{"id":1772,"date":"2013-05-22T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?page_id=1772"},"modified":"2013-05-22T12:00:07","modified_gmt":"2013-05-22T19:00:07","slug":"are-you-ready-for-sanctum","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/?page_id=1772","title":{"rendered":"Are You Ready for Sanctum?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by FlipTheMedia <\/a>on
\nTuesday, May 21st, 2013 at 11:41 pm<\/p>\n

Interactive Art Comes to the Henry<\/strong><\/p>\n

This post was produced as part of the UW Comm Department\u2019s undergraduate Entrepreneurial Journalism course.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Hailey Way<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bleary eyed and in a hurry, I walk over the footbridge that passes near the Henry Art Gallery. My pace slowed as I began to hear voices in front of the gallery, and surprisingly, my reflection on a LCD monitor. The digital chatter diminished to one voice as I approached closer and stood still. Unknowingly, I was participating in an interactive installation, which unites social media and surveillance film.<\/p>\n

A contemporary art piece has been turning heads of people passing by on their way to the University of Washington campus. Fusing sound with video, the artwork is illustrating a collaborative way to bring narrative to our social media use. \u201cSample interaction of the artwork with the university community\u201d, or Sanctum, was developed by two artists, James Coupe and Juan Pampin, both faculty within the Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) program at the UW. The work is a combined effort of Coupe\u2019s expertise in social media and video surveillance installations and Pampin\u2019s forte in the mixed media realm of digital and instrumental sound composition.<\/p>\n

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The artists Juan Pampin (left) and James Coupe (right). Photo credit: Hailey Way<\/em><\/div>\n

A high traffic area, the overpass near the Henry is a crossroads for a variety of people that will shift over the installation\u2019s two and a half year duration.
\n\u201cThe opportunity to use a public space is challenging and intriguing. Public art has the ability to go out into the people. It\u2019s not a passive piece, it challenges people to come in and interact with it,\u201d said Juan Pampin.<\/p>\n

The presence of the piece is to use technologies that we don\u2019t normally acknowledge, such as surveillance, but are among us. There are 18 screens on the fa\u00e7ade of the Henry that are filming multiple directions within the courtyard. In this public space, the installation is engaging in private lives of participants who decide to interact.<\/p>\n

In Sohrab Andaz\u2019s article for The Daily, Juan mentioned concerns many expressed about the surveillance.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople entered the museum and started 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 (The Daily)<\/p>\n

Along with the surveillance, if an individual approaches 12 feet away from the gallery, their presence is calibrated. Remain stationary for long enough, the observer will be listening to a story, a synthesis of statuses.<\/p>\n

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One of the many status updates. Photo credit: Hailey Way<\/em><\/div>\n

The written narratives that appear as people approach the screens are fuelled by Facebook status updates. Those who want to participate can sign up here<\/a>. The Facebook app requires your age and gender; participants will otherwise remain anonymous. After 90 days of participation, the database will send an e-mail asking of your continuation. If you decide to deny the renewal, your demographics will be removed from the system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be interesting to see it evolve over the two and a half years; to observe various behaviors over time\u2026 these are expert users of social media,\u201d said James Coupe.<\/p>\n

As an observer of Sanctum, I decided to sign up for the Facebook app. A simple click of a button and I was taken on trip down memory lane. After the \u201cthank you for joining\u201d page, I was faced with a list of status updates dating all the way back to 2009 up until late 2012. The database would then extract any number of these phrases, or a combination of them, to fit with any female in her early 20\u2019s that approaches the fa\u00e7ade of the Henry.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanctum aims to single people out of the crowd to work with these notions of private and public space, and to use other individual narratives based on demographic similarities by people walking by,\u201d Coupe said. \u201cIt will be interesting to see over the course of the two and a half years, how many people remain tethered to this work. But for now, the more the merrier.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Facebook acquires more people to participate, the database grows. The cameras on the fa\u00e7ade narrow in on one person, if they approach close enough, and will attempt to match their demographics with someone similar from the database. Various statuses appear according to the most likely matches, and an extraction of stories emerges.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are intrigued. They don\u2019t think about the data processing that goes on behind the scenes when they use social media. Messages are collected on Facebook and surveillance cameras collect demographic profiles. So, we are using these technologies to create a node or a place where they can coexist, and you are the center of it,\u201d Pampin said.<\/p>\n

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Sanctum interacting with an observer. Photo credit: R.J. S\u00e1nchez, Solstream Studios<\/em>\n<\/div>\n

Coupe discussed profiling as coexisting with narrative construction. Each story can be unique depending on the physical match with the status description.<\/p>\n

\u201cNarratives are based on a story or a scenario. This combination of demographic features suggests a particular story,\u201d Coupe said.<\/p>\n

In essence, with the ubiquitous amount of statuses that emerge, numerous combinations are procured to tell an enticing story to the observer. Next time you walk by the Henry Art Gallery, take a step closer, and listen to the voices around you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>

Posted by FlipTheMedia on Tuesday, May 21st, 2013 at 11:41 pm Interactive Art Comes to the Henry This post was produced as part of the UW Comm Department\u2019s undergraduate Entrepreneurial Journalism course. By Hailey Way Bleary eyed and in a hurry, I walk over the footbridge that passes near the Henry Art Gallery. My pace […]<\/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-1772","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1772","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=1772"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1782,"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1772\/revisions\/1782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamescoupe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}