Information
Technology
Hardware
1 x PC Pentium 1.2Gig computer 5 x Ethernet boards
1 x Ethernet hub
1 x Matrox-Meteor RGB framegrabber board
4 x Sony AVC 375A BW mini cameras
8 x Infra red lights
4 x MPEG II Decoder boards + spare
1 x Monitor/Video switcher
4 x 15 pin cables
4 x Sony vpl px 31 projectors
4 x Sony zm 31 lenses
5 x denon pma 535r amplifiers
22 x jbl control 10 stereo speakers
1x sony cd player
1x Magnat Sub 25 Aktiv Motion subwoofer
4 x 20m S-video cables (Computer-Projector)
6 x 20m Coax cables (Camera-Computer)
5 x RCA to RCA cables (Computer-Amplifier)
Software
visionsystem, flow control, interface to 4 independant MPEG2 decoders on a single PC
Extraction of user position(s) data in videoimages from 4 calibrated
videocameras. The data is filtered and used to select 1-4 different
videoclips for (simultaneous) projection on 1-4 screen walls.
Descriptions & Essays
Pentimento was produced as an Interactive Video Installation and Interactive DVD-ROM during Dennis Del Favero's on-going Research Fellowship at ZKM which began in 1998. The Interactive Video Installation comprises an 8 metre square room with integrated vision based motion detection system articulated to a computer narrative database which interacts with the viewer's movements. The results of these interactions are delivered across four separate projection and five discrete acoustic systems within the installation.
The project explores a news report detailing the discovery of an unidentified body in bushland on the outskirts of Sydney. A young man and woman are arrested. They accuse each other of murdering their father whom they allege was sexually abusing them. The viewer's interactions evoke a large scale evolving memory whose fragments comprise the separate narrative fragments of each of the protagonists - father, brother, sister and the crime scene itself. Each of the four separate projection and acoustic systems can be operated both independently and in synchrony with the others in a number of diverse and complex scenarios. In each of these scenarios the viewers precipitate different memory modalities as they attempt to resolve the circumstances of the murder. In attempting to find a resolution nagging difficulties emerge for the viewers. Some of the memories suggest that the father may not be the murder victim but is one of the perpetrators. Other memories suggest that all three protagonists may be dead and the viewers are navigating a violent narrative amongst the dead.
(Dennis Del Favero)
Literature
Gibson, Ross, ed. Remembrance + the Moving Image. Melbourne, AUS: ACMI Australian Center for the Moving Image, 2003.
Exhibitions & Events