Information
Christopher Salter >
»CHRONOPOLIS«, 2002 - 2003
Co-Workers & Funding:
Concept/Art Direction: Erik Adigard/M.A.D. + Chris SalterGraphics: Erik Adigard
Sound and Interaction Design: Chris Salter
Programming: Matthew Biederman and Gregory Cowley
http://www.chronopolis.org/
http://www.chrissalter.com/projects.php#Chronopolis
Technology
Hardware
Infrared CamerasInterface
10 x 10 meter square floor-projected interfaceSoftware
feedback system of sound and animated graphicsSound
multichannel sound system
Descriptions & Essays
Chronopolis consists of a 10 x 10 meter square floor-projected interface that visitors walk over. The computer generated interface displays days, hours, minutes and seconds grids over which four animated pictograms representing these time elements travel. Each pictogram moves at a specific speed, determined by the real time system clock of the computer, leaving a trail of dots behind. The pictograms symbolize flows in the contemporary city - currency, goods, people and processes of decay.
As visitors step onto the surface of the image, they enter into a sonically immersive space. Parabolic speaker elements, which focus sound into extremely localized areas, aurally project a multichannel sonic landscape over the interface. Seconds, minutes, hours and days are registered as individual musical and sonic events, enveloping the visitors as they walk across the huge surface of the projection.
IR cameras, positioned from above, gauge changes in the density of the environment based on population differentials. As visitors populate Chronopolis over the course of the exhibition, the time grids and sonic landscape responds and mutates to produce a new grid upon which all of the time elements must speed up - a visual and aural time structure which appears to accelerate and decelerate based on human presence.
Literature
Brouwer, Joke. Machine Times. Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2000.
Weibel, Peter. Die Beschleunigung der Bilder. In der Chronokratie. Bern: Benteli, 1987.
Exhibitions & Events