Content Description
Project description at: http://www2.students.fh-vorarlberg.ac.at/~im00x11/major_rmit "I take a book with both hands, feel its weight and smell the paper before I turn the first page."
Content:
* Reason for this work
* Structure (and Concept) of the book
* The intimate sensation
Reason for this work
Whenever I saw leaves carried through the air by wind, a locked box with its hidden content or a light beam in a dark room I got fascinated by the almost mysterious sensation which comes along with objects seemingly moving by itself and places that bear the mark of being lived. I'm highly interested in the way the analog and digital work communicate. The digital world tries to mimic the analog world more and more. It starts with the desktop metaphor and moves towards virtual reality. Like the language of film it has developed codes which we can use in order to transpose information as well as sensations:
I often asked myself if there is a way to grasp an intimate sensation, capture it somehow and transport it onto the computer screen in a way it remains alive. The topic I chose is "intimate space" (in the sense of Gaston Bachelard's "Poetics of Space"), presented as a concept (book) in way it starts to have a life on its own. It describes the relationship of spatial experiences with our own perception, memories and past.
Even though you can access a whole program, the work is still more conceptual. To me it has the status of a prototype that already shows there is a language discovered which can be improved... Another aspect, I'd like to mention is that it responds to its outside world as well. On one hand, all movements of the viewer are captured to create his/her artwork and on the other hand there is a page that responds to day and night. Therefore the world around us has an effect on the virtual world.
Structure, Concept of the book
"I want the user to open his eyes, explore piece by piece like reading between the lines"
1. Moving through the book
The work allows the viewer to explore the idea of intimate space slowly. As the idea of intimate space itself deals with the way we perceive objects in this world and our own memories as well as our ability to (day)dream I decided to present this concept in the context of a note book. A note book is a very intimate space as it contains the basic ideas - the starting points for further work and dreams.
First the notebook is covered. All we see on the screen is a parcel that is breathing by itself. As soon as we click on it, the parcel opens up and we see the book. The book opens at its last page and we see itself flicking through its pages quickly until the first page.
The user has the ability to move from page to page, he can also skip pages (flick through the book). There is no restriction - the viewer can move forward and backward.
But as his journey moves on, he will be confronted with spatial concepts, with abstract ideas or simple objects that move on its own. This is accompanied with some pages (especially the first, opening page) that describe the concept of intimate space. Every page also gives a verbal feedback which at some times explains, asks or just comments.
Throughout the pages, the book pretends to have a live on its own. Its movement are of a haptic nature and is made of photographs showing work made by hand. Only, before the last page, the user is confronted with the question, if this book seems more real. That page is a break with the try to make the book as organic as possible. Here, pieces of plastic are put together in a vide sequence as a pattern which looks more electronic than the rest of the book.
Finally, on the last page, the user is able to rediscover the whole book once again: The whole page consists of links, that take the viewer back. It's memory and therefore a link to the past. If the user decides to move on, id est to close the book, he will hear a conclusion which asks the question for the end of a book as well as the end of intimate space. If the user decides to stay on this page, the program will quit after a while - but the user can also go back...
At every page the viewer has the possibility to leave the book or to listen to the help text over and over again. The verbal feedback is only played automatically the first time a page is visited
2. Opening the book again
As the project deals with memories, the book changes in time. For example, there might appear dirt or pages starting to rip out. It also keeps changes, the user has made. On one page the user can open a plaster in front of the mouth of the sketch of a girl. The girl starts shouting. In case the user doesn't put the plaster back and quits the program - the girl will still shout when the program is opened again. This shouting also goes on when the user moves through the book - it gets only more silent by the pages that cover the girl (distance). The intimate sensation:
The last semester I did some conceptual work on the limits of the computer screen, the boundaries of two dimensional space and further tried to mimic a piece of artwork on the screen. I came across the book "Poetics of Space" by Gaston Bachelard which helped me to rediscover the meaning of lived objects within spatial concepts.
In my project I tried to recreate that intimate sensation by confronting the user with various spatial concepts that deal with the idea of daydreaming, one of the prerequisites of artistic expression as well as memory, chance and space. It was not my goal to create something of beauty but to create something which seems to have a life on its own even though it is only existent in the two dimensional computer space. A book can be a very intimate sensation. It is a spatial concept that is extended by its content toward infinity.
The goal was to reproduce it as organic and lively as possible (haptic movements) but at the same time taking on the advantages of the interactive media. The book is able to respond to the viewer as well as it might change in time. Whenever we buy a book, we read it, make sometimes notes (either to extend its contents by our own imagination our just to leave a mark) or put it somewhere. It allows us daydreaming and many of the ideas shown are conceptual. For example their might be a place where the viewer can stick his chewing gum onto the screen. In case the user does, he/she extends the limit of two dimensional space and therefore has completed an idea. Naturally the book gets changed both by the reader(s) as well as by its environment (e.g. dust, dirt, yellowish pages) and therefore the book changes or responds differently when it is opened again and again. For example, the user will find a girl with a sticking plaster in front of her mouth. As soon as this plaster is removed, the girl will respond in a way. This response will keep going regardless if the book will be closed or not. Therefore the book becomes intimate space which describes the relationship of spatial experiences with our own perception, memories and past. The user will receive information which is not intended to be clear but to help him to understand the idea of intimate space and to see things differently.
There are no limitations for the user. As in a real book, he can move from page to page (backward and forward), flick through the pages or let himself carry away by the ideas of one page to another. Sometimes those links are random to mimic the way our thoughts may move from one state to another. There is only one page where the user can't decide - he has to find a way out of the page and will be carried to a random position. The user him/herself decides how long he/she will explore a certain space and what he/she will discover at a certain page. Each page gives a potential for daydream and therefore allows to move beyond the boundaries given.
References: Bachelard, Gaston. Poetics of Space. New York: The Orion Press Inc. (1994)