Echo
Just now in a land far, far away. There is a splendid building and an exhibition inside of it.
Visitors enter in an almost empty zone. They circulate, wander, investigate… On a small
screen elusive forms wave up and down. Associative components defy the abstractness of
the representation.
Moving about the place, they begin to notice that their presence and their
movements, initially unintentional, affect the animation. Graphic elements assimilate the
colors of their hair and clothing, weights and curvatures of the lines change, disruption
spreads, chaos infiltrates into order. Delicate arabesques metamorphose into raging forms,
the subtlety of whiteness into coloristic expressivity. Visitors become participants of the
creative process, enabled to actively alter the temporal and visual aspects of the artwork.
Immaterial, woven by code, the artwork materializes in the exhibition space. It outgrows
into an environmentally-sensitive installation that, in real time 1 , generates an animated
triptych 2 and displays it on the screens. It does so in the absence of the artist-demiurge,
either by delving into its own depths or by communicating with the visitors. Hermetically
closed in its essence, open in its scope, self-sufficient jet eager for reaction, turned to
inner space but responsive to outer stimuli, Echo constantly creates a “visual resonance” of
its immediate surroundings: stylized, essential, suggestive. It is the reverberation of the
internal liveliness of the exhibition space, a self-referential account of its content and
purpose (to be frequented by visitors, invaded and intertwined with energetic currents).
The immaterial
The key component of the installation is the invisible one, i.e. the software application that
breathes life into it. Echo is a generative artwork that can transform itself in time, thus
forming always new, unique and unrepeatable compositions. Even without taking into
consideration the disruption caused by visitors, the image is never identical as before or
after, so we could say that it is ephemeral as our own existence in time. “Cam-eyes” are
just mediators between the artwork and the environment, sensory upgrades enabling
visitors to imprint their personas onto Echo’s visual manifestations, either passively (by
simply passing through the place) or actively (by playing with the image). The exhibition
space and its visitors become the content of the artwork, resonating in time and space…
1 The frame rate of the animation is currently set to 10 frames per second, as a compromise between
complexity of form and speed of performance.
2 Echo can assume the form of a diptych, triptych or any other polyptych, but for the purpose of this
exposition, it will be described as a triptych.
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Even though the application consists of several classes and functions, it is possible
to categorize them into two distinct groups or functional units. Unless telepresence comes
into the equation 3 , both units are run on the same computer. The first is charged with
analyzing the incoming signal (received from a video camera), while the second has the
task of generating the outgoing signal (simultaneously sent to two screens).
Classes that pertain to the first unit encompass computer vision algorithms that
analyze the captured video image and thus enable the computer to “see” its environment.
Most of these algorithms revolve around simple concepts and are based on general
programming knowledge, while there also a few more advanced ones, devised especially
for this application. Their primary role is to detect the presence of the visitor inside the
frame. If the surrounding area is empty, visual forms remain achromatic, emerging from
the darkness and moving independently, in accordance with both the underlying structures
and the “free will” of the program (exhibited by the second unit). As soon as the presence
of one or more visitors is spotted inside the surveyed area, Echo opens up to the outside
world. The most abundant and distinctive colors marking the visitors’ appearance as well
as their respective amounts begin to affect shades of color and densities of lines. The
average speed of movement influences the timing of the animation, while the occupancy
of the frame alters its overall character from gentle and peaceful to savage and dramatic…
One could say that the classes of the second unit are those that create the actual art,
or at least the appearance of it. They compose “visual music” (specifiable as “visual echo”)
on the basis of certain fine art principles and compositional rules, integrated in the system.
The potential of which they are capable reflects, in some instances, the collective visual
sensibility of our age and evokes occasional reminiscences of the Historical and New
Avant-Gardes. This programming unit is quite stratified, as its core functions repose on
the possibility of recursion, i.e. self-replication of code on a finite number of levels
(infinity being the synonym for computer crash). Nevertheless, the artwork does not
exhibit self-similarity in a dull and strict fashion, but quite the opposite. Randomness
inflicts and enlivens every stage of its “cellular division”. While most of the artwork’s
aspects are handled internally by this unit and, as such, are essentially generative, only a
few crucial ones depend on the results of the data analysis (executed by the first unit).
Echo's code was written entirely in Processing, a programming language and environment
based on Java. In a broader context, it is an open source initiative instigated by Casey Reas
and Benjamin Fry, former students of John Maeda. Initially developed under the auspice of
the MIT Media Lab, from 2004 on, Processing grew into an independent project. Over the
last few years, it became the fueling force behind some of the most advanced new media
projects and has found enthusiastic followers among artists and designers from all over
the world (as this project, once more, proves).
3 Echo can interconnect two or more exhibition spaces (museums, galleries or alternative venues), allowing
participants to extend the impact of their presence on remote instances of the artwork. If a network connection
is established, the analyzing unit can act as a server and the visualizing unit as a client.
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The materialization
The availability and appropriateness of electronic equipment will greatly influence both the
set-up of the installation and the impact of the exhibit. Echo can perform solo, but it
reaches its full potential as a polyphony. The use of at least three computers, three video
cameras, three main and three auxiliary screens is suggested, although any number of
computers, cameras, main and auxiliary screens may be employed 4 . While running an
instance of the application, each computer must retrieve the input signal from one video
camera and transmit the same output signal to two screens (main and auxiliary). On a
multiprocessor system two instances can be run, which improves overall performance and
allows for higher frame rates to be achieved. In such case, one instance executes the code
of the analyzing unit and the other the code of the visualizing unit, the first streaming
data to the second.
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
The concept of the artwork calls for widespread distribution of the installation, or better,
of its constituting components. In order for it to interweave and symbolically embrace the
entire museum or gallery space, it is necessary to situate its parts in four distinct places.
On three of them the interaction with the visitors will take place, while the fourth should
be reserved for the contemplation of the whole. If we look at it as a separate exhibit, the
whole complements the parts and closes the metadiscursive circle by exhibiting the
exhibition’s tides, i.e. rises and falls in visitors.
Places of analysis
In order to set-up the places of analysis, it is crucial to designate some of the most
frequented locations inside or outside of the museum’s or gallery’s exhibition space,
possibly one for each of its architectural units (wing, floor, room, etc.). These should be
mostly empty, passage zones with no artworks within the immediate proximity. At each of
the locations a video camera should be placed, in order to survey the designated area and
send the captured image to the corresponding computer. It would be best if the lighting
conditions were uniform and stable, without greater oscillations in temperature and
quantity of light (although there are quite a few “security settings” implemented in the
program, too much of an environmental instability will undoubtedly affect its functioning).
4 See document Modules and Variations.
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Each camera is to be positioned slightly above the eye level. It is crucial that it can
shoot visitors against a plain background and that its placement allows them to explore
various depths in relation to the artwork. On the very edge of its field of vision an auxiliary
screen should be mounted. This screen will enable participants to observe in what ways
their presence and their movements stimulate the artwork. The first public presentation of
Echo has already proven that this “clairvoyance” tends to trigger complex and intriguing
identification mechanisms as well as metonymic associations, especially with the colors
displayed on screen. Exclamations like: “There I am!” or “There you are!”, upon the
appearance of a certain color, could regularly be heard. People associated themselves and
their friends with the colors that distinguished them, thereby turning an abstract artwork
into a referential representation!
Place of synthesis
All three signals should stream into the place of synthesis, set up at an independent
location such as the entry hall, a central room or a video wall of some kind (preferably
turned outwards, towards public places outside of the building). Three main screens,
positioned so as to form a lively composition, are to show the current flow of visitors
through the museum or gallery, from floor to floor or from room to room.
Such collected animations, substantially equivalent but indescribably variable, form
a conceptual whole. While all the colorfulness, liveliness and unrepeatability of the present
moment vibrates from the video wall, the internal life of the exhibition space becomes an
external attraction. Echo spreads inside-out, erasing the physical boundaries of the edifice,
reaching out for people and bringing them closer…
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