Rigid Waves - Narcissus and Echo (1993) by Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss

Meeting yourself: Communication by Disturbance and Irritation.
In the installation "Rigid Waves", a hidden camera takes a picture of the viewer and transfers his image to a projection screen that resembles a framed mirror. The closer the viewer approaches, the more unrealistic the image becomes. The movements of the viewer distort the images -- they are delayed, speeded up, manipulated, fragmented or frozen. The viewer cannot pin down his digital twin. The asynchrony of real time and image time distances the viewer from his digital image and enables him to see himself in different guises -- fragmented, fractured or from behind. Acoustic signals are linked to the image processing system and mark the position from which the user can influence his computergenerated image using gestures and changes of position. Rigid Waves uses interactive media technology to represent the separation of body and perception alluded to by Echo and Narcissus in the myth of Ovid's metamorphoses.
In the installation, the viewer himself disturbs the illusion of symmetry between the physical world and the lookingglass world. Image algorithms produce an alienating effect that undermine the photo realism of the live video image, the linearity of the timeline is interrupted and the digital image seems to break up into a thousand fragments.

Artists / Authors: Monika Fleischmann, Wolfgang Strauss

Cooperator: Christian-Arved Bohn

Origination: Germany, 1993
http://fleischmann-strauss.de
http://netzspannung.org/database/rigid-waves
http://netzspannung.org/about/mars/projects/

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Interactive Interface
• Interaction Design
• Multimedia
• Communication
• interactive installation
• scenography
• new media art
• media art
• Monika Fleischmann
• Wolfgang
• Strauss
• public space
• interface
• design
• art
• museum

[keithfung1]

who needs this product when you have LSD.. hahaha the way this guy is flapping his arms.. makes me think he's on something..

[lunaris19]

looks more like a product for bored people rather than a piece of art. It reminds me of the Eye Toy, except this is useless.