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Time Interface

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        <b>Interface Time</b>
      
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        Just as the interface is installed in a certain location, it is also inscribed in time. 
        Virtual time opens up new dimensions for artists to explore. In order to better understand 
        it, they can either accelerate it or slow it down (simulated growth of plants with a view 
        to preparing an aesthetic study; simulated ageing or vice versa). In the world of virtual 
        objects, interactions are principally visual, tactile or auditory – they are sensory and 
        behavioural. In this way, we can use our physicality, expectations and body postures to 
        unsettle the virtual world and, thirty years on, give full meaning to Harald Szeemann's 
        remarkable 1969 exhibition in Bern, Switzerland 
      
      
        <i>Quand les attitudes deviennent formes</i>
      
      
         (
      
      
        <i>When Attitudes Become Form: Live in Your Head</i>
      
      
        ). 
      
      
        <u>** <http://crossings.tcd.ie/issues/1.2/Longavesne/></u>
      
      
         
      
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        Before it is something technological, the interface is essentially a place, a marginal 
        zone which facilitates communication and the spatial and temporal interrelation of two 
        different conceptions of the world. It is an intermediary zone which creates friction, 
        contact with which obliges the spectator to undergo the strange experience of a separation 
        of the self, as in Peter Campus's 1972 installation 
      
      
        <i>Interface</i>
      
      
        . In this work, as the spectator approaches the middle of the room, his image is reflected 
        in a large window located in a dark part of the room. At the same time, a video camera 
        placed on the far side of the window projects a video image of the spectator onto it. The 
        window becomes both a mirror and a screen and is the place where two different 
        representations coexist. It is an interface.
      
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        Meanwhile, the development of digital technology has led to a diversification in the 
        nature of interfaces. Artists can now explore not only real spaces but also virtual 
        spaces, creating worlds in which spectators can completely immerse themselves. As Nam June 
        Paik has written of Edmond Couchot's wonderful 
      
      
        <u>Je sème à tout vent 
        <http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/~g.legrady/MAT200A_W01/students/enricaLovaglio/VRsite/authors/P.html></u>
      
      
        ,
      
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        By blowing into a small hole, the visitor causes a dandelion to be dispersed across the 
        screen, the degree of this dispersal being dependent on the strength with which the person 
        blows [...] Jeffrey Shaw's work [
      
      
        <u>The Legible City <http://www.aec.at/prix/1990/E90azI-legible.html></u>
      
      
        ], meanwhile, consists of a bicycle linked up to a television screen. The visitor becomes 
        a touring cyclist and moves through the scenery at a speed which is related to the amount 
        of pressure placed on the pedals [
      
      
        <u>26 <http://crossings.tcd.ie/issues/1.2/Longavesne/></u>
      
      
        ].
      
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        Because the artists use everyday objects placed in a natural setting, these interfaces 
        seem natural and easy to access. The interface becomes transparent. The interface 
        participates in the transformation of the spectator's gaze, of exhibition value and of 
        exchange value. Such is its role, that, according to Anne-Marie Duguet, the choice of 
        interface can have ‘as radical a consequence as the abolition of the frame in a pair of 
        spectacles, replacing the notion of the image with that of the stage . . . ’ [
      
      
        <u>12 <http://crossings.tcd.ie/issues/1.2/Longavesne/></u>
      
      
        ].
      
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        Faced with such a multitude of potential applications, a working taxonomy of interfaces is 
        now necessary. This taxonomy must fit into the context of the exchange of information of a 
        spatial, temporal and interactive nature between real and virtual worlds. As Annick 
        Bureaud has suggested, it can be characterised by typologies defined according to their 
        physical properties and use values [
      
      
        <u><http://crossings.tcd.ie/issues/1.2/Longavesne/></u>
      
      
        ]:
      
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        Interfaces which provide access to work (the web), and which make use of existing 
        technology without questioning it: 
      
      
        <u>Waxweb <http://www.iath.virginia.edu/wax/></u>
      
      
         by David Blair 
      
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        Interfaces which make use of existing technology and which question it: 
      
      
        <u>Shadow Server <http://taylor.ieor.berkeley.edu/shadowserver/index.html></u>
      
      
         by Kenneth Goldberg 
      
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        Works constructed around their interface: 
      
      
        <u>A-Volve <http://www.mic.atr.co.jp/~christa/WORKS/A-VolveLinks.html></u>
      
      
         by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau 
      
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        Interfaces conceived specifically for a particular work: 
      
      
        <u>Machine à peindre <http://perso.ensad.fr/~longa/fete/machine.html></u>
      
      
         by Jean-Paul Longavesne 
      
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