“HOME”

The piece “HOME” is a video art installation, where the materiality is questioned and where the real and the virtual are confronted, opening windows to a completely abstract and digital world.

Generated by an artificial life system, this piece communicates with the spectator in two ways: one abstract and another actual (concrete). Each one shows one side of this algorithmic world.

Outside of the installation room there is a screen; on it is shown to the visitor an artificial life system in its more abstract form; the digital world as it really is: mathematical and schematic. The individuals have shapes that remand the visitor to a digital/virtual world, and transmit the mathematics and “deshumanization” inherent to such world. Is a community built by computers and represented trough graphics.

On another side, inside the installation there are three screens that represent the “construction” of that same world. This system provides its own actions and it modifies itself during time by means of parameters set by the algorithm. During the time that such assembly of individuals exists, they feed themselves, reproduce themselves, die and so on. The result of those actions is assessed and creates a set of parameters, which selects at each minute an assembly of three videos from a database. Triggered in a synchronized way and displayed on each of the installation walls, such assembly of videos represents the “status” of the world. The sequence of those choices results in the presentation of the “landscape” of that world.
The videos are composed of characters that interact with each other in a wide white immenseness and that move along the various projections. The goal is to create a world that communicates with the spectator in those two ways, being at the same time abstract and actual.

The layout of those projections is aimed at producing in the visitor the sensation that he is looking trough windows. The videos give the visitors access to this “world”. The white immenseness baffles the visitor taking and hinders him to perceive the extension of that world. The characters “humanize” themselves losing slowly and progressively the virtual and abstract appearance they present on the screens outside the installation. It is a community that lives “on the other side”.

In this installation the videos are an essential part of the construction of the identity of this society/world. These videos have very special characteristics as it is the way such community communicates itself with us, the spectators. It is where the community reveals itself and transcends the virtual.

The white immenseness of the videos (which in technical terms means that the filming was done in Cyclorama) is an aesthetic normally related to Sci-Fi movies, where the absence of spatial references and where the minimalist aspect of that environment is valued. The Cyclorama offer in this piece, videos that at the same time seam naked and that on another side suggest the existence of a technological society that spreads over an almost infinite space. The absence of parameter warrants that all the attention of the visitors be directed to the gestures of the characters. With this technique, the lack of references makes it impossible to have the full comprehension of the relations between characters and the real size of everything that is shown. In a totally amorphous space we have the possibility of building whatever we wish. The world built by means of actions. A Plantation exists solely when an individual makes movements that are in some way referred to a plantation space.

For clear comprehension of the actions performed by the characters, it is necessary to define something that establishes that relationship between the action and the totally white background. The sound is essential for that to happen. The selection and the edition of references sound transformed and inserted in the videos allow the gestures to transform into actions. The sound is also a way to emphasize the wrapping of that “world” around the spectator as each screen emits its own sound resulting in a surround effect.

Another important aspect is that the main objective of this installation is to enhance the attitudes of the characters, that is, to build a digital society, that expresses itself by means of the videos, and that communicates by means of actions. In this case the white immenseness is a way to emphasize the actions of characters without showing other distractions to the spectators.  As the objective is to create in the spectator the sensation that he/she/it sees the community through glass windows, synchronization of the screens is important. That is, the presented videos in each screen will have two other videos, which will be being presented in the other two screens. The objective is to create a liaison among them, which makes the idea of a construction of a world beyond the walls feasible. That liaison is going to happen mainly through the movement of characters from a glass window to another. The result is the construction of a sensation of wrapping the spectator with the “digital world”.

The concept of a “window” is really important for this piece. The spectator that enters this installation will be a mere observer, without any type of action on the society. He/She receives information through the glass windows that “frame” HOME. In spite of the illusion of proximity, we will be far and separated from the true reality of this digital world.
We can say that in spite of these videos being the representation of the “world”, for the spectator, they are the summit of choices that result in one controlled representation of certain characteristics and that implicate a manipulation on the vision offered to the spectator. The glass windows have the function to create the illusion of clarity and transparency that are not real.

The fixed camera reinforces even further that feeling. In this project, the user does not travel or walk in the space. Restricted information is supplied to him/her/it. Depending on the status of the inhabitants of HOME, the video is a restrict information. Depending on the HOME state the videos may become solely the white immenseness.
The algorithm was developed in actionScript 2.0 and the videos are controlled by use of Max MSP/Jitter. The sound design was done in Pró-Tools.

The installation space:

(3D model by Maria João Neves)