WY(S)IWYG
Fascination with the human eye - especially human vision… During the 20th century strident emergence of new technologies and miniaturization caused numerous researches in the medical, military, and astronomical field. Prototype and artificial fully functional implant of the human eye became one of the most difficult and most complicated proto-mechanisms. In addition, visual impulses and information are close to 80% of our total perception, which affects our mental and physical action. The concept of WYSIWYG (known acronym: “What you see is what you get”), which is the title of the interactive and performa-compatible project, describes the essence of the simple problem: just a blink of an eye.
A term “to see” is unfixed by the use of the parentheses (). Rapid oscillation of the eyelid in down-up direction is important for the regular moisturizing of the cornea. An autonomous natural glimpse of eye takes about 300-400 ms (milliseconds). Childrens eyes blink slower (in average: 2 times per 1 minute) but adults are much faster (6 -30 times per 1 minute). Essentially, if we perceive the ambient reality we can loose almost 30-40% of visual information per eye-blinked second. If we look at videoart installation, e.g. found-footage of Douglas Gordon - 24 hour psycho, this should not bother us (anyway, we loose one hour of the visual information). But, if we are on the festival Minimotion watching some of 10-seconds animations, maybe some important and substantial part of the film material (the series of rapid shots) is forever lost. The conception of WY(S)IWYG operates with the saturation and the evident redundancy of everyday visuality, which surrounds us from our birth. It is probably good that we do not see totally everything. (In this context it may be good to remember the “visual medical therapy” of the psychopathic offender Alex in A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick, in 1971). That is why such hyperbole is used also in this project. An essential element of WY(S)IWYG is the eye-tracking. It is like open-source system, which stands for Free Art Syndicate Teams and Technology (FAT), OpenFrameworks, The Graffiti Research Lab and The Ebeling Group. The project was initiated by legendary L.A. graffiti-writer and activist Tony Quan, aka TEMPTONE in 2003, when he was diagnosed with ALS disease (a form of sclerosis). He became completely paralyzed, able to move only his eyes. Art Eye-movement and the broad community is now successfully spreading, as well as the incentive open-source software / hardware designed especially for the eye-tagging (digital graffiti “tag” is commonly used in the public space as a partial form of digital-streetart). Specific hardware which is similar to eye-tracker related to www.eyewriter.org is also reflected in this project.
Modifying the components (IR microcamera as a tracker, IR LEDs and other equipment) the project includes the basic prototype of optic sensor (IN-OUT), located on the frame of the eye-glasses. The Atmel chip is used (“pop” Arduino microcontroller, including the Arduino software)To transfer the data from the physical to the digital environment. The main thing is to upload Processing script (alt. platform PureData), through the serial port. The intention is to capture the eye movement (input simple “switch” eye pulse, which is for the healthy subject symmetrical, practical and identical). At that moment the instant digital photography of the surrounding reality is being recorded as a snapshot (of course, there are still more options). It can be saved on the pocket hard drive or streamed on the 3GS mobile network to the website of the Ministry of Culture. (Why not?) This involves placing the second micro-cam before the second eye, turned in 180 degrees (OUT-IN), as well as an external power source (batteries). The database of images is like almost completely omitted discontinuous record of our everyday life.
So, the performative character of this project can be easily proved by visiting a cinema. Choosing a right movie in most cases appears to be irrelevant… After returning home you can grab the sequence from your HDD to your PC and review it (the second unseen part of the film). There are also other post-production options - non real-time happening in cinema, restaurant, train, in the hypermarket or gas station somewhere in the field… The participants wearing eyetracker eye-glasses can behave (un)expectably, so the result is in variety of (un)expected angles.
Richard Kitta
If we look at videoart installation, e.g. found-footage of Douglas Gordon - 24 hour psycho, this should not bother us (anyway, we loose one hour of the visual information). But, if we are on the festival Minimotion watching some of 10-seconds animations, maybe some substantial part of the film material is forever lost.