Information
Susanne Schuricht >
»freequent traveller«, 2002 - 2002
Co-Workers & Funding:
Co-Worker: Tobias Schmidthttp://www.sushu.de/free
Technology
Hardware
The installation consists of two parts; an interface and an application interpreting the incoming data from the movement of the hammock and animating the text material. No bitmap-tracking, just plain mechanics: A computer mouse is deconstructed and again new constructed. hammock (for 1-3 persons), mouse construction (common usb mouse) /twine, projector, computer (apple G4 notebook), projection screen, one or more persons
Software
An application developed in Macromedia Director then translates in realtime the hammock's movement into animated type. director-lingo-programming, text (interviews and own written states), pixel-exact font
Descriptions & Essays
Freequent traveller is an interactive installation by the Berlin based artist Susanne Schuricht.
The interface consists of a hammock, whose movement is tracked by a custom-made hardware interface. The incoming data are then interpreted by a special application that maps the text onto complex modulations of sine waves and random functions. While relaxing in the hammock, you animate text on a projection sail by your motion. The dynamics of these visuals depend on the motion of the hammock. The texts are about Mobility, Home and Identity: The way the hammock moves, is dynamically animating the text. "home is your identity - stories instead of objects - moving free of weight - relax everywhere".
Travel is the unification of impulse and action, movement and excitement, impression and expression. Traveling in space includes the travel inside oneself, at the same time. This is an live interactive work. You enter a hammock and, synchronized to your swinging movements, you start dragging sentences on the "projection-sail". The animation's content and speed depends on the amplitudes and dynamics of the movements. Initially simple animations gradually evolve into more and more extraordinary patterns of type and character waves. Regularly the basic patterns change. The user will always be surprised by the new cycle of motion. Analogous to the pendulum like movements of the hammock itself, the animations are based on sinewaves.
The movements of the hammock control amplitude, frequency and density. The hammock has been chosen purposeful as it creates a situation of peace and contemplation, though one is passive and active at the same time. It connects a situation of rest and rather passive movement with the feeling of wandering around, both in thoughts, and through the distance travelled by the swinging motion.
Programming: Tobias Schmidt
Literature
Schuricht, Susanne. »Freequent Traveller: Interaction Versus Contemplation.« In TEI'07 Proceedings of First International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, edited by TEI'07. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA: ACM /U.S.A., 2007.
Exhibitions & Events