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Sommerer/Mignonneau «HAZE Express»
Sommerer/Mignonneau, «HAZE Express», 1999
Photography | © Sommerer/Mignonneau
 


 
 
Japan | Software: Stephen Jones (Interface Design) | Edition / Production: IAMAS International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences
 

 Sommerer/Mignonneau
«HAZE Express»

«HAZE Express» is an interactive computer installation that develops the metaphor of traveling and watching landscapes passing by through the window of vehicles such as trains, cars and air planes. When looking at a landscape at high speed, one does not really know very much about this landscape, how it looks in details or how for example people live in it. The passing landscapes become mere images, accumulations of forms, shapes and colors, like a haze of impressions.
«HAZE Express» is an interactive computer installation that performs the recombination, development and evolution of seemingly random images in a way that is reminiscent of how we see images through the window of a train.
In the interactive journey with «HAZE Express» the viewer can watch the passing images, stop them and look at their composition in more detail. The way he moves his hand on the train window surface will influence how the landscapes behind become composed: non-deterministic evolutionary image composition linked to interaction will always provide new and unique image elements that become part of the semi-realistic and semi-virtual trip through data landscapes.

Interaction/Genetic Selection :
Sitting in one of the comfortable chairs the viewer can look out of the window and move his hand on the window surface. When he slides his hand from the left to the right, the images will slide in the same direction, uncovering continuous landscapes, composed of organic and abstract image scenes. The location of where the viewer touches the window as well as the frequency and speed of his hand's movement will influence what kind of image elements will be created. Genetic selection is used to always provide new image elements that are selected upon by the viewer's interaction. The faster the hand will slide horizontally on the window surface, the faster the landscape will scroll in the same direction. Images can also be simply stopped by ceasing the hands movement while remaining with the hand on the window surface.
Christa Sommerer/Laurent Mignonneau