Two screens show both show a CCTV image of the street outside the building, however one screen only displays objects and scenery that are in motion, while the other only shows those which are static.
n Watch the viewer encounters a double projection fed by a surveillance camera located on the street outside the exhibition space.
The computer monitors them for stillness and motion, and then reprocesses the images in real time as mirror reflections of each other. In one half of the projection, the only discernible objects are static, such as pedestrians waiting for a streetlight to turn green. In the other, the only visible objects are moving, such as cars driving by or people walking or snow softly falling. As ghostly figures appear and disappear within a shimmering solarized background, the sounds of a watch ticking, a heart beating, soft breathing, are heard. The viewer, immersed in a sensory realm, experiences an eerie sense of physical displacement. The image, split apart, no longer confirms the world as we see it, but reveals how the computer can 'see' us.
The work not only relates to principles of perception but also to photographic visualisation (it appears reminiscent of mid C19th photography for example where the camera could only capture movement as a blur). Implicit in work such as this is that the computer is being used to make obvious the different parts of our perceptual processes - for although we register all the differences between movement and stillness our cognitive processing melds the together into a seemless whole.
The work not only relates to principles of perception but also to photographic visualisation (it appears reminiscent of mid C19th photography for example where the camera could only capture movement as a blur). Implicit in work such as this is that the computer is being used to make obvious the different parts of our perceptual processes - for although we register all the differences between movement and stillness our cognitive processing melds the together into a seemless whole.
This work allows us to step back from our own complexity and see things, literally, from a different point of view. Watch is the first in a series of surveillance installations by Rokeby that "look" at the observable world and offer us a different reading from the logical construct of reality that we have socially learnt.
[LESS]Two screens show both show a CCTV image of the street outside the building, however one screen only displays objects and scenery that are in motion, while the other only shows those which are static.
n Watch the viewer encounters a double projection fed by a surveillance camera located on the street outside the exhibition space.
The computer monitors them for stillness and motion, and then reprocesses the images in real time as mirror reflections of each other. In one half of the projection, the only discernible objects are static, such as pedestrians waiting for a streetlight to turn green. In the other, the only visible objects are moving, such as cars driving by or people walking or snow softly falling. As ghostly figures appear and disappear within a shimmering solarized background, the sounds of a watch ticking, a heart beating, soft breathing, are heard. The viewer, immersed in a sensory realm, experiences an eerie sense of physical displacement. The image, split apart, no longer confirms the world as we see it, but reveals how the computer can 'see' us.
The work not only relates to principles of perception but also to photographic visualisation (it appears reminiscent of mid C19th photography for example where the camera could only capture movement as a blur). Implicit in work such as this is that the computer is being used to make obvious the different parts of our perceptual processes - for although we register all the differences between movement and stillness our cognitive processing melds the together into a seemless whole.
The work not only relates to principles of perception but also to photographic visualisation (it appears reminiscent of mid C19th photography for example where the camera could only capture movement as a blur). Implicit in work such as this is that the computer is being used to make obvious the different parts of our perceptual processes - for although we register all the differences between movement and stillness our cognitive processing melds the together into a seemless whole.
This work allows us to step back from our own complexity and see things, literally, from a different point of view. Watch is the first in a series of surveillance installations by Rokeby that "look" at the observable world and offer us a different reading from the logical construct of reality that we have socially learnt.
