Motion Picture
An Interactive Art Piece

'Emily Weil Emily Weil

Motion Picture is somewhat like a brass rubbing of a three-dimensional space. In a brass rubbing, a stick of charcoal is brushed against a piece of paper to reveal the edges of the surface beneath the paper. In Motion Picture, theuser is like the charcoal, and the screen is like the paper.

Motion Picture uses a video camera as an input device to create a spontaneous and expressive interface to the computer. The installation allows a visitor to interact with the piece and simultaneously view it in ”real time”.

As viewers pass in front of the video camera, the edge of their movement appears as a dark outline on the screen. Over time, the movement in a particular area of the installation space gradually darkens (and reveals the edges of objects) in the corresponding region of the screen. Darkened areas of the screen fade away slowly so that the image on the screen is in continuous flux between darkness and light.

Interaction with the piece is a playful process in which the viewer's movements ”rub” an image of the installation space—all the edges and shapes that define that particular space—onto the screen. At the same time, an image of the viewer appears, transforms, fades, builds up again, and finally fades away.

Dark regions fade to white at a rate that is correlated to the amount of overall movement that the video camera detects. As a result, the screen refreshes quickly when there is barely any movement. However, an abundance of motion results in an image that is rich and stable. For the viewer, the amount of movement visible on the screen has an inverse relationship to the amount of movement within the installation space. Motion Picture, therefore, turns ”motion”—all the activity that has become the hallmark of our hyperkinetic age—into a kind of still life.