GMU:Media Art Strategies/Leon-Etienne Kühr/Project

Ideas

Starting Point

Proximity, presence, communication beyond the means of exchanging information. Bidirectional human to human interaction through technolgy, a social medium.

Concepts to balance

Balancing accuracy, complexity (expenses, labor), recognizability, immersion vs conceptual and technical simplicity, transparency.

Technical

• telepresence with non-audiovisual senses (sensor / acteur)
  • air presence through cloth with touch / fans, nozzles, mechanical
  • warmth through thermometer / Peltier-Elements
  • touch through fur through capacitive touch / static charge
• input and output of human interaction use the same medium

Related works

David Bowen - tele-present water[1]

Christoph Kilian - Tuchfühler / touching silk[2]

Aaron Sherwood - Firewall[3]

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Remote Pulse[4]

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Concept "Windfang"

“Windfang” is an interactive art-installation in which telepresence is achieved through the interaction with cloth. At two locations a large piece of cloth is hanging from the ceiling. The viewer standing in front of the first piece of fabric can interact with it by pushing and pulling it, the movement of the fabric is then captured by an optical sensor and reproduced on the second cloth using multiple fans and vice versa. Therefore the presence of the viewer is transmitted to the other viewer through the movement of air. In real-life presence the hypertrophy of the optical sense inhibits the perception of the haptic presence that might be felt through sudden changes in air pressure or the slight breeze caused by the movement of a body This installation focusses on this presence, using cloth and air as the medium of transmitting this presence to spaces beyond its reach and establishing telepresence with the purpose of communicating closeness rather than mere information.