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franklaw1026-blog · 8 years

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Semiotic and Systems Analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxykvprN0wA

“Encounters: An Immersive, Interactive Audio Visual Environment” is an installation displayed at the Kalamazoo Animation Festival International during May 2007. It is a collaboration by Elainie Lillios, Bonnie Mitchell and Michael A. Hansen. It is an enclosed experience where a participant sits in a chair and is presented with a three-dimensional projected display accompanied by three-dimensional sound. Upon sitting down, a strange figure approaches the user through the screen and begins speaking to them, and projecting visual displays and odd sounds all around them. It is meant to be meditative in nature, the ambiguity and atmosphere generated by the environment creating a sense of inner reflection and deeper thought in the user.

The system features icons throughout, mostly visual. Upon sitting down, a ghostly humanoid figure approaches the user and asks questions, and turns into other visual stimuli. The figure itself is an icon in the way that it represents an interaction with another being, despite it not actually being real. A white ghost in a space-like background gives the impression of a godly or spiritual being, which is what the experience is likely trying to convey. The experience is abstract, and therefore the icons within are abstract as well. The experience is meant to be introspective, and all the visual stimuli therein exist to reinforce that notion. They come off as wistful, and ethereal in appearance, and all the sounds and visuals experienced by the user create the icon of something that feels deeper than it may be. It feels, sounds, and looks spiritual, therefore it is an icon for that very concept.

The experience that is presented in this installation is an index for what is happening behind the scenes of it. When the user sits down, the only interaction in the whole experience occurs, in that a pressure sensor in the seat of the chair gets activated. Beyond that, the experience is entirely randomized, with the user being subjected to various displays and sounds that are chosen from a large database, perhaps affected by the weight of the person in the chair but that is not entirely clear from the project’s documentation. Nevertheless, the experience comes off as unique to each user, while the uniqueness is only tertiary at best. The visuals and sounds experienced by each user are indeed random, but the randomness has no other variables affecting it, so any specifics about each user are moot. Therefore, there does appear to be a causal relationship between sitting down and receiving your individual experience. However, the user need not be there at all, a rock placed in the chair would also receive a “unique” experience if it was heavy enough to activate the pressure sensor.

The experience relies heavily on symbols for it to work as intended to the user. The white, ghostly apparition that appears to the people who sit in the chair is a traditional symbolic representation of a godlike or spiritual being. Specifically in Western culture, a space-like atmosphere with this kind of humanoid presence combined with the kinds of vague questions and visuals present are very blatant symbolic representations of themes regarding meditation and introspection. In this case, it is very much intended by the creators as evidenced in the documentation video, but it is all symbolic nonetheless. Spiritually-inclined individuals of other cultures may be wholly confused or even repulsed by the content of this installation, and it may in fact project the opposite effect on them.

The connotation of this experience is one that correlates heavily with its symbolic meaning. The ethereal atmosphere projected by the 3D sound and dreamlike visuals connotatively speaks to a “higher” plane of existence, beyond the realm of physical wants and needs. One random iteration of the visuals is a scape of trees, shown without meaning or reason and are meant to create a subjective experience depending on the psyche of the user. Again, another culture may be confused and lost with this installation due to different cultures perceiving spirituality and introspection differently, they may be frightened or even offended by this installation. Additionally, the experience relies on knowledge of the English language, as the figure in the video speaks to the user in English.

In denotation, the experience becomes quite banal and meaningless. The user simply sits down and hears odd noises in addition to a figure speaking to them. Without connotation, the figure may appear unwanted or annoying. It could even be distracting to some, as it does not carry any meaning on its own. The questions asked of the user such as “What inspires you?” lack connotation on their own and lose even more meaning on account that the user is never given the option to respond.

The system operates mostly behind the scenes of what is happening in the foreground. When the user sits down, the experience begins and randomizes itself, with sound being live broadcasted to the speakers in the experience and the video being randomized live. However, there is very little throughput. The input of the system is simply the pressure sensor being activated in the beginning and this sets off the computation of the system to randomize its audio and visual components. Throughput that has nothing to do with the user, however, is very high. The system parses several randomizations at once, it forms the questions asked to the user on its own, as well as managing the soundscape and video projection in a unique way each time.

Because the system is mostly autonomous and operates much without the user aside from them sitting down, it can be seen as a fairly closed and generative system. The level of randomization is not well documented, but if it truly forms its own sentences and sounds, the system is highly impressive and very generative in nature. However, it is only self-interactive. The user sitting down will therefore technically experience different audiovisuals than all of those before him, but it will not be on account of anything that he/she did in particular.

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