GMU:(In)Visible Networks/Iremnur Tokac

Nature Inspired

Interactive Video. In collaboration with Esra Demirel

Place in Place (1st Idea)

• in order to express space we use gestures. these define how we perceive the space.
• How we translate real objects

• could be more people trying to define
• real time video projected on the video wall

Background

Ancient Greek philosophers suggested that the nature was formed by four elements, earth, air, fire and water, to degrade the complexity of nature into simple substances. Such approach was also seen among other ancient communities, not only among Greek philosophers. Even though this assumption is not valid today, it is a strong metaphor for conceptualize the nature, especially in art projects. Therefore, this the metaphor of using earth, air, fire and water is adopted to conceptualize the interaction with the nature. In this project, an interactive video installation is to be created where visitors can interact with the video and change the content of the video through their speed.

Interactivity gets more and more exposed to the field of art, especially as the technology get more affordable and accessible. Aforementioned interaction of the project could also be explained through Actor-Network Theory (ANT). ANT is a sociological theory to explain social networks based on the interactions between human and non-human actors. Even though it is a sociological theory, it applies to the concepts of internet of things, communications in today’s information society. The system, is used in the project, could also be thought as a small network; a network consists of human and non-human actors; captury system (cameras for recording, and a processor where the software runs and all the tracking data is collected), a multi-screen video wall and the video which is projected on the video wall (also generates based on a piece of code and runs on a processor) and a human actor who triggers the interaction among the things in the network.

Map

network map

Related artworks

• Mark Lombardi /Global Networks and Power Relations series (70s-90s)
• golan levin /Messa di Voce (Performance version, 2003)

Technical framework

The motions of the visitors are to be tracked by captury system and relative data is to be send through a communication protocol (in this project, OSC library is used in Processing sketch) to generate the video (Processing sketch). The speed of the motion determines the changes in the sketch representing earth, air, fire and water. Thus, as visitor interacts with the video through mediators. Once the visitor realizes his/her moves changes the video projected, he/she starts to interact more and discover more about the system around him/her. If we think this small art installation, it has its own system which is created on a certain purpose/ foreseen interaction.

Some Thoughts For Further Development

• The video which has abstract representations of earth, fire, water, air could be changed with

another one which is actually the result of interaction

• The representations of earth, fire, water, air might not be so literal;

(further code development)

• A more clear description text

• Explaining the stages of how the interaction works

Referencies

• Bruno Latour (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. New York: Oxford University Press Inc. See Introduction: File:latour-introduction-to-ant-theory.pdf