Lincoln Schatz

Inter-View Interactive Video Sculpture, 2004

We are constantly receiving a stream of images through our sense of sight. This is what I call the "Live Visual Layer". At times during the day our mind recalls images from the recent past "Recent Visual Layer" and images from the distant past "Distant Visual Layer". As these distinct layers interact with each other, new meanings are synthesized. This collision of images creates new dynamic visual relationships.

"Inter-View" is an alchemist of memory. Layered on its screens, via independent cameras, are video images comprised of: a Live Visual Layer, a Recent Visual Layer and a Distant Visual Layer. Like humans, it keeps a large database of recent events, and a much smaller database of distant events. The visual environment is captured from several points on the sculpture, evidencing the unique physical relationship between the participant, the object and the stored visual memory.

Shared images from the cameras are recalled, displayed and manipulated based upon the participants' physical interaction through computer vision. The amount of memory is determined by drive size. Presently, Inter-View has the capacity to store two years of selected video. The memory may be easily increased with drive arrays, allowing for multiple decades of memory.

Inter-View is about memory, the way we recall images and our corporal interaction with an object. It is the synthesis of sculpture and new media, trafficking in a totally new territory. Inter-View consists of four (4) video capture cameras and four (4) LCD display screens, all mounted into a sculpture made from 1" thick Plexiglas. The cameras capture video from different vantage points on the sculpture, evidencing the unique physical interaction between the participant, the object and the video memory. Over time Inter-View will function as an observer of events, capturing video from its environment. It has a start date at which it begins to capture video and can store up to a decade or more onto a computer. Participants movement cause past video files to be layered over a live feed. Custom written tracking software uses movement to effect what video is called from memory as well as to manipulate the physical properties of the final image. Events from minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years past are layered on top of each other, in varying opacity and speeds. The resultant images are a collision of the past and the present. Relationships are synthesized across time, new dynamic meanings are established.