| abstract
| exhibition

Drift is an interactive audiovisual installation that overlays the appearance and behaviour of a generative mechanism with the properties of a surrounding physical space. This installation forms part of a series of works in which the authors experiment with generative approaches to augmented reality. The generative system of Drift is based on simulated sand grains that move across a virtual relief. The relief is derived from a combination of the physical properties of the exhibition space and a geometrical representation of an imaginary space. The installation itself consists of a rotating platform that houses a camera, a video projector and two hyper-directional loudspeakers. As the platform turns, the camera scans across the surrounding space and provides the data on which the virtual relief is based. At the same time, the output of the simulation becomes perceivable as an acoustic and visual projection that is aligned and superimposed with the physical appearance of the scanned space. Visitors who are present in the exhibition space automatically become part of the generative processes. Their presence alters the space perceived by the scanning mechanism and their appearance also becomes subject to the process of audiovisual superposition.

This project has been realized as a collaboration:

Daniel Bisig: Installation Design, Engineering, Interactive Video Philippe Kocher: Interactive Music