EVENT

Game Art: Workspace Unlimited's "They Watch" (2009) (10/30-11/20 2009, Empac, New York)

Matteo

Matteo

— 2 min read
Workspace Unlimited, THEY WATCH (work in progress) from EMPAC @ Rensselaer on Vimeo.


"Workspace Unlimited: They WatchThey 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. They watch. 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." (Empac website)


Workspace Unlimited:

Workspace Unlimited (2001) founded in Belgium by Thomas Soetens (1972) and Kora Van den Bulcke (1972) is an international collective that is at the forefront of media art, creating some of today’s most compelling virtual worlds and interactive installations. The collective’s projects engage with the territories that emerge when physical spaces intersect with the enlarged public sphere of electronic networks and immersive technologies. Workspace Unlimited is frequently invited for lectures and presentation and has been commissioned to create original large-scale works and site-specific installations by leading media art institutions and festivals such as the Museum of the Moving Image (New York), the new center for Experimental Media and Performance Art Center (New York), the V2_Institute for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam), LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Gijón, Spain), the Society for Arts and Technology (Montreal) and Elektra. The collective’s work has been highlighted in numerous publications, including Space Time Play (Birkhauser 2007) and Interact or Die! (V2_publications 2007). In addition to the artistic practice Workspace Unlimited also initiates research projects and workshops in collaboration with an international network of researchers, art institutions and universities.

Link: The Watch @ EmpacLink: Directions to Empac

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