Magnet

Interactive digital video projection environment 14 x 8 x 7 metres
2 large scale video projections, black and white, multi-channel interactive sound
In collaboration with Stuart Jones (sound)

Produced whilst Artist In Residence at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand 1997.
Exhibited at the Robert McDougall Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand 1997.
Exhibited at the Kibla Gallery, Maribor, Slovenia 1997.
Funded by the British Council and Creative New Zealand.
Magnet is an interactive work employing remote visual sensing techniques and large scale digital video projection. Magnet employs two computers, two low light video cameras and two high resolution data projectors. The work also includes interactive quadraphonic audio.

The idea of the work came from a news story about Dutch scientists who levitated a frog four metres above the ground, without harm, using intense magnetic fields. This work imagines that other forces, such as fear or desire, might also achieve this end. The figures, approximately four metres tall, emerge from the floor of the gallery, hovering above the viewers. They also get stuck in the roof, just their dangling feet still visible. They can only be rescued through interaction with various of the other figures. Using realtime translucent digital layering techniques, the figures are able to merge with one another, creating further beings of arbitrary gender.

Installation shots

video