Shifting Intimacies

2005

‘It was like interior journey as I was all alone thinking about my life and my thoughts. I felt really alone there. Frightening – scary – deep.’ Participant ICA London

Shifting Intimacies is an interactive/media artwork for one person to experience at a time. Each participant enters a large dark space containing two circles of projected film imagery presented within an immersive sound environment. One image floats upon a disc of white sand and the other on a circle of white dust. Participants’ movements direct and affect the filmic image and spatialised audio experience. Throughout the work a layer of dust (an artificial life form) slowly eats away and infuses itself deep into the imagery and sound. This immersive work invites differing states of meditation, exploration, stillness and play, creating states of shifting balance that produce a heightened awareness of the body.

Each person has 10 minutes alone with the work. Their movement through the space continually affects speed, quality, balance and flow within the work. At the end of the experience they are invited to climb a lit platform and cast dust back onto the images below.

The work uses a range of technologies including interactive video (Very Nervous System), body heat sensors, custom built electronics, image databases, real time computational synthesis software (Cycling ’74 Max), networking software, real time audio digital signal processing (Max MSP) and real time show control protocols. Controllable actuators also move physical material through the air.

Funded by an ICA/Capture commission for Capture4 and supported by Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster, Site Gallery and VDT. Shifting Intimacies has also been supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council and through Queensland Government via Arts Queensland.

Shifting Intimacies was part of the Over Many Horizons exhibition at UTS Art Gallery, Ultimo, Sydney in 2016.