{"id":1764,"date":"2013-05-22T11:28:53","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T18:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?page_id=1764"},"modified":"2013-05-22T12:03:59","modified_gmt":"2013-05-22T19:03:59","slug":"the-henry-unveils-sanctum","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?page_id=1764","title":{"rendered":"The Henry unveils ‘Sanctum’"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 2, 2013 at 7:39 PM | Sohrab Andaz
\nThe Daily<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sanctum – A passerby views his own image on the display of the Henry Art Gallery\u2019s exhibit \u201cSanctum.\u201d The exhibit uses facial recognition software to create unique stories for individuals based on a social media database collected from participants.<\/em>\n<\/div>\n

Hanging near the entrance of the Henry Art Gallery, a thick black sign warns, \u201cYou are entering a public space that is being video recorded \u2026 By traveling within 12 feet of the facade of the Henry Art Gallery, you will have consented to be part of this project \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

Public surveillance usually incites heated criticism, as does abusing the openness of Facebook. But UW professors at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) Juan Pampin and James Coupe are hoping to incorporate both film of crowds outside the Henry and user-submitted Facebook information into their new piece, \u201cSanctum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea for the piece was birthed two and a half years ago.<\/p>\n

The Henry and a few local entrepreneurs decided to commission a work for the facade on the gallery that engaged people walking past the site with an interactive piece utilizing social media. They sent out an invitation to numerous domestic and international artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was highly competitive,\u201d said Sylvia Wolf, director of the Henry. \u201c[We] selected from a very broad pool of extremely talented people.\u201d<\/p>\n

A jury that included Henry board members, the gallery\u2019s artistic team, and renowned curator and digital media specialist Christiane Paul narrowed more than seventy entries from all over the globe to just one. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe finalists, we were surprised to find, were right here [at] our own back door,\u201d Wolf said. \u201cAmongst the competition, [\u2018Sanctum\u2019] was far and away the deepest and richest.\u201d<\/p>\n

When formulating their proposal for the selection committee, Pampin and Coupe considered the complicated layout of walking paths in front of the Henry.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the characteristics of the site is it\u2019s a thoroughfare,\u201d Pampin said. \u201cWhat we had to work with was a crowd- \u2014 lots of people walking back and forth, lots of faces, a public space, and lots of public artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Coupe, the congested footpath that skirts the front of the Henry gave the two artists the idea of picking people out of a crowd. <\/p>\n

Coupe said \u201cSanctum\u201d thrusts viewers into a situation that feels very similar to social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanctum\u201d works by creating stories about people who walk by the piece. As an individual approaches the piece, an assortment of video cameras use facial recognition software to distinguish a person from the crowd. The act is very similar to the facial recognition on most digital cameras.<\/p>\n

Then a group of computers discerns demographic features about the individuals like their age and gender. The computers match this description with Facebook profiles stored in a digital repository. Volunteers can sign up to become part of the database of Facebook profiles online at http:\/\/sanctum.io\/sign-up\/.<\/p>\n

Finally, the \u201cSanctum\u201d computers stitch together a story from matched Facebook users\u2019 statuses. Eighteen 42-inch LCD monitors display the personalized narrative while 3 ultrasonic speakers dictate the fictional tale.<\/p>\n

The founder of the DXARTS program, Richard Karpen, said these artistic methods help distinguish \u201cSanctum\u201d and allow it to contribute to the history of interactive art-making. <\/p>\n

Karpen used an example to illustrate previous attempts to create this sort of work.<\/p>\n

The artist might place a violin on a table and ask audiences to play the instrument. Obviously most people aren\u2019t trained violists, so although the viewers might be having fun, the piece\u2019s ability to create a novel artistic experience is limited. <\/p>\n

Karpen said these banal attempts to incorporate audiences into a work don\u2019t fully exploit interactivity because they depend on the audience\u2019s knowledge and abilities. On the other hand, when viewers stand before \u201cSanctum,\u201d they can be totally passive. <\/p>\n

The piece requests nothing from viewers. Yet it\u2019s able to produce novel and plausible narratives based on their demographic profile.<\/p>\n

Pampin and Coupe said these mechanisms, essential to the function of \u201cSanctum,\u201d replicate how individuals encounter others on social media. <\/p>\n

According to Coupe, looking upon the landscape of social media sites, platforms like Facebook appear to be just massive crowds of people. But everyone is having a very individuated experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomehow what you are seeing in [\u2018Sanctum\u2019] is a physical instantiation of what is already happening in the network,\u201d Pampin said.<\/p>\n

Coupe said one problem he and Pampin hope to explore with \u201cSanctum\u201d is what degree of privacy our modern culture expects in both online and physical public spaces.<\/p>\n

Coupe said that in digital public spaces like Facebook, \u201cIf you post something and nobody likes it, then it kind of doesn\u2019t work. You want someone to look at you.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Pampin said people become uncomfortable when they experience the publicity of online platforms in the material world. Even though social media users have already uploaded photos, statuses, locations, and personal information to the Internet, seeing these intimate tidbits displayed publicly in the physical realm distresses them.<\/p>\n

In fact, these theoretical issues came to haunt the artists when they first began setting up the piece.<\/p>\n

Pampin said to ensure the piece was operating legally, the artists consulted lawyers who instructed the tandem to ensure passersby could withdraw from \u201cSanctum.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you just walk by, the piece will ignore you,\u201d said Pampin. \u201cBut if you face the facade within 12 feet, then you will be opting into the piece\u201d<\/p>\n

The artists also placed the thick black signs around the gallery\u2019s facade to warn people they were being videotaped. And even though the piece was turned off, individuals began expressing concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople entered the museum and starting complaining, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be videotaped,\u2019\u201d Pampin said. \u201cBut in reality, if you don\u2019t want to be videotaped, you probably can\u2019t go out of your house.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Coupe and Pampin were quick to point out that neither \u201cSanctum\u201d nor the artists are advocating for the disuse of social media. Rather, the piece and artists just hope to create a space where the tensions of privacy and publicity, physical and digital, become real. <\/p>\n

To the artists\u2019 surprise, some viewers have in fact flipped the metaphysical script.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as it went up, everyone was stopping, and everyone was desperate to see themselves,\u201d Coupe said.<\/p>\n

Pampin said people began taking pictures of themselves with the exhibit. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey probably put it on Facebook,\u201d Coupe said. \u201c\u2018I\u2019m over here by the Henry.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSanctum\u201d will run from May 2013 until November 2015. Coupe and Pampin said they plan to update and refine the piece while it runs.<\/p>\n

Reach Science Editor Sohrab Andaz at arts@dailyuw.com.Twitter: @SohrabAndaz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>

May 2, 2013 at 7:39 PM | Sohrab Andaz The Daily Sanctum – A passerby views his own image on the display of the Henry Art Gallery\u2019s exhibit \u201cSanctum.\u201d The exhibit uses facial recognition software to create unique stories for individuals based on a social media database collected from participants. Hanging near the entrance of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1764","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1764"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1784,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1764\/revisions\/1784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}