East by West (interactive telepresence installation)

by Johannes Birringer, Sher Doruff, Orm Finnendahl

The first exhibition took place at Festpielhaus Hellerau, July 2002, at the conclusion of the Real-Time & Presence Project.

Software: PD, sound/graphics design (Finnendahl), KeyWorx plug-in: Fokke de Jong ƒ (Doruff, and Waag Society, Arjen Keesmaat, Tom Demeyer, Niels Bogaards, Just van den Broecke).

programming assistance
Free Software Foundation (GNU/Linux), Miller Puckette (PD), Paul Davis (RME driver), Bill Schottstaedt (sndlib) and Stefan Kersten (adoption of PD to sndlib), Heiko Schlittermann (LUG Dresden); EyeCon (Frieder Weiß); Simon de Bakker.

East by West was started in the framework of the Forum Realtime and Presence, a workshop organized by the Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau (Dresden). The purpose of this workshop was to bring together artists and technicians from different areas and countries, not knowing each other before and to develop new ways of collaboration. Therefore it is important to mention that the whole piece including its conception and technical realization was entirely webbased and started in a very open form, finally condensing in two realizations so far. The whole process of development is documented in the Internet: http://www.aliennationcompany.com/gallery/rttext.htm

East by West consists of two separate rooms, one with an orange grove and one with boccia balls on a sand beach. These two interactive environments are connected live by audio-visual streaming media. Both environments invite the visitors to play with the objects they find there. In both rooms there is one object (a hanging orange in the West room and a fluorescent ball in the East room) which are tracked as their positions change. Any changes are mirrored on a video screen with black, grey and sometimes red circles. The position of the fluorescent ball in the East room is visually represented on the display by a grey circle. The other black circles on the display represent sounds. Their position and size is determined by the tracked orange in the West room. Whenever the grey circle intersects with a black circle, the black circle turns red and the according sound can be heard through the loudspeakers in both rooms. Spatiality, volume and other sound qualities depend on the speed and location of the tracked objects. The installation invites the visitor to try out different interactive games between the remote locations. One objective could be to try to hit or avoid triggering of samples: the faster the orange swings, the harder it gets to hit circles with the fluorescent ball. The video representation allows for imaginative, user-defined playing and communication between the spaces. It requires some creativity of the visitors, because not every movement is immediately visible or audible in the rooms and it is not always clear what effect a movement has. The visitor's behaviour not only causes changes in the spatial and acoustic properties of the installation, but also in the way time and spatiality are experienced.

European Culture 2000 project in collaboration with Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau, Ars Electronica Center Linz & V2_Organisation Rotterdam.

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• media
• art
• installation
• interactive
• environment
• telematic