you are the water

interactive audio-/video installation [computer, contact microphones, MaxJitter programming] 4 x 7 minutes [morning, afternoon, evening, night: 7’ each], total running time: 28 minutes [looped] projection size: ca. 6 x 8 m in the frame of the exStream residency at ‘time based arts’ in Kingston upon Hull, UK June 2004

‘you are the water’ is an interactive audio-/video installation in which the frequencies of underwater sounds of the River Humber continuously re-determine the level of the video projection, while the live sound produced by the visitors in the exhibition space echo in color modifications of the video projection:

- the audio amplitude of the underwater sound controls the rising and falling of the video projection - the contact microphone on the floor registers the vibrations from the visitor’s steps which in delay are turned into color changes in the video projection

In this way the projection point is held in constant motion by the audio track, and every time a visitor of the work moves, the video - recorded in the structure of a circle of one full day - blinks back.


underwater sound of the River Humber, recorded at 4 m beneath water level:

surface of the River Humber, recorded during one day:

The video documentation of the installation shows 3 minutes extracts from all four phases

The two pieces use a computer for the process of viewing, reading, and experiencing the works. A computer concept is written in mathematical language, made up of a series of algorithms that define the demand from and the response of the system. Programs are mathematical representations. They are defined mathematically to transform an idea into a logical system. An aspect of the program is that it is invisible to the viewer. Like the program, the memory is invisible too. Invisibility is one characteristics of water as well. What we see when we look at water is a light refraction. It's when we enter water that water becomes physically present: the experience of being in water.



Is it at all possible to avoid the theme of control in working with a computer? No more so than in any other art form I guess. Computers are designed to be controlling devices, but probably as much as any other language. In creating an interactive work I envision an interface and by doing so take the point of view of the work. For the program that means: what is there to measure? For the work that means: what is there to experience?

In this way part of the work becomes a dynamic reflection about a structural process, a dialogue that, if in flow with the work, necessarily perpetuates itself and propels out to the viewer. If the medium of video is time, the medium of interactive environments might be the present. The work suggests ways of being present.

What has been chosen are, on the one side the normal activities of the viewer in a gallery space: walking towards the work, pausing, looking, listening, pausing again, moving on - the simple acts of spatial interface between the work and the viewer. On the other side the video projection reacts back with a motion in the projection place, and in delay in an emphasis on color by a slight color change. The choice of relating color to the visitors motion reminds one vaguely of the process of reading - and in an instant - understanding. Experiencing water is perhaps most of all the experience of altering one's state of awareness. It is the feeling of being bodily surrounded by and immersed into another substance into which one is subsumed.
The work is interactive. But for it to be so it first of all must be active; exist on its own. It is not waiting for a person to complete it. In a way the work becomes interactive not only with the viewer but with its own environment. The river too exists in our absence.

In addressing the river in both works the boundaries between reverie and dialogue are muddied.

Through all the mud, invoking, I speak to the water.


July 2004
Christina Della Giustina


audio video [installation view]