Overview
How can we combine the analog and digital realms to create compelling experiences? What role do our bodies play (or not!) in the systems we create? How does good interaction design play a role – even in interactive art installations? And what is the balance between clarity and complexity that makes an interactive system easily understood yet retains people’s interest?
For her presentation, internationally acclaimed artist, Camille Utterback will show documentation of her interactive installations and reactive sculptures and discuss the above questions in the context of her art practice.
Utterback’s work explores the aesthetic and experiential possibilities of linking computational systems to human movement and gesture in layered and often humorous ways. Her work focuses attention on the continued relevance and richness of the body in our increasingly mediated world. She writes her own software, so is also interested in coding practice as artistic exploration.
To create her work, Utterback uses video tracking software or other sensors to react and respond to human movement and gesture. In her ground-breaking Text Rain installation (1999), participants use their bodies to catch and play with projected lines of a poem. In her more recent External Measures series (2001 – 2007) she explores the possibilities of physically based interactive drawing systems. Utterback has also begun creating large scale public commissions, such as Abundance, which was temporarily projected on the side of the San Jose City Hall and reacted to movement in the public plaza below.
