Resurfacing:\By Ward Market\Proposal

This project has three distinct phases of implementation: an initial proposal, an installation Resurfacing: Byward Market, leading to a final iteration to be completed in 2006.

In the initial proposal, viewers interact with the installation by running their fingers over a 1x4ft rear-projection touch-screen, a luminous image encased in a one inch black frame suspended from the ceiling. Without viewer interaction the image looks dark and subtle with little movement. Composed of abstract organic forms the image creates a three dimensional architecture landscape. As the viewer comes within a few feet of the screen the image increases in luminosity and begins to shift and evolve. Once the viewer's hand(s) make contact with the screen surface he or she is rewarded with a dramatic change of luminosity, colour and form in the image. The relationship between the viewer's gesture and visual result is not that of direct control but more an indirect response from the image. The viewer feels as if he or she is in a collaboration with the surface to create the visual aspects of the image. The effect of the viewer's action propagates through the image, creating more complex architectural changes the longer the interaction lasts. When the viewer finally withdraws from the piece the image slowly decreases in brightness and again the motion becomes slow and understated.

The current Resurfacing: Byward Market layers prerecorded still images of a given camera angle and fixed zoom length, with the 'real-time' video image streamed from the identical angle and zoom. The two layers, the topmost of live video and the underlying of a precaptured still image, are paired and aligned so that permanent still objects, such as buildings, appear unchanged if the top-live layer should become transparent. The effect of transparency in the live image, reveals an underlying photographic quality. As well, the dynamic elements of the scene are rendered ghostly transparent. Changes in position, lighting, orientation and presence are revealed even as they become evanescent.

Resurfacing: Byward Market reacts to issues of:
...virtual connectivity to physical world phenomena
...rates of change of urban development
...architecture as frozen music
...agency of the individual in public domain
...extension of space through visual fields and corridors--windows or virtual
...(re)writing of history
...urban surveillance

The capstone iteration of the Resurfacing series will push these concepts further, with more deliberate consideration of the user interfaces and more elaborate control of the camera's motion and zoom mechanics.

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