"PARAHOUSE".
a project of EGON MARCH INSTITUTE

 

The project is a cross-field between ergonomics of the public place (the house) and different purposes its rooms are used for in the social context.

We want to collect triggers from specific rooms of the Kietz cultural center and treat them as initialisations or influences for the real-time generated media events, which would be the feedback for the observers.

The project can simply be described as a merging of four aspects of the space-time coordinates.

1. The first level is  of the entire building - it imposes the behavior and choreography to the observer who is working-living-behaving therein under certain conditions. The body in motion meets the function of the space and its internal!

Design. The person creates the environment which corresponds to the aim of his/her "being there".
 
Example: Theater, Bar, Gallery, Stairs, Office.
 
The stage: the sensors on the stage are preset as a tool, like a spatial instrument for the performer to navigate projection, light, sound, to execute the show. The auditorium is a space for observation, passive collaboration. The sensors there are preset for reactions, manipulative decisions, response and interaction with the stage situation.

The bar: there are many spaces in the bar where we can put sensors devoted for detection of touch - gesture. Tables, chairs, doors (incoming, to toilet). The dramaturgy of understanding how to use them varies from statistical measurement of the unconscious mass ritual to expression of the democratic will of the audience, who can vote, compete in groups, etc.... when some rules of behavior are introduced.

THE GALLERY makes it possible to induce sensors with certain patterns of predetermined space behavior of the observer (who follows the exhibition) - after a reflective moment on "how it works" it can inspire the observer to take another look, to explore his/hers own pattern of observation.

The stairs, the office... yet another variations on topography of translations of movements into symphony of triggers. 

2. The second "space" is THE BUFFER in the digital matrix, where the raw signals coming from the triggers are calculated and interpreted before being sent to different media machinery. It is the crucial space which can be understood as a black-box of the INTERACTIVE-MULTI-MEDIA-INDUSTRY-IDEOLOGY. It is a place of authorized-ideological decision. My decision is to maintain the dictate of body knowledge-behavior in order to get a feedback which alienates the dreams of impossible on interactivity and exposes thelogic of the decisions to be used and observed critically by the observers - guests. The house as a PICK-UP-TRAP should be transformed into the instrument of awareness for the single-headed/ individual-experience guest. (the highest standard would be a therapeutic effect on people who experienced the paranoia of being observed (electronically, etc.).

And of course, the buffer is a place of artistry, mythology of creativity: we will address real-time electronic composition, real time video transmission digital mix, some lights and computer graphics...
 
3. The house is also of all signals coming trough the wires from different sources, senders, transmitters, and

4. the house is itself. We will transmit the collected and interpreted signals as a pirate radio station, a web radio station, Cu-see-me Tv, the screening on the facade during the night. The visitors from the web will be able to send their own triggers.

The radio and TV broadcast signals penetrating the house from outside will be reinterpreted real-time and offered for a permanent real-time deconstruction to the guests of KIETZ by the means of media-recyclators, navigated through the same triggering devices as the rest of the system.
 
SCENARIOS:
There are many scenarios of how to relate the observer with the events he/she is inducing in the system. Different architectural and social frames are imposing different treatments. We want to keep the PA-RA-HOUSE as much open as possible, so that all the period of functioning can be treated as an ongoing experiment, which makes the workshop possible on a meta level: the triggers which a dancer is inducing on a stage can be freely re-addressed to interpret the incoming material from the bar, the audience in the bar can observe the visitors in the gallery - there are many modalities waiting for exploration which is only possible in the event itself. The performance and the interactive party should be on a disposal as ready-to-go-shows.
 
THE TECHNOLOGY:
Depends on how many places we really cover and how dense the pickups and inputs are.
I think the computing base for the beginning of the negotiations should be
Research on sponsors for other types of sensors but pickups is ongoing.

THE PROCESS
can only be accomplished with a full time on-line activity - a data base of the house should be established as a ftp server on which all the plans are worked out in advance. Collaborations starts NOW if the interest is fully established.

I suggest two month on-line preparation before three weeks work of all the team at the place of event. Approx. 8 to 10 artists and/or hardware-software engineers and 3 activists from KIETZ.

From here on I'm waiting for Your feedback.

GO FOR IT!
Marko kosnik<march@kud-fp.si