USA - New York - EMPAC - Thomas Soetens & Kora Van den Bulcke - They Watch

USA - NEW YORK - EMPAC - THOMAS SOETENS & KORA VAN DEN BULCKE - THEY WATCH
October 30 - November 20, 2009

Thomas Soetens and Kora Van den Bulcke will present They Watch, an immersive interactive installation commissioned by the Experimental Media and Performance Art Center in Troy, New York.

They Watch is an immersive art installation with virtual characters literally watching visitors. Several duplicates of the virtual characters - one man, one woman, and both portraits of the artists - surround and interact with visitors, who are tracked as they move about the physical space, and even projected into the virtual space. Years of research and development with game-technology have resulted in a 360° audio-visual environment, exploiting a 15-meter-wide panoramic screen and a 32-channel sound system.

The subtle collaboration of the real and virtual agents and environments conflate to engender a hybrid space where the observer becomes the observed. Figuratively "wearing" a virtual camera causes the on-screen characters to approach and to retreat, analogously altering the soundtrack; characters that, as visitors will come to discover, are aware of their presence. Visitors' movements activate visual cues and affect the characters' spontaneous, unscripted behaviors, so that the installation's visual and sonic compositions are uniquely influenced by the visit. The piece becomes a composition in movement whereby non-linear blends of real and virtual force visitors to consider perspective, agency, and the distinction between authentic and imagined as "They Watch".

More information:
www.workspace-unlimited.org
empac.rpi.edu/...

Image:
Workspace Unlimited: They Watch
Courtesy the artists