Hands Fiddled

Interactive Art Installation

Year 2018
Kind
  • Interactive
  • Creative Coding
Tools
  • openFrameworks
  • GLSL
  • ZeroMQ
 

A networked diptych where two performers interact with each others hands. When a performer stops, their performance loops until another performer takes their place.

A capture of the display during the exhibition.

The two terminals of the diptych were in separate rooms of the gallery. If you recorded a gesture on one end, it would play back on the opposite terminal, and in turn would be reaching from the opposite direction. Sometimes people remarked that they didn't know the hand reaching and reacting from the other side was another person until they discovered the second half of the installation.

A viewer interacts with the installation, causing her hands to display an image of a shadow puppet on the screen.
Performances with the installation were quite varied. Some people stuck their faces underneath the camera to have it displayed on screen. Others created small narratives or practiced shadow puppetry.

The installation mediated many intimate and ephemeral moments between people and between time.

A wide shot of the installation, showing it's messy wiring underneath a warm lamp. The lamp casts light on a viewer who is interacting with the installation.

I made this as my final project at the School for Poetic Computation, Fall 2018. The didactic during the final gallery show read “Interplay with another’s hand. Performances persist despite time, until another performance takes its place.”

Video documentation by Ilona Brand.