Intimate Transactions: An Interactive Networked Installation

"An [...] interactive installation that allows two people in separate rooms to interact simultaneously using only their bodies.Each person uses a physical interface called the Bodyshelf. By gently moving their bodies on this smart furniture they instigate Intimate Transactions, which influence an evolving world created from digital imagery and multi-channel sound.This shared experience allows the two participants to gradually develop a form of sensory intimacy with each other, despite the fact that they are geographically separated and cannot physically see or hear each other."
(newmoves.co.uk)

Transmute Collective: Keith Armstrong (director), Lisa ONeill (performer), Guy Webster (sound)
Collaborators: Zeljko Markov (Interface design), Inger Mewburn & Pia Ednie Brown (Tactile feedback design), Marcos Caceres, Stuart Lawson, Cameron Owen, Benn Woods, Gavin Sade, Benedict Foley
This project has been assisted by the ACID (Australasian Centre For Interaction Design) and the Australian Government through the Australia Council.

FuckU-FuckMe(tm) for Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT

"FuckU-FuckMe(tm) for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT provides the most complete remote sex solution for the Internet and corporate intranet. Powerful features let you sexually communicate with your remote partner and provide an absolutely realistic sensual experience of a real intercourse. The basic FuckU-FuckMe(tm) kit consists of two hardware units - genitalDrive(tm) model M (male) and genitalDrive(tm) model F (female) and an accompanying software interface.The genitalDrive is an internal device in a standard case that can be installed in any free 5.25" slot of your PC. The FuckU-FuckMe software connects your genitalDrive with a corresponding unit on a remote PC using TCP/IP protocol. When you start remote sexual intercourse with your partner using FuckU-FuckMe(tm) the system will transmit all your actions to his/her genitalDrive and precisely reproduce them in real time. The system has intuitive interface and allows you to entirely concentrate on remote communication."

(Alexei Shulgin, 2004, Media Art Net)

[Alexei Shulgin's tongue-in-cheek critique of our modern condition including pre-eminence of disposable consumption, dehumanisation and the affordances of cybernetic interaction via the Internet.]

CyberSM: tactile communication/interaction

"The cyberSM project was an attempt to create a real time, visual, auditory, and tactile communication in the world of cyberspace. In the first cyberSM experiment, the user began to experience what others have only talked about for years: live, tactile communication through a computer environment. The CyberSM project expanded upon text based virtual environments, such as Minitel, MUDs, or most BBSs. It also takes the next logical step toward true telepresence by employing 3D graphics, live audio, and direct physical stimulation to allow participants to physically 'touch' each other over distances.The cyberSM project allows the establishment of trans_gender appearances, identities and entities by letting the participants choose their own visual appearance from a large databank of digitized human bodies. Once chosen, the participents send the image of their virtual self to the others on the network. The body thus becomes a visual fantasy.Central to the cyberSM project is the ability to transmit physical stimuli from one participant to the other. This is made possible through the use of stimulator suits connected over international telephone lines, which allow the users to remotely stimulate one-another's bodies. Not only does this physical element of communication allow the CyberSM project to more closely model inter-human communication, it creates a new form of interaction. Throughout the cyberSM connection, participants have a physical dialogue, but they remain anonymous the whole time."

(Ståhl Stenslie)

Telecommunication: Decentralized International Exchange

Jeffrey Shaw (ZKM 1995)
TelecommunicationBroadcasting and telecommunications are an integral aspect of the new media technologies, and permit media manifestations to address an international and mass audience. While telecommunication methods have till now only tentatively been used by media artists, the Institute for Image Media feels that this is an important area of future development; one that will lead to a decentralized international exchange of cultural action and information.Therefore the Institute for Image Media will focus its activity in this area on the following potentials:

When one considers the visions which accompanied the development of contemporary art over the last 30 years - the kinetic art of the 1950s, the "open artwork" of the 1960s (happenings, environment, performances, land art, etc.), the conceptual and social art forms of the 1970s - one finds that these visions have interesting and astonishing parallels in the technological developments of the 1990's. Interactivity creates a intimate relation between the artwork and the viewer, tele-communications permits extended social interactions, simulation gives direct form to conceptual proposi-tions. It seems to be only a short step from "inter-media art" to "multimedia technology". Of course we cannot predict whether if technology will bring about a fulfillment or finale of these utopian artistic movements. The Institute for Image Media intends to be a place, where artists can think and work in relation to this question.

Televirtual Fruit Machine

This interactive installation, similar to video games, was presented simultaneously at IC' 93 in Tokyo and Multimediale 3 at Karlsruhe, linked up by the digital ISDN network, the player in Tokyo could join up directly with a player at Karlsruhe. In order to bring together the two halves of the same object, the two players had to co-ordinate their movements and interactions visually, within the virtual space of the game.

The work centres-on a virtual 'fruit-machine' that is controlled by users communicating via a ISDN network.The fruit-machine metaphor references the Paradise parable.