Germany)
programming and systems:
Software: PD sound design (Finnendahl), GNU/Linux: Miller Puckette
(PD), Paul Davis (RME driver), Bill Schottstaedt (sndlib) and Stefan
Kersten (adoption of PD to sndlib), Heiko Schlittermann (LUG Dresden);
EyeCon (Weiß); Keystroke (Doruff, and Waag Society, Tom Demeyer,
Niels Bogaards, Just van den Broecke).
Description
East by West consists of two interactive, distributed environments
constructed at opposite ends of a building or at remote sites
and connected via live video-audio streaming.
Both explore the emergence and temporal synthesis of musical, visual
and kinaesthetic perceptions in two similar yet different "geographic"
architectures.
Each
of the landscapes can be experienced in two different "states":
The east (Orange County) is warm and brightly lit, and its organic
texture invites intuitive interaction with the suspended oranges. A live video
stream connects both environments, and a mixed image of both spaces
gets projected onto the walls of the environments. Loudspeakers play
the streamed sound of the distant room which is affected by the playful
behavior of the visitors.
The west (Dead Sea) environment with the black sand is darker,
eerier, and more ghostlike; boccia balls are on the sand, inviting a game.
A projection of geometric images washes over the sand. The images
represent sounds which can be "played" using a fluorescent
ball. The environments are crosslinked in such a way that using the
ball doesn'tonly play the "instrument" in the local environment,
but also changes
the geometry of the images in the remote environment. The telepresence
images on the walls show the mix of the soundings and the players'
actual behavior or performance.
The installation invites the visitor to explore the spaces and try
out different interactive games between the landscapes. The synthesis
underscores the experience of the visitors and their strategic play
or intuitive interaction with potential games or performance environments.
Both landscapes invite the visitor to explore and play with the objects
in the environments. Our objective is to experiment with the transformation
of spatial imagination (real space as virtual space) and the experience
of time and synchronicity. The experience is generated through sound
and actions/behaviors of the visitors in environments of hyperplasticity.
The term "hyperplasticity" refers to the emergent relationships
between visitors in both sites as they engage with the
spaces and the "transobjects" they find in the spaces. The
fluctuating conditions in both environments will depend on the behavior
of the visitors. The social and aesthetic dimension of the work therefore
depends on a careful examination of interactivity understood here
as process through which meanings of locales and milieus are constantly
evolving, adaptable and redefinable.
The
concept of networked, translocal spaces allows investigation of the
nature of real-time sound synthesis and how extended physical space
can be shared by people when they play with fictional geographies,
strange or familiar objects, and their mediated presences. Telepresence
restructures and enlarges the environment with its projection (window)
of mediated and combined presences in action. Linking a "local"
site with a "remote" site raises particular challenges for
our understanding of new artistic paradigms in telepresence, distributed
and "navigational" art. The social orientation toward sensual
environments and "hyperplasticity" is not directed at euphoric
assumptions about virtual reality (VR) but at concrete, synaesthetic
processes of
cognition. East by West addresses the visitors' playful fantasy and
tactile exploration of the environment; the interface becomes useful.
if such play recognizes how parallel reality-systems can converge
or affect each other, how we integrate other realities into our social
experience.
12.20.02
Die erweiterte Version
2.0
Nach der Ausstellung von
"East by West" im Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden, im Juli
2002, entsteht eine erweiterte Version 2.0., vorbereitet und entwickelt
für DEAF2003 ("Data Knitting"). Sie bezieht interaktive
Steuerungen mit dem Eyecon System, wechselseitig-dialoge Midiverknüpfungen
und Bodenprojektionen der visualisierten Klangtexturen für den
Westraum ("Totes Meer") vor. In der für CYNETart2002
vorgeschlagenen Version 1.5 wird die Dialogik von Klangvisualisierung
und Telepräsenz im Westraum getestet werden.
