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visual arts | by K a r e n Henry Art, C o m p u t e r s & Interactivity David Rokeby is an interactive sound and video installation artist based in Toronto. Since 1982, he has been creating interactive installations that directly engage the human body or involve artificial perception systems. His work has been exhibited in shows across Canada, the United States, Europe, Japan, and Korea, including at the Venice Biennale. One of his interactive systems is now being used to enable a paralyzed woman to speak and write and is being studied as a means to help people with Parkinson's disease. The work is live (in real-time) but not interactive. The exterior public space is watched by surveillance cameras. Two images are processed in real-time and projected onto the wall of the installation space: both present distortions of the perception of time. In one, the only things visible are those that are standing still. The effect is that of long-exposure photography, except that the image is truly Rokeby's exhibition at Presentation House Gallery will present two mind-boggling pieces. The Giver of Names is a computer system that identifies objects put on a pedestal before it. A surveillance camera observes the top of the pedestal. The installation space is full of objects the visitor can put onto the pedestal, or he or she may choose something of their own. The computer "grabs" the image and performs many levels of image processing (for example, outline analysis, division into separate objects or parts, colour analysis, texture analysis) that can be watched on a computer screen. During the course of the processing, the system may utter observations through a voice synthesizer. From the words and ideas that resonate most with the perceptions of the object, a phrase or sentence in grammatical English is constructed and then spoken aloud by the computer to describe the object. The phrase is, of course, not a literal description of the object. Rather, it draws the viewer into speculative exploration about the nature of perception and language. "One of the most striking sensations I have experienced while working with interactive technologies is the sensation of sculpting time itself. When working in more traditional time-based work such as film or video, the artist places events along a linear time line. Because I work with real-time behaviours, I am no longer just positioning events but defining the texture and flow of time itself," says Rokeby. The second piece, Watch, exemplifies this. The audience views the world through the distorting surveillance system of the work. live, changing subtly at every video frame. In the second frame, people are visible only if they are in motion. They float as outlines of themselves in a dimensionless black void and disappear as soon as they are still. The artwork itself remains active, a live perceptual filter through which the audience watches. Ed. note: parts of this article Rokeby's website: were adapted from www3.sympatico.ca/drokeby. Rokeby's exhibition will be on view at Presentation House Gallery, January 6 to February 18. A discussion of artists and interactivity will be held at SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1420-30, on January 6, at 10 am. A reading by poets who use computer processes in their work will take place at the gallery on January 25 at 7:30pm. A M O M E N T F R O M THE S T R E A M OF LIVE PROCESSED VIDEO F R O M THE INSTALLATION WATCH January | February 19