Installations by Crane|Winet|Minneman|MacDonald.
Colophon
Python
Macromedia Director
Microsoft Access
Sony Jumbotron (1/4 VGA)
IEEE-488 controlled radio
Proximity sensors
Sunset
Sunset was a piece of interactive fiction that played out on two Sony Jumbotron (stadium) monitors that were mounted on on the façade of a nightclub on Sunset Boulevard in North Hollywood. The subject matter was a moody soap opera, assembled from hundreds of images and short text snippets. Passing motorists and pedestrians could influence the unfolding narrative by clicking their garage door openers and car alarm keyfobs at the screen. Motorists could also tune in to an accompanying sound track on a micropower radio station.
Nightfall
The Nightfall installation was a moody room, populated by displays and artifacts that responded to visitors, all of which presented an unfolding narrative depicted in text and images that played out, based on the ever-shifting mood of the room, on numerous screens throughout the space. The piece, done in collaboration with Jon Winet, Margaret Crane, and Dale MacDonald, showed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Interaction with individual installed pieces in the space contributed to the room’s mood. Gazing into a crystal ball brought life to video images projected onto the base of it and foretold the path of the narrative; examination of items in a museum case with a magnifying loupe told us what objects and topics visitors were curious about; proximity to a filing cabinet with a “video document” inside yielded hints about the characters’ pasts. In myriad subtle ways, the room’s sensors and screens were making the stream of people who saw the piece a part of the unfolding artwork. Since it was physically impossible to view all of the pieces simultaneously, visitors were getting glimpses into a complex situation, not unlike how we experience life.