KNOWBOTIC RESEARCH

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	1995, Dialogue with the knowbotic South
	1995, Dialogue with the knowbotic South
	1995, Dialogue with the knowbotic South

Self-organizing interactive audio installations

The SMDK simulator is a simulation chamber for mobile digital sound. The digitized sounds come from the Internet and are put at the public’s disposal inside a dark room. The visitors explore the space of this room and can activate the intertwining wreaths of autonomous sounds. By means of a helmet, the user is integrated into the computerized system where the sounds all have symbolic presence. These sounds organize themselves, according to their similarities, inside a sound database. Each sound has a particular signature which it is possible to identify. So the sounds attract each other and come together in groups according to certain affinities. But the system remains a fluctuating one, since each sound has a certain number of particularities and can therefore leave one group for another. Within the computerized space, isolated groups can therefore be made out. The visitor is represented by a cursor which he or she moves, setting off the reorganization of the sounds.

A sound system in virtual reality
The visitor is an active part of the whole system. Without spatial dissociation, this visitor is part of the mobile digitized audio environment, the SMDK, designed on the basis of a scientific model. Immersed in this virtual universe, the visitor’s action sets off a sound effect in real space and transforms the initial environment. In order to navigate inside this system, the visitor is equipped with a monocular display helmet. With one eye, the visitor has access to the virtual space and with the other he or she can simultaneously explore the real space. The information coming from the virtual space is presented, notably, in the form of diagrams which show the relative distance between the different sound groups, and a typology of the sounds themselves. By his own movements, the visitor can intervene on the data.


The loss of precision of different objects

Within the frame of the networks, different objects are associated in a rough and ready manner, under the pretext of reaching new knowledge. This strategy, this process, leads in reality to a loss of definition of the different objects. In order to create events, the Knowbotic Research group is pushing even further in this direction, seeking to bring objects out of their usual delimitations and to make them malleable. Since the objects are no longer presented as such, it is possible to intervene on them and to modify them — to cross their frontiers. It is a very complex activity, in which it is possible to envisage the creation of relations between objects. Thanks to the visitor’s interaction with the digital elements, these are permanently modified within the clearly defined limits of the installation.

1995, Dialogue with the knowbotic South

This installation, set up in liaison with the Antarctic, integrates computerized data collected in the field with the data processed by knowbots, intelligent active agents, at large on the internet. The user interacts with these knowbots in a virtual environment, by means of a viewing helmet and a three dimensional audio system.