Projector Loquens  interactive installation, Eunsu Kang

Eunsu Kang presents a new living species called "Projector Loquens" which means a communicating projector as a new being.  Like Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto" (1991) the piece demolishes the conceptual boundary between human and machine to ultimately explain the alternative of Socialist-Feminism in that era.  Eunsu's "Projector Loquens" can also be interpreted as a post-human or post-being which is tricky to categorize as disabled or not.  Through presenting the hybrid creature "Project Loqens", her distraction on partitioning the boundary between disability and non-disability communities allows us to think about deeper idea of disability.   by Byeong Sam Jeon  

New Species, Projector Loquens  

According to the La Crosse and the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin, “ the scientific name (species name) of any plant, animal, fungus, alga or bacterium consists of two Latinized words. The first word is the name of the genus to which the organism belongs. The second word is the specific epithet or specific term of the species. Together, the genus plus the specific epithet make up the species name. The species name and scientific name are synonyms.” For example, the name of human being today, Homo sapiens is a composition of human genus name, Homo, and a specific epithet of this species, sapiens which means ‘thinking or wise’. There are several other names by different specific epithets such as Homo faber as the working or making human, Homo loquens as the talking human, Homo ludens as the playful human, etc. Therefore, Projector Loquens is the name of a new species since I regard Projector as a new genus juxtaposed with hominid and it has a communicative character and an anxiety for communication.

Projector Loquens represents a face-to-face communication of two different creatures. It detects a person in the range of about 2.43m also known as Social distance (4-12 feet) according to Edward Hall’s Proxemic Theory. When the participant comes within 0.45m (1.5 feet) of the projector, which is the boundary of Intimate distance and Personal distance, Projector Loquens changes its emotional status into ‘Scared’ mode. Griffin described Hall’s Intimate distance as “an inner circle of space that the animal will defend against all interlopers” and “boundaries that mark their personal space” among people. He continued, “It’s as if we walk around in an invisible bubble. Those with whom we are intimate may enter into the sphere without harm to either party. Invasion by others causes distress. Because of our animal nature, we all have a zone of personal space, but the area of personal space differs greatly from culture to culture.”

The language of Projector Loquens is in the form of movies. Images projected on the participant’s body could be altered by her/his body shape, color (of clothes), distance between the participant and the projector and etc. The receiver should drop her/his head to be able to look at the image on her/his body. The receiver's gaze is always different with the sender's gaze as a result. This situation metaphorically represents the alternation in the process of face-to-face communication among people in the human society.

Components

Projector Loquens consists of a projector turning system, a human detection system, a projection system and movies. Ultrasonic sensors detect human presence and the information is transformed to motor control and movie selection through Teleo modules by MakingThings and Cycling 74's Max/MSP/Jitter program.

Movies (prototype)

The movie is the language of Projector Loquens. Non-linear-sequential images and sounds are used as an alternative language to verbal and written language. Movies play in response to the participant's reaction. 7 movies for 7 modes are created for this prototype.

Paricipants Interaction

Upon entering the exhibition room, the participant sees a projector that rotates and faces her/him. The projector detects the participant and starts to project images on her/his body. When she/he stays still or moves slowly, the projector recognizes it as a friendly gesture and shows a friendly movie. When she/he tries to avoid the projection or moves fast, the projector shows movies which express its frustration or anger. The projector sometimes misunderstands a participants' reaction and reacts unreasonably since alternation is a part of communication. There are several modes that represent the projector's expression. Currently, mode 1-7 in part two of the below is realized.

Reflection and Future Works  

It remains as future work to accomplish all the planned behaviors. The next step beyond this is to build a 'leg' component, which might possibly consist of wheels. It will allow Projector Loquens to follow the participant actively. More research into the expressions of several species and also into the basics of human communication is required to create movies with a concrete theoretic base. In general the development of a more biologically, linguistically evolved form of Projector Loquens will be the focus of future work.  

At 4am, you might waken in your comfortable bed and hear a voice in your head telling you things about yourself that you would never consider in the daytime.  Some of these thoughts are trivial, some neurotic but in the dark you are alone with these paralyzing words.  This voice is both you and not you and it seeks to reveal truths about yourself that would never bear the scrutiny of daylight.

Biography:

Eunsu Kang is an international media artist from Korea. She has been invited to more than sixty exhibitions and film festivals around the world. She was awarded the first and second solo exhibitions for her video installations. Her third solo exhibition was held on cellular phones with wireless internet connections. She is also a winner of the Korean National Fund for Emerging Artists in 2005, the Insa Web/ Mobile Art Project Award in 2003 and the Korean National Juried Project for 2000: the Year of New Arts. Kang received her MA in Media Arts and Technology from the MAT program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her MFA and BFA from the Ehwa Womans University in Seoul, Korea.  She is currently a PhD student at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media in the University of Washington. Her current research interests are the use of non-verbal languages as a new forms of communication and interactive video installations representing questions, but not necessarily pursuing answers. Recently she presented an international telematic project between Seattle (USA) and Seoul (Korea) that uses video and sound interaction by participants' shape and motion as a communication interface. http://www.kangeunsu.com