M. Shadows

Interactive video theater for 4 networked computers with touch pads, 4 video projectors and 4 laserdisc players. Created in collaboration with the ZKM/Karlsruhe and the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. Original version in French; the English version is voiced over. General description: Curious friends gathered in a gallery space are being visited. As conversation develops between the two groups, some form of complicity may be established that will place visitors in front of a difficult choice: should they assist in their escape or not. In the process, several questions are brought: What is the foundation of humanity? What sort of politics is likely to dominate in the future? What is the true nature of man/woman relationship? How does light affects behavior and the power to imagine? Overall, the installation questions the meaning and value of human life in cyberculture. The four virtual characters forming the group have been constructed from the video recording of live actors in a studio. To communicate with them, visitors use touch pads: questions are picked from imposed sets appearing on the virtual computer screen which superimposes on the reflected video image of each character. Visitors' input from each of the 4 stations (virtual characters) will trigger either local events (one-to-one conversations) or general events (group interaction) depending on the context. Visitor's interaction thus goes from individual to collective, and from relatively unwanted at first, to essential as the dramatic potential of the work builds up. The content of the work is structured into four levels of interaction and develops as follows: At first, the four virtual characters chat amongst themselves as if they were waiting for something to happen (level 1 -- performance mode). Incoming visitors can simply observe the scene or they may try to individually introduce themselves and make friend with some of them; at this stage each character can be interacted with separately (level 2 -- individual interaction mode). In the course of a one to one encounter, an inspired conversation may launch a general debate where virtual characters will argue with one visitor over the issue that was raised (level 3 -- discrete collective interaction mode). In the process, the virtual characters' existential crisis is revealed: They have been trapped in there and want to escape. Visitors face the choice of helping them or of abandoning them to their fate (level 4 -- collective interaction mode). The key to their freedom is in the title of the work. Technical description: The installation requires four Apple Macintosh computers equipped with ADB, serial and Ethernet ports, four computer monitors, four touchpads, four Pioneer LD-V 8000 laserdisc player, four video projectors and four amplified speakers. The computers, monitors, touchpads, laserdisc players, video projectors and speakers are encased in, or attached to, four pedestals distributed in a circle to create an interior space for visitors. A reflective glass plate, placed at an angle above each computer monitor, creates a virtual screen image above the pedestal. Each pedestal is also used to position a large reflecting glass plate at 45° directly underneath a projection screen attached to the ceiling above each pedestal; a video projector, positioned facing upward between the pedestal and the large reflector, projects the virtual character's image onto the screen suspended from the ceiling. Visitors, looking outward in front of each pedestal (station), see a first virtual plane showing the text fields (set of questions) from the computer monitor and a second larger virtual plane featuring the virtual character. The characters have been recorded on a black background; once reflected on glass, the video image thus looses its edge and the characters appear as ghosts inhabiting the real gallery space. The authoring/delivery software was developed in HyperCard and runs on MacOS 8.0 or more recent; a "chat" server, running in the background on one of the four computers, is used to distribute information through a local Ethernet network using the TCP/IP protocol. The NTSC video sequences totaling 30 minutes for each character are stored on four CAV laserdiscs. At each of the four stations, visitors use a touchpad to move the cursor about the computer screen and select questions from imposed lists. The questions are HyperCard buttons sending commands to the laserdisc player via the computer's serial port. Video sequences from the laserdisc are projected to the ceiling and reflected on glass to create a ghost image of the character at eyelevel. The four stations are networked and each of its computers constantly "informs" the three others of events triggered by visitors. Some events are local, meaning that a visitor's interaction will only affect the character (station) he or she is

• published: 06 Aug 2009
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