Under the balcony

From alley to universal

The project "Under the balcony" confront the microcosm of an alley with web globality. This interactive animation is projected onto Internet but its finality is to be projected on a wall and handled with a dustbin-mouse. This hybrid object, between a dustbin and a wireless mouse, make it possible for the participant to navigate trough the projection.

THE IDEA

I live a socially supported, but culturally isolated district. The neighbours greet themselves politely when they leave the dustbins. Nobody is delayed in this lane. However, it conceals an unsuspected treasure. Under our feet, in the details, the interstices, the faults, hides infinite.
The project "Under the balcony" aims at corresponding to this fractale reality.
Just as the bus N°19 has its schedules, this project has its stages. Following one period of observation, I carried out an interactive animation which simulates a network of Web-monitoring. It is currently projected on the web (www.fredmurie.net/balcon). The next stage is the installation of an event during which the animation will be projected on a wall and will be handled through a dustbin-mouse.

INTERACTIVE ANIMATION

The development of technologies arouses fear and fascination. Reality largely exceeded Orwell’s nightmare. Internet now makes it possible each one to supervise the planet thanks to satellite images. One can fly over Brown’s yard and in a click, find itself over coasts of Brittany. These same coasts which inspired Mandelbrot with his Fractal Theory. It shows that the length of coasts of Brittany is infinite and that similar patterns are found on various scales. Thus, plunging in a fractal form gives the impression to be taken in an infinitely variable cycle.

But what happen with the sight of my balcony? Do the opposite wall, the neighbours lawn, the blind alley which separate us have infinite shapes? If I plunge my glance there, will I find a recurring element there? Time is linear but its perception isn’t fractal?

So many questions which pushed me to carry out an assiduous investigation. During several months, I observed and analysed the details of this environment, the traces left by time, by residents. In order to share my investigations, I carried out an interactive animation which combine proximity and instantaneity.
While a voice whispers incoherent remarks, the navigator penetrates inside the images, through the pixels and discovers other images there. The addition of a time code gives the impression that photographs and videos are retransmitted on line. Cameras monitor the lane like satellites monitor our planet. The navigator is plunged in a swirl where fragments of reality are carried by fractal programming. By this microscopic study, my local environment tends towards universal.

PUBLIC PROJECTION

"Under the balcony" already exists on the net but it is not its finality. To buckle this cycle, it is advisable to materialize the project in situ.
That is to say to project animation on a wall and to put in space the interactivity in the lane.
The dustbin-mouse is an ingenious device consisting of a dustbin, a wireless mouse and few algorithms. It allows you to browse and control the animation. Dustbin-mouse is in the same family as iron-mouse, hybrids between banal domestic object and technological tool (see exposure « iron wire»). Thus, the spect-actor sails between tangible reality and digital reality.

The dustbin-mouse

Projection test on the opposite wall