by P.Silondi (FR/CZ)

"Zone" is an interactive installation which questions freedom, critical skills and relation between masters and slaves in contemporary society, using voice orders to possibly control mechanical behaviors in real space and digital interactions in virtual environment.  

"Zone" is a triptych which connects a “user-dictactor” with an interactive 3D environment saturated by video sequences and sound samples presented as a dynamic mass media “funfair”. "Zone" is using a speech recognition interface to have power over avatar movements in virtual space as well as power over a mechanical post industrial “cube- gladiator” which is fighting with the limits of its real physical arena. The mechanical gladiator, under control, receives voice orders from the “user-dictactor” and moves, burning its paths over a metallic floor. Using audio waves, the machine communicates back to its “master” some of its feelings, misunderstanding or reactions, sometimes obeying, refusing or violently rejecting the orders. Inside the machine are set a small camera and a light attached to a mechanical arm which behaves as a kind of heart. The live video captured from that inside chaotic motion is then sent to a small TV screen installed on the cube which behaves as an electrocardiogram.  

It is the history of a brain-washed media system which rambles in the lights of a digital “funfair”, saturated with human signs, sounds and moving pictures which can awake curiosity and exacerbate sensitivity and critical skills. It's a journey into the shadows of our contemporary society illusions and formatted messages, where beings are sometimes reduced to an object or seduced by the mechanical game of power. It’s a mirror of freedom consciousness created by atypical assemblages, alternately emphasized by the grumbling and purring of an under control machine that tries to share its mental states of mind to its prison guard.

Techniques: 3D game engine, robotic, speech recognition, Audio-Video sequences and processing.