Artists Statement

“Peoples Screen” by Paul Sermon and Charlotte Gould was a site-specific work commissioned by Public Art Lab Berlin for the Guangzhou Light Festival from 15 to 29 November 2015, linking audiences in Guangzhou’s new Flower Garden Square, China and Northbridge Piazza in Perth, Australia. Receiving over 25,000 participants over 15 days. This installation builds on practice-based research and development of previous interactive works for large format urban screens such as “Occupy the Screen” for “Connecting Cities – Urban Reflections” in September 2014 between Supermarkt Gallery Berlin, Germany and Riga European Capital of Culture, Latvia.
This new installation pushed the playful, social and public engagement aspects of the work into new cultural and political realms in an attempt to ‘reclaim the urban screens’ through developments in ludic interaction and internet based high-definition videoconferencing. Through the use of illustrated references to site-specific landmarks of Guangzhou and Perth, audiences were invited to occupy the screen. The concept development of “Peoples Screen” was inspired in part by 3D street art as a DIY tradition, referencing the subversive language of graffiti. The interface borrows from the “topoi” of the computer game, as a means to navigate the environment; once within the frame the audience becomes a character immersed within the environment.
“Peoples Screen” linked two geographically distant audiences using a telematics technique; the installation takes live oblique camera shots from above the screen of each of these two audience groups, located on a large 64 square metre blue ground sheet and combines them on screen in a single composited image. As the merged audiences start to explore this collaborative, shared ludic interface, they discover the ground beneath them, as it appears on screen as a digital backdrop, locates them in a variety of surprising and intriguing anamorphic environments where from a particular position the characters can look as if in a precarious situation.
“Peoples Screen” aimed to include the widest range of urban participation possible and aligns to a Fluxus “Happening” in a move away from the object as art towards the street environment and the “every day” experience. It also borrows from a tradition of early cinema where audiences were transfixed by the magic of being transported to alternative realities though screenings at traveling fairs. Lumière contemporaries, Mitchell and Kenyon, whose films of public crowds in the 1900’s present a striking similarity to the way audiences react and respond to “Peoples Screen”.
Through this research we found that the environment and timing have a large impact on the way that an audience responds. The inspiration was drawn both from the cities of Guangzhou and Perth, with input from the communities. The area of play was clearly demarked as a space via a blue box groundsheet in both cities identifying a theatre of play, once in the space the participant engages as they wish. In many ways “Peoples Screen” broke down cultural and social barriers, both in the local communities, but also between two cities, Guangzhou and Perth, where new collocated spaces and creative encounters could be founded and occupied.

Project Partners:
Connecting Cities
Public Art Lab Berlin
Guangzhou Light Festival
Northbridge Piazza Perth: ttp://northbridgepiazza.showmeperth.com.au/northbridge-piazza

Project Links:
Connecting Cities: http://connectingcities.net/project/peoples-screen
City of Perth: http://www.perth.wa.gov.au/newsroom/featured-news/perth-and-guangzhouinteract-virtual-real-time
Visit Perth City
Glastonbury Documentary Video
Shanghai Documentary Video
MediaCityUK Documentary Video
Glastonbury Project Web Site
Bluecoat Liverpool Project Web Site
Shanghai Project Web Site

• Paul Sermon, Professor of Visual Communication, School of Art, Design and Media, University of Brighton, UK. Paul Sermon joined the College of Arts and Humanities as Professor of Visual Communication in the School of Art, Design and Media on September 1st 2013. Paul was previously Professor of Creative Technology at the University of Salford and has worked for over twenty years as an active academic researcher and creative practitioner, primarily in the field of interactive media arts. Having worked under the visionary cybernetic artist Professor Roy Ascott as an undergraduate Fine Art student at the Newport School of Fine Art in the mid 1980s, Paul Sermon went on to establish himself as a leading pioneer of interactive media art, winning the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Linz, Austria, shortly after completing his MFA at the University of Reading in 1991. An accolade that then took Paul to Finland in the early 1990’s to develop one of the most ground breaking telepresent video installations of his career Telematic Dreaming in 1992. This early success then led to an invitation by Professor Jeffrey Shaw to undertake a residency at the internationally renowned ZKM Centre for Art & Media in Karlsrhue in Germany, where he produced his second ISDN videoconference installation Telematic Vision in 1993. Whilst living in Berlin from 1993 to 1999 Paul Sermon then took up the post of Dozent at the HGB Academy of Visual Arts in the former East German city of Leipzig and from here he went on to develop a portfolio of interactive telepresent video installations and telematic encounters that he continues to exhibit internationally. Further accolades during this period included the 1994 IMF Sparkey Award from the Interactive Media Festival in Los Angeles as well as interactive art commissions for the Millennium Dome Play Zone. Paul moved back to England in 2000 to take up a post at the University of Salford as well as becoming an honorary Professor for the MA Media Art Histories at the Danube University Krems, Austria and continues to visit and contribute to this programme once a semester. paulsermon.org
• Dr Charlotte Gould, Principle Lecturer, School of Art, Design and Media, University of Brighton, UK. Charlotte Gould has developed a number of web-based interactive environments that explore user identity and the notion of a floating narrative. She is currently developing location specific work in which the user becomes an active participant in the narrative and explores methods of user driven content. The work seeks to identify a counter culture, and provide an alternative aesthetic that questions the predominance of digital realism and explores the conventions and politics of embodiment in multi-user virtual environments. Through her work she encourages creative play and looks at the way the audience can experience the urban space through telepresent technology. She has undertaken illustration and animation commissions from a range of companies including the BBC and Manchester Art Gallery. Charlotte received her PhD in Interactive Works for Urban Screens: A practice based study into building new ways of engaging communities in urban space through interactive artworks for urban screens from the School of Arts & Media, University of Salford in 2015. She graduated with a BA Honours Degree in Graphic Design from Chelsea School of Art in 1990 and was awarded an MA in Creative Technology from the University of Salford (2003). Charlotte Gould is Academic Programme Leader for Visual Communication in the School of Art, Design and Media at the University of Brighton. http://www.charlottegould.org

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