The goal of Videoplace was not to create an art work that happened to be interactive, but to raise interactivity itself to the level of an art medium. This required redefining the human interface so that the system perceived the movements of participants' bodies rather than receiving commands from them via traditional input devices. Upon enter the "Videoplace" installation, visitors are confronted with their own images projected into a simple graphic scene in which everthing that occurs is a response to their actions.
Visitors can interact with 25 different programs or interaction patterns. A switch from one program to another usually takes place when a new person steps in front of the camera. The end goal is to develop a program capable of learning independently.
Think of the people now is a Commodore Amiga hyper-media computer programme, based on the theme of a media reported event from the 1990 Remembrance Ceremony in Whitehall, London. A young man ran out from the crowd and set fire to himself and shouted the words "think about the people now" in protest against the ceremony. The media account that followed discussed the event in extreme trivial terms, failing to report anything but minor details and accounting only for the stress felt by the Royal Family and Politicians present. The Amiga hyper-media programme recreates the event through the media reports, trivializing and critiquing the British press. This work was produced as part of the final MFA degree show for The University of Reading in 1991. It was awarded the Golden Nica Award Prix Ars Electronica that year. Think of the people now was exhibited at Eyebeam Atelier as part of the Prix Selection Exhibition.
America’s Finest (1993-5) utilizes an M-16 rifle and manipulated optics to question the identity of agressor and victim and the role played by images of war in the psyche of the observer. The work enacted the idea of Étienne Jules Marey's camera-gun, already implicit in Room of One's Own, her third interactive work created in 1990. America's Finest was shown as part of the Prix Selection exhibition at Eyebeam Atelier.
Hershman Leeson is an Emeritus Professor of Digital Art in the Techno Cultural Studies Program at the University of California, Davis, and an A.D. White Professor at Large at Cornell University, the highest honor bestowed by that institution.
Kazuhiko Hachiya’s Inter Dis-Communication Machine, composed of a video camera, transmitters, head mounted displays, batteries, and feathers is a communication system aimed at transmitting and receiving sensual experiences.
Used by two people wearing head-mounted displays, the ‘machine’ projects one wearer’s sight and sound perception of the environment into the other one’s display, thus confusing the borders between the identities of ‘you’ and ‘me’.
The Inter Dis-Communication Machine allows its wearers to ‘enter’ each other’s body and perception without being able to influence it. This work was exhibited as part of the Prix Selection exhibition at Eyebeam Atelier.