Telepresence and Interactive Works

Uirapuru

1996/99

A flying fish hovers above a forest in the gallery, responding to local as well as Web-based commands. Audio and video from its point of view are streamed on the Web. Local and remote participants interact with the avatar of the flying fish in a virtual world. When this happens the flying fish sings in the gallery. Pingbirds (robotic birds) sing Amazonian bird songs in the gallery in response to the rhythm of Internet traffic. Pingbirds monitor the rhythm of the Internet by sending ping commands to a server in the Amazon. This work unites telepresence, multi-user virtual reality, and networking into a single realm of experience.

Edition of 2 + AP

Darker Than Night

1999

Darker Than Night is a telepresence artwork that explores the human-robot-animal interface as a means of mediating relations of empathy. In this interactive piece, human participants, a telerobotic bat (batbot) and over 300 Egyptian Fruit Bats share a bat cave and become aware of their mutual presence through sonar emissions and frequency conversions.

Time Capsule

1997

Time Capsule is an artwork in which Eduardo Kac implanted a digital microchip in front of sepia-toned photographs live on television and on the web. During the live event, online participants remotely retrieved the microchip content from inside the artist’s body. The live component of the piece was realized on November 11, 1997, in the context of the exhibition "Arte Suporte Computador", curated by Lucas Bambozzi at the cultural center Casa da Rosas, in São Paulo, Brazil. Time Capsule was carried live on the evening newscast of the TV station Canal 21 and on tape by two other TV stations (TV Manchete and TV Cultura). The webscast was streamed by Casa das Rosas. It was in the context of Time Capsule that Kac created the term Bio Art, thus sparking the development of a new artform.

Collection New Art Foundation, Spain.

A-positive

1997

A-positive, a biobotic work by Eduardo Kac and Ed Bennett, was experienced on September 24, 1997, at Gallery 2, in Chicago. In A-positive, a dialogical exchange between a human being and a robot took place through two intravenous hookups.

The Telepresence Garment

1995/96

The Telepresence Garment is an interactive piece to be worn by any local participant willing to allow their body to be engaged remotely by others. Remote participants receive visual feedback from the Telepresence Garment while telling the wearer where to go through a wireless voice link. The person wearing it is not in control of what the remote participant sees, because the wearer cannot see anything through the completely opaque hood. Apparel and apparatus merge in this networked interactive article of clothing.

Collection Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM), Valencia, Spain.

Rara Avis

1996

Rara Avis (1996) takes place in a physical space and online. The work presents the participant with a large aviary in which we find many small birds and a telerobotic macaw. Both local and online participants can interact in real time with the environment inside the aviary, from the point of view of the telerobotic macaw.

Edition of 2 + AP

Teleporting an Unknown State

1994

Teleporting An Unknown State is an interactive work in which local and remote viewers send light from distant locations to a living plant in the gallery. This is the only light that the plant receives, which means that its survival depends on the collective action of local and global participants. In order to send light to the plant, participants click on the name of the city of choice. This activates a light stream right above the plant.

Edition of 2 + AP

Essay Concerning Human Understanding

1994

Essay Concerning Human Understanding promotes a dialogue between a bird and plant, each in a different location. This is a live, bi-directional, interactive, inter-species sonic artwork that takes place in a physical space and online. When the bird sings, the plant generates sounds and transmits them to the bird, in an open-ended exchange. The plant may also initiate the dialogue and produce sounds in response to environmental stimuli, which may prompt the bird to reply.

Edition of 2 + AP

Collection Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP), Brazil.

Dialogical Drawing

1994

What is the condition of the art object in the age of networking and telematics? This piece addresses this question by giving precedence to the mutuality of a relationship over form and composition.

The Ornitorrinco Project

1989-1996

Ornitorrinco pioneered the field of telerobotics and telepresence in art since 1989 — before the Web — as the first system which allowed users in public and private spaces to remotely access a fully mobile and wireless robot and alter the remote location (teleoperation) via the telephone network. Already in 1994, the same year of the Web explosion, Ornitorrinco was also experienced on the Internet. Kac first conceived telepresence art in 1984, having publicly presented his first telepresence work, entitled RC Robot, in 1986. From 1989 to 1996, Kac developed Ornitorrinco with Ed Bennett.

RC Robot

1986

In 1986 Kac worked with radio-controlled telerobotics in the context of the exhibition "Brasil High Tech", realized at the Centro Empresarial Rio, in Rio de Janeiro. Kac used a 7-feet tall anthropomorphic robot (above) as a host who conversed with exhibition visitors in real time. The robot's voice was that of a human being transmitted via radio. Exhibition visitors did not see the telerobot operator, who was telepresent on the RC Robot's body.

Still in the context of the exhibition, the robot was used in a dialogical performance realized with Otavio Donasci, in which the robot interacted with Donasci's videocreature. Through the robotic body, a human (hidden away) improvised responses to the videocreature's pre-recorded utterances.