My screen assignment
This was really refreshing to do! I obviously lost track of the “screen” in there and was thinking broadly of responsive technology. However, the assignment did change the way i think of what screens we already have and what kinds of screens we could have. Then Caitlin’s point about the connections between screens through individual screen holders and the environment certainly changes my perspective again.
The idea of space is unique in this discussion – unique in that i don’t recall this particular discussion in visual arts – where the possibility of being immersed in a visual environment physically, spatially is available, but screens of visuals also travel through our external environments around us. I guess that still places screens in a 3D surround around the screen viewers.
My screen assignment idea was about bridging the sports floor with a responsive visual producer. It would require a screen/head/eye goggle/ programmable gizmo, for the viewer to see through. For those of us who are not sports lovers, this would offer the opportunity to enjoy the game as a spontaneous visual/audial experience created by the players as they play their competitive sport, such as basketball.
The players would all wear shoes equipped with sensors. The floor would have responsive sensors that would send responses to the viewers’ screen. The viewer could program the variety of responses it would permit and combine. The viewer could choose particular players to track and choose to “follow” them using a particular kind of line, mark, colour, sound, light etc according to their movements (jump, stop, run, stand), their weight as the move across the floor (no mark when they are not in contact with floor), their heart rate. As the athlete moves across the floor, the movement of each individual would be tracked as a line, mark etc. and the ensuing visuals would unfold on the screen. The visuals could be saved and transferred as “video” (?) for replaying later or mounting on a wall screen of moving visuals. Sports as art. Athletes as dancers, creators of visuals. Sports not only funding but creating interpretations of their sport… viewer and subject participate.