Project Summary

This project will investigate and expand artistic practice in the use of interactive, computer-controlled video and "live" processing techniques using readily available desktop video systems. It emphasizes innovative applications in immersive, performative, and installation environments with responsive human interface alternatives to the standard "point-and-click" computer screen. Several public seminars will explore and expand ideas from non-linear narrative to visual music and beyond. This will be followed by a five-weekend intensive production workshop where several artists will be invited to produce finished works under the guidance of workshop leaders. We intend to present a selection of the works at next year's Images Independent Film & Video festival. As well, permanent documentation of aesthetic and technical findings will be made freely available via the Internet.

Background and Research

"Video installation and video sculpture have now emerged as the most fertile forms of video art. Artists have released the image from a single screen and embedded it within an environment that extends in both time and space. This direct connection to another moment and an external locale is unique to the video installation. "
­Barbara London, curator, Video Spaces: Eight Installations, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1995.

The public is generally familiar with interactive video in the form of laser-disc- and CD-ROM- based kiosks, computer multimedia products, and web sites. While a wide range of artworks have also been created using these presentation technologies, the "point-and-click" two-dimensional user interface of standard computer systems is often an unsatisfying and unnecessary limitation of the possibilities for interactive video as an artistic experience. Therefore, this project takes the now-familiar "interactive CD-ROM" as a point of departure, and will promote applications in installation, performative, and sculptural contexts.

In the production of interactive video elements for installation environments, artists can take advantage of many of the new technologies and techniques developed for the multimedia industry. There is a general availability of digital video systems such as Avid or Premiere to many artists, and a plethora of courses and classes at various educational institutions teaching authoring software such as Macromedia's Director. There has also been a range of initiatives investigating issues in the design and presentation of non-linear narrative, such as the Interactive Cinema group's work at M.I.T. Published literature such as "The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design", edited by Brenda Laurel, addresses interface issues, but is generally focused on increasing the "ease of use" of task-oriented multimedia products. Virtually all of the above are focused exclusively on producing two-dimensional content for the video/computer screen, or, to a much lesser extent, the "goggles and glove" system of virtual reality.

The installation artist working in three-dimensional space is faced with a very different set of problems. Aesthetic issues­how can interactive video be employed in a more physical, sculptural, performative, or tactile sense?­and technical questions surrounding the interface of real-world physical sensors such as motion, distance, touch, etc., and the integration of devices such as motors, microcontrollers, signal processors, projectors, and so on, arise. For the most part, information and knowledge in these areas is difficult to find. We are not aware of any other artist-run centre or project in Canada which offers affordable access to the necessary equipment and knowledge resources to support work in this field. Even those artists who have had the fortune to take one of the half-dozen or so relevant classes offered at two or three art schools in the country, struggle in isolation to further develop their practice. Yet installation and environments utilizing interactive video systems remain an important and influential field in media art, as evidenced at the Prix Ars Electronica, ISEA, Documenta, and other shows, and by the rapidly increasing attention and demand from major galleries, museums, and their audiences.

Project

The objectives of this project are:
€ to engage in publicity and outreach activities, in collaboration with various media arts organizations, to identify and reach a diverse range of artists.
€ to present six evening seminars with invited speakers on relevant topics, open to the community.
€ to select, on the basis of proposals, up to ten artists to participate in an intensive production workshop of five weekend sessions, led by prominent artists in the field.
€ to document information and findings from the project and to publish this freely via the Internet.
€ to present a selection of the produced works to the public for critical feedback.

Key Personnel:
Project Coordinator: Jeff Mann
Production Workshop Leader: David Rokeby
Please see appendix for biographical information.

Open Seminars

Six weekly seminars will be presented on Tuesday evenings at InterAccess. They will be open to the public, with an admission fee of less than five dollars per seminar. Topics to include:

€ artists talks and historical survey of interactive video installation works (two evenings). The discussion of actual works by artists is the most effective way to present both aesthetic and technical issues in an art-making context. Invited artists and lecturers include: Doug Back, Nancy Paterson, Screen (Eric Rosenzveig and Willy LeMaitre), David Rokeby, and others.
€ survey of accessible technologies and control techniques (two evenings).
- video media: linear tape, laser disc, CD-ROM, DV, MPEG/DVD, etc.
- physical interfacing: sensors, actuators, and I/O techniques
- control software: QuickTime, Max, Director, etc.
- holes in space: live video transmission via Internet, satellites, and pirate TV
€ non-linear video narrative in physical environments; aesthetic issues in interactive installation. Pushing the boundaries of what is imagined. Discussion panel with invited artists.
€ video as performance instrument; improvisation, recombinant video, and visual music. Historical survey and overview of technologies.

The seminars will be researched and presented by Jeff Mann, in addition to the above mentioned artists and other invited guests. Some artists will be brought in via our ISDN videoconferencing system. In addition, InterAccess is currently planning as a separate project an exhibition of Thecla Schiphorst's interactive video installation Bodymaps, for which she recently received the Petro-Canada award. We hope to present an artist talk by Ms. Schiphorst as an adjunct to this project.

During these seminars, an open call for applications for the Production Intensive Workshop will be announced.

Production Intensive Workshop: February 1999

Up to ten artists will be selected to participate in five consecutive weekend-long production workshops, producing a completed artwork. The artists may work individually or in crews. The workshop will be led by David Rokeby, a prominent artist who has won Petro-Canada, Prix Ars Electronica, and other awards for his work in interactive video installation and performance systems.

The workshop will focus on creating finished works using full-screen, full-motion digital video under the control of the Max programming environment. It will feature the use of Rokeby¹s Very Nervous System­which uses real-time video signal processing for motion and gesture recognition­as well as various other electronic sensor/actuator interface technologies. Sessions on digital video/audio production, control programming, and advanced topics in real-time image processing will be offered, as well as in-depth theoretical and conceptual discussions.

The workshop will take place at InterAccess, and be supported by our existing equipment facilities, including a high-quality video data projector, Macintosh workstations, extensive video processing software packages, and electronics fabrication facility.

Public Presentation: April 1999

For the past several years, InterAccess has collaborated with the Images Independent Film and Video Festival in presenting innovative new media art to the public during the Festival. We intend to continue this collaboration in the 1999 Festival and will present a selection of the works that were created during the production workshop. Public presentation is an essential part of the production process, generating critical feedback and inspiration for subsequent works.

Related Initiatives

This project builds on the solid success of InterAccess' SpaceProbe project, also created and coordinated by Jeff Mann, in 97/98. Over the course of a year, SpaceProbe brought together a group of about thirty artists working in sculpture and installation for weekly meetings, seminars, and workshops in electronics/robotics technologies and related aesthetic issues. Over a dozen new works were completed and presented to the public in our gallery space. A core concept of this project was knowledge sharing. This enabled artists with a wide range of experience to learn about applications of electronic sensors, processors, and actuators on fundamental and advanced levels. However, interactive video applications were not covered. Extensive documentation of this project can be found on the InterAccess web site at www.interaccess.org/arg.

The experience and knowledge resources developed during the SpaceProbe project will have a direct application here. The integration of interactive video with other electro-physical systems is a logical next step in promoting and expanding the use of new media technologies for installation environments.

The production intensive workshops also build on the success of a previous project, by workshop leader David Rokeby. The Interactive video "master-class" was a one month intensive workshop in interactive video organized for the Copenhagen 1996 celebration of Copenhagen as the cultural capital of Europe. This workshop explored strategies of mixing the non-linear nature of interaction with the inherent linearity of the video clip, and by extension, the video narrative. David Rokeby created a series of extensions to the MAX language to deal with the low level management of Quicktime, allowing the participants to focus on the more interesting questions of the nature of the relationship between video and the audience they would like to construct. Please see the attached appendix for a full description of this project.

Partnerships

In addition to the partnerships described above for publicity and outreach activities, and the public presentation in collaboration with the Images festival, we are also approaching Apple Computer, Opcode Systems, and local video sales/rental companies for loans and donations of equipment and software to augment InterAccess' existing facilities.

As well, where possible we will collaborate with appropriate galleries or institutions such as the Ontario College of Art and the McLuhan Programme at the University of Toronto, in presenting additional lectures or presentations by visiting artists in order to offset costs and increase their exposure while in Toronto.

Ongoing Activities

An essential part of this project is the documentation of our experience and findings, which will be published as a permanent archive on the InterAccess web site. This will provide assistance to artists around the world looking for knowledge resources in this field, as well as providing publicity and promotional opportunities for other institutions, curators, etc., to connect with the work of the participants. The web site will also include a permanent on-line discussion forum and mailing list for continued knowledge-sharing.

InterAccess also plans to purchase necessary digital video equipment from our annual budget, which will remain accessible as part of our members' equipment rental facility and programme support activities.

Appendix I: Project Personnel Biographies
Appendix II: Description of David Rokeby's "Master Class" Workshop

© 1998 by Jeff Mann. May not be reproduced without permission.