Abhainn, an interactive Installation

As part of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance (IWAMD) "Remediating the Media" theme, five groups of five in the Contemporary art module of Interactive Media UL creatively explored different ways of remediating archive footage from IWAMD. My group produced Abhainn; an interactive installation. Members included; Peng Lu, Beata Zujewska, Louisa Donnelly and Alan Gleeson as well as myself!!! The initiative was organised in association with the opening of the new music and dance building on the university of Limerick campus. It was our first experience of exhibiting our work to the general public and it turned out to be a very positive experience indeed.

Short extract from our Abstract:

"This piece is encompassing a variety of modern materials, inspiration from the past and the surroundings. Reflection of light is symbolizing hope for the future. Silhouettes of dancers and their gestures suggest the movement in learning, embodying the vibrancy of this building and emphasizing transparency".

The planning process:

After our initial brainstorming sessions we had many interesting ideas about how we would uniquely recreate the old footage. During these sessions our emphases was on being realistic!! We throughly discussed any ideas we came up with and then approached our leaturer Mikael Fernstrom on whether the ideas was feasible or not. There were many aspects to take into consideration when we set about making our installation, some I would never even have considered before! Planning was a critical element, we needed to source our own materials, do up costings, come up with an abstract and name etc and this is aside from producing the content, music and building our screen.

Thought process

From the begining we all liked the concept of "bringing the outdoors in". We thought of the location of the new building and of course felt the inclusion of the river was an necessity! Alan (music technology member of the group) recorded the sounds of the river and the surrounding environment to create a unique piece of music. This idea was the basis of our installation. For the screen we wanted to be creative and treat our potential audience to a screen with a difference that fitted into our theme of the river. We came up with using panels of sheet metal as a reflective and moving screen. The movement of the panels would mimic the flow of a river, with the noise of the panels mimicking that of a wind-chime and adding to the over all atmosphere.

Building process

We had a selection of different dancing footage to choose content from (a long process in itself!!) to make the basis of the video and as well as this we decided we would create a mask of dancers of which the audience could view the archived footage through. By laying footage and creating these masks we generated a unique video full of movement. The masks were made by filming two dancers on a green screen and editing it in after effects and final cut.

The sheet metal had to be cut into individual panels, painted white on one side (this meant masking the edges of each panel), then it had to be pierced and then hung with cat gut onto the metal frame. This was a long, slow process that was completed over the course of approximately three weeks. It was a very tediace but worthwhile process seen as it worked very well on the day, and we were so proud!

Materials:

Sheet metal, paint, cat cut, fan, lots of masking tape, newspaper, mac computer, web cam, black curtain backdrop, bin bags to block the windows, of course a projector and stand.

   

How it worked:

The web cam picked up on peoples movements as they came close to the panels, it then tracked their movements and changed the music.

Learning Experience:

From beginning to end I learned a lot and gained more of an insight of how to think like an interaction designer. This experience will go along way to help me with my thesis, in how I will go about things and how to improvise if things go wrong. I also learned a lot about how web cam technology works and I am thinking of incorporating into my thesis idea. Over all it provided great real world experience, from working in a group capacity, meeting deadlines and talking to the public. Even hearing feedback and seeing your idea "come to life" from a sketch on paper to a physical piece, taller than u!

Video of some of the visitors interaction with Abhainn on the day:

Abhainn Installation from Colette Keely on Vimeo.

Feedback:

The visitors seemed to like our installation and gave us alot of positive feedback. Some reactions on the night included;

"I could stay here for hours, I love it"

"Very aesthetically pleasing"

"Is there someone behind there shaking the panels?

"Its good in that its a different experience for everyone, you can make it your own, with your movements and interactivity"

"Very different almost like a time delay"

Other reactions included;

"What is going on?"

" oh I thought it was boxers fighting" (referring to the masks of the dancers movements)

Some visitors even thought the screen was projecting their movement!