The Tables Turned
Video Conferencing: Chamber of Wonders

1997

Paul Sermon (UK) (DE)

"The Tables Turned" is an installation that includes two spatially-separated stations. Two tables linked via video conferencing equipment serve as the medium of communication. Visitor become actors; outfitted with various available props, they can explore an open space of interaction.

Simultaneously video conferencing system and work of art, "The Tables Turned" is placed into service in the Ars Electronica Center whenever individuals gather together at a round table in Linz and other locations via video conferencing hookup.

Paul Sermon's project, developed in collaboration with the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, employs a bluebox process and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network, a global digital communications network), making it possible for discussion participants at two spatially separated conference tables to be displayed on monitors arranged around a single table as if all participants were at one and the same location.

The bluebox process enables, for example, bodies to be made to disappear from the displayed images, so that only the faces are visible on the monitors. If they are outfitted with props such as masks or artificial hands, the conference participants become actors in a digital chamber of wonders.

"The Tables Turned" has already been successfully used to link up the Ars Electronica Center with places like Vienna, Ulm and Stockholm.