Information
Technology
Installation Requirements / Space
Windscreen is an experimental, wind-driven physical interface, 2001.panel suspended top at 2.30m.
fan in alcove or room corner
lcd projector suspended level with top of panel
panel 1.0m above floor
1.5m beetwen fan and panel
Descriptions & Essays
Windscreen is an experimental, wind-driven physical interface, 2001.
Any physical scale habitable by the human body is also "inhabited" by massive levels of sensory data, equivalent to perhaps millions of analog-to-digital inputs a second. My response to learning about "physical computing" , was to look for alternative modes of sensing, other energetic or eloquent forces. After all, interactivity does have a long history of means- beyond computing, electronics or even electricity.
This experimental approach became an installation work that I am calling windscreen. Here, much technology was wilfuly discarded, and replaced with a single force - the wind
Wind has a checkered history in the arts, Kinetic art and wind-driven "yardart" being well known examples. In the "media arts', it has been intremittenty used, most often metaphorically. I wanted to use it as a sensor and actuator rolled into one.
In this work the “viewer” controls an almost physical image. His wind-shadow causes the movements in the frame, In an inexact way, since the wind-shadow is much less precise than a light shadow. Still the relationship is immediate enough to engage a person, which in turn causes the frame to drop in parts, and makes him visible to the rest of the audience. This is related to what happens in a video camera , and is also reminiscent of the numerous motion tracking, “body shadow” projects that are a familiar sight in media art.
The projected image is a slowly moving sequence of hard edged color washes that fade into black at every loop. I chose the colors of human races, ie. white black brown yellow red and blue (from the blue men!), because the user would get "painted" a certain color when the projection got through.
Literature
Sukuraman, Ashok. »A Critical Review of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Work in Venice.« .
Sukuraman, Ashok. »Selection from an Interview with Ashok Sukuraman.« In Cinema of Prayoga, edited by Karen Mirza and Brad Butler. London, UK: no.w.here, 2006.
Exhibitions & Events