Ruhe RAUM Bewegung


'Gerhard Funk Gerhard Funk

It is well-known that one’s own mood is carried over to one’s surroundings and, in turn, reacts to them. Even-tempered, easygoing people have a harmonizing effect, upbeat individuals enliven those around them, whereas people under stress and in a rush spread confusion and unrest which in turn acts to reinforce this behavior. The interactive installation "Ruhe – RAUM – Bewegung" plays upon this interlinked feedback effect between individual and environment. The floor of the installation space is divided into 12 pictorial zones, each containing 16 fields. When a viewer enters one of the zones, the corresponding structural graphic component is projected onto the wall. There are theoretically 1216 possible combinations [over 180 quadrillion]. The structural images are designed in such a way that linear and rotating movement effects appear in conjunction with the color animation. Manifold interrelationships link the spatial environment and the human actors within it. As a result of the viewer walking through the installation space, new structures are continuously generated and projected. These gray-tone structures, which initially appear to be purely random and chaotic, are subject to a clear ordering principle. As soon as they -recognize this principle, most viewers manifest the desire to intentionally construct specific structures interactively with the projected images. However, this attempt to produce desired textures on the walls is disturbed by the presence of other people. A process of group dynamics thus emerges in which interactivity is initiated both among the viewers in the installation space and between them and the wall textures. This interplay in the generation of structures is superimposed by the internal dynamics of the projected images, which is directly proportional to the dynamics of the group of people occupying the installation space. If no one moves [absolute tranquillity], the wall structures come to a standstill and the space becomes motionless. However, with the slightest movement in the space, motion within the textures recommences [technically speaking, color animated, whereby the degree of gray-tone animation depends upon the intensity of movement in the space]. The possibility of influencing the internal dynamics of the installation space leads some viewers to remain completely motionless in order to be able to leisurely observe the structures they have produced, whereas others are energized into hectic movements to accelerate the inherent dynamics of the wall structures. The result is a fluent sequence of tranquillity and motion within this space.

The motion detection takes place by means of a video camera mounted on the ceiling of the installation space. Each pair of successive video frames is compared for differences. From these differences, the motion’s point of concentration is calculated, and these co-ordinates in turn control the generation of the wall structures.

The program was written in Pascal for Windows and runs on a 486/66Mhz processor. Motion analysis is performed by a FAST ScreenMachine II.