the path of a butterfly sometimes deviates
The path of a butterfly sometimes deviates was the first piece created by Los Jornaleros, a collaborative group formed by Fernando Sanchez and David Whitcraft. It used video surveillance to document the flow of people through a constrained space before and after modifying the interior architectior by building an almost imperceptible addition to a corner where two hallways meet. The piece was shown using three video monitors arranged chronologically.
The path of a butterfly sometimes deviates was partially inspired by an experience I had while visiting a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Los Angeles. I was struck by the ability of the architecture to control our movement within space using subtle cues that we normally aren't aware of. We were also interested in experimenting with modifying architecture in ways that would affect our physical path but not be consciously perceptible. We documented the flow of traffic through the space for 9 hours before making the modification and 9 hours of flow after the modification was completed. Although we added 1.5 feet to the corner, nobody noticed that any modification had been made although their paths through the corner were visibly different.