interspace

 

Despite more or less grave disturbances our perception and interpretation of our surrounding rests on what I'd call "individual presumtions" - meaning as we interpret ourself as "entities", in-separable units, we tend to ascribe similar features to our neighbours or neighbouring objects.

When dealing with the computer, facing the screen as some kind of partner in communication, the frictions of such an "individual presumption" become obvious. On one hand, we try to converse, speak, discuss - we expect outputs that somehow relate to our inputs. On the other hand we constantly face program patterns that result from very general (or very specific) considerations, that in no way take notice of our individual needs, habits or peculiarities.

To solve the problems that result from that kind of frictions, we need help: we have to call people, read books, interweave in networks: to deal with the generality of the problem, we have to integrate in a group - in a way.

As working in front of a screen obviously implies both of these features - the individual impulse and the general notion -one of my initial ideas for "interspace" was to create a large screen and an enlarged keyboard (with ten times the number of keys of a usual keyboard) to enable a group of people to commonly play with a program - maybe a transformable picture or drawing. Still the basic pattern of such a setup excluded movement in space, as well as gestural and sonic elements - which I find crucial for communicative interaction. So I decided to use sonic input and make space the interface - meaning that movement in a certain area and the respective sound, either created by that movement or in the environment, is recorded (input) processed in real-time and replayed (output). Input- and output-area thus converse - we are finding us in a place that's constantly re-capitulating and feedbacking its input. To mark and emphasize this constant process the sonic input triggers a change of lightness on 48 halogen lights - whose patterns move according to the distribution of sound in the spatial panorama.

 

 

March 25th, 2003