Water Made Active
Onze op maat gemaakte “regeninstallatie” druppelde water in volledige volgorde en harmonie. Het reconstrueerde de figuur van een echte atleet in een vloeibare animatie. Elke unit bevatte 64 liter water, met 8 units tegelijk. Dit betekende dat we een halve ton water gebruikten om het hele systeem bij elkaar te brengen. Om het waterkarakter levensecht te maken, hebben we een menselijke atleet in beweging vastgelegd die rent, springt en kickboksen. Vervolgens vertelden gegevens van de bewegingsregistratie het waterplatform wanneer de sproeiers aan en uit moesten worden gezet. De waterdruppels gingen aan en uit met een reeks van 2048 schakelaars. Het team gebruikte flitslicht om de waterdruppels in de lucht te verlichten en “op te hangen”. Dit betekende dat elk frame een nauwkeurigheid van millimeters en microseconden had. Als resultaat hebben we in slechts een microseconde een hele laag  door het hele systeem gestuurd.

1.78 madrid
Per festeggiare i 400 anni di storia di Plaza Mayor nella capitale spagnola è comparsa, dal 9 al 19 febbraio 2018, un’opera dell’artista Janet Echelman (1966, Tampa, Florida). Il risultato è stato straordinario: un’opera d’arte, sospesa nel cielo, il cui titolo è 1.78. 1.78, è il tempo in microsecondi che, secondo gli scienziati della Nasa, rappresentano il tempo trascorso il giorno del terremoto del Giappone nel 2011, un evento sismico così potente da mutare gli equilibri terrestri accelerando la rotazione del pianeta.

BELIEF SYSTEMS
Facial micro expressions last less than a second and are almost impossible to control. They are hard wired to the emotional activity in the brain which can be easily captured using specially developed technological devices. Free will is now in question as the science exposes decision-making as an emotional process rather than a rational one. This ability to read emotions technologically result in a society obsessed with their emotional reactions. Emotions, convictions and beliefs which usually remain hidden, now become a public matter. “Belief systems” is a video scenario about a society that responds to the challenges of modern neuroscience by embracing these technological possibilities to read, evaluate and alter peoples behaviours and emotions.

feel Me tactile interactive bed
File Festival
“feelMe” is a work that for the first time remotely transmits the tactile sensation. Our work provokes the exploration of the sense of touch while promoting the interaction between two people mediated by a machine. The work is constituted of two surfaces, or “beds”: the first one (tactile transmission unit), in which one of the participants, layed down, imprints marks to its surface by pressing it with the weight and movement of the different parts of his/her body; these impressions will be captured and transmitted to the other participant, who lies in the second “bed” (tactile reception unit) and receives them simultaneously in the same positions and in proportional intensities, however, in negative, that is, when the surface in the first bed sinks, it rises in the second one, promoting a touch. The first body touches the second one, and the “beds” may be a few meters or thousands of kilometers apart from each other. Between the bodies, dozens of occult sensors, microcontrollers, engines (lineal actors), computers and a program that orchestrates that tactile communication. We allow the participant to experiment the possibilities of encounter between bodies through the digital world, with a different approach from the one provided by virtual reality. We want to explore the tactile perception separately in its “corporal way”, and only in future works to propose the expansion/extension of multimedia perception with the inclusion of tactile perception.