Artists Statement

The snows that crown the peak of Fuji Melt on the mid-June day And that night it snows again. _Takahashi Mushimaro in the Manyoshu.

“Sensing Speaking Space”, is an interactive installation that focuses on the notion of the “intelligent space”, a space that knows you are there and reacts to the presence and movements of multiple spectators sensed through a custom camera tracking system. The image is projected on a large screen, the sounds are spatialized around the audience through a 6 channel surround-sound based on their locations in the gallery.

The visualization consists of the play between the noise, randomness and order, through multiple layerings and subtle changes that build up over time and in response to spectators movements. There is a back and forth transition between two images that is produced dynamically as a consequence of the spectators’ actions. The first state is a textured image surface continuously being covered by white visual noise, like film dust, or snow falling on a windshield. The noise is made up of ascii characters that must be wiped away by the spectators’ movements to activate further events. Enough action must be generated so that the transition to the other state is possible. The second state is a green blurred image, from which readable texts are drawn to the surface through the spectator’s movements. The audience’s movements advance the events from one to the other evoking metaphorical acts of “wiping” and “breaking through” in the white noise screen mode to “bringing forth” and “revealing” in the green text screen mode.

The sound consists of several layers (drone, singer, water sounds, yells, speakers, etc.) with variations for each of the two visual states. The vision program send messages over a network to a Supercollider program that controls the sound synthesis and mlxing. The work is intended to focus on reflexion and self-realization of one’s presence. It is an abstract work meant to be contemplative like a Japanese garden. Technical contribution for “Sensing Speaking Space”, include Gilroy Menezes for motion sensing, and Gary Kling for OSC communication.

This project was realized in Macromedia Director, OSC and Supercollider. A presentation of the prototype took place at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in February 2002, produced for the “Activating the Medium” festival coordinated by David Prochaska and Randy Yau.
Sensing Speaking Space, 2002 George Legrady and Andreas Schlegel Visualization, Stephen Travis Pope, Sound.

• George Legrady, Profesor, Media Arts & Technology graduate program, University of California, Santa Barbara. His work in interactive installation focuses on interaction design, and data management through semantic categorizatlon using neural-net based algorithms.
• Stephen Travis Pope is senior researcher/composer at CREATE, University of California Santa Barbara and lecturer in the Media Arts and Technology program. From 1988 through 1997, he was editor of the Computer Music Journal, MIT Press.
• Andreas Schlegel is an interface designer currently in the masters program at MAT, UCSB. He ca-founded and directed the visual and technical production in the “Diffus” design firm in Stuttgart, Germany. sojamo.de