Selections from the Roskilde Show
The Scandinavian descendant of the original Waterbed
is notably less funky.
Here are images of people making light music in the bed, photographed by Niels H. S. Nielsen:
All paintings are in motion, if only because of entropy. When we look
at a painting, the light that bounces into our eyes has already changed
the painting a little bit. Digital works of art are potentially eternal
in the abstract, but in practice are even more transient than pre-digital
artifacts, because of the difficulty of replicating all the factors that
influence the quality of interaction. In the present case a painting is
made hyper-sensitive to the motions of viewers, creating a new form that
is halfway between painting and dance. The collaborative motions of groups
of viewers are capable of sending the painting into states that a single
viewer cannot.
Three paintings on canvas are seen on the way in to the exhibit space (image
below), and they are transformed on the fourth, which is the Time-Accelerated
version. The image above is an example of the paintings interacting in response
to the motions of viewers, which in this case has also evoked a creature
from the underworld, seen in red, and throwing off red light.
An installation which transmutes the motions of visitors into piano music.
Of course visitors could also learn to play the piano in the traditional
manner, which would have the same effect, but by inserting one layer of
remove between the hand and the piano, the Air Piano focuses attention on
interaction and expectation. The abstraction embedded in the computer program
which mediates between the hand and the piano expresses ideas about harmony,
cadence, and humor.
Pictured above are some of the optical sensors for detecting the motion
of visitors, with the Disklavier piano in the background. Visitors have
remarked that the piece sounds like Scriabin.
