Description
MIRROR resembles a beautifully designed vanity-mirror, a
desirable commodity, however the consumer suddenly confronts
himself with the hidden perversion of the consumable object:
MIRROR is watching him. Wherever he goes, to the right, to
the left, down his knees, on his toes, further away or very
close to it, MIRROR tracks his moves and keeps him in its
central focus.
MIRROR takes a consumable and turns it into an unexpected
surveillance tool, in a twist of Detournement. It is no longer
a static piece of reflective glass where you can see your
image, but an interactive eye that is following you.
Any object, be it a commodity or a tool (electronics, telecom,
etc.) and any media (advertisement, information, entertainment,
software, etc.) have become equivalently suspicious.
Following my fascination/repulsion for the technologies
of surveillance as well as the technologies of transparency/visibility,
and their implications, my interest turned temporarily toward
the mirror as a symbol to combine the two notions, which
are two ways of viewing: seeing and being seen.
There is a need to come up with smarter tactics and strategies
in order to engage people in what builds our daily environment,
particularly our daily media loaded environment.
In the context of the contemporary cultural landscape, surveillance
and visibility, war and fame, converged to faster generate
more power. In a world where the new is instantly old, the
mediated landscape is restlessly running after the next big
thing. The Western world still continues its seek for the
paradise (where everybody is wealthy, healthy and happy),
be it on the detriment of the other part of planet earth
and the majority of its inhabitants.
In a recent work titled Threatbox.us, I used violence to
convey the underlying perversion of the contemporary landscape.
My point is that violence has become a cultural value. Violence
has many faces: it doesn’t need to be bombs and blood
and torture and starving and war games and X-rated movies,
all increasingly and dangerously invasive; but, for instance,
even “desirable” worlds such as the Sex and the
City TV series are violent in the sense that they expose
luxury in the face of watchers who struggle for survival.
Here, for MIRROR, I choose to fake the underlying perversion.
The subtle sounds that the head assembly emits when it pans
and tilts, the short silence when it doesn’t move (accordingly
to the observer’s behavior), emphasizes somehow that
MIRROR acts like an animal. It has its own personality. When
experiencing MIRROR, I am very much reminded of the behavior
of a squirrel, when they watch you, just moving head and
tail, or quickly rubbing their front feet together.
My work is not making a statement about surveillance, subjection
or manipulation. It intentionally stays on the edges between
playful and scary to let the interacting visitor carry the
work on with his own feelings and thoughts, and hopefully
confront, if only momentarily, his own autonomy of thought.
Technical information
MIRROR is a self-contained work, entirely plug-and-play.
Using a small built-in video camera and ultrasonic sensors,
it tracks a moving observer by panning and tilting so that
the observer is constantly
facing the mirror. MIRROR was developed with custom software
(Max/MSP/Jitter and Java) and completely designed and fabricated
using computerized manufacturing.
MIRROR faces a moving observer by panning and tilting so
that the observer is constantly facing the mirror. It uses
ultrasonic sensors to determine the observer's distance,
and a video camera to determine their overall position. The
video signal determines MIRROR's pan angle, and the ultrasonic
sensors, its tilt angle. The panoptic/control part of the
robotic mirror links to ACCESS (2003).
The MIRROR project consists of a Mac Mini, Video Camera,
Ultra Sonic Range finders, robotic pan and tilt assemblies,
a microcontroller and an oval mirror all assembled around
an aluminum enclosure.
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