Originally published in Interface, Vol. 4, No. 2, November 1992,Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, The Ohio State University,Columbus, OH, 1992, pgs. 2-4.

TOWARDS TELEPRESENCE ART

Eduardo Kac

Introduction

Like holography thirty years ago, telepresence is today a new area ofscientific research with which artists haven't experimented yet. In thelate sixties the first art holograms were created. The few artists whodared appropriating this technology opened a new artistic field at thesame time that they questioned traditional artistic concepts and stretchedthe very definition of art. Ornitorrinco (Platypus, in Portuguese), thework I have been developing since 1989 in collaboration with electronicstechnician Ed Bennett, may be understood along the same lines as a firsteffort to create "telepresence art". The question to be addressedhere, therefore, is the creation of a "telepresential aesthetics",i.e., what experience is or can be unique to an art work which is createdwith existing or invented telepresence techniques. Our telepresence installation,"Ornitorrinco in Copacabana", was unveiled at the SIGGRAPH '92Art Show, as part of the SIGGRAPH '92 Conference held at McCormick Place,in Chicago, from July 26 to July 31. I'll introduce here some of the ideasset forth by the piece, hoping that the issues it raises may contributeto motivate others to push and develop telepresence art beyond this initialstage.

Shifting Perspectives

Under the phrase "Ornitorrinco in Copacabana" printed on asmall poster, Siggraph Art Show visitors saw nothing but a telephone withoutthe hand set and a B&W video monitor on a desk. Out of the 25,000 technologicallyeducated people believed to have visited the Conference and the Art Show,many noticed, some interacted with, but only a few really understood whatwas behind this very simple hardware. As if the two old pieces of equipmentweren't odd enough, in a context that often celebrates the latest as thebest, the two foreign words did nothing to clarify their function. A youngBritish gentleman, who was introduced to me as a graduate from the RoyalCollege of Art, interacted with the piece for awhile and then started aconversation about it. Having been briefed by myself on some ideas thatwere significant to the project, and making it clear to me that he foundit interesting but was unsure that it could be considered art, he startedto ask a series of thought-provoking questions. At one point I remarkedthat one of the key concepts was to try to go beyond the traditional linearmodel that defines communication as the sending and receiving of messages.I observed that I wanted to use telecommunications to create an open experientialcontext with it. He seemed not to see any sense in my argument and replyed:­­ Everything is an experience. When I wake up in the morning andI put my shoe on I have an experience. I owe Indian computer artist ChitraShriram for the answer: ­­ When you put your shoe on, you certainlyhave an experience. But not from the perspective of the shoe... As oneexperiences the work, one in a sense "becomes" this telerobotwe call Ornitorrinco, looking at an invented remote space through its eye.The installation "Ornitorrinco in Copacabana" was realized simultaneouslyat McCormick Place (Place 1) and in the Kinetics and Electronics Departmentof The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Place 2), where I builtan environment. SIGGRAPH Art Show visitors, which were physically presentat Place 1, navigated in Place 2 by pressing the keys on the phone in Place1. This allowed them to control in real-time the telerobot Ornitorrinco.Pressing the keys also let participants see where they were in the environmentcreated at Place 2. Since the environment was built to the scale of Ornitorrinco,and not to a human scale, a sensation of strangeness was produced whenparticipants tried to relate what they saw, as they navigated through Place2, to their conventional expectations of a space inhabitable by a human.It was not a matter of being successful or frustrated in figuring out theactual physical dimensions and visual characteristics of Place 2. The issuewas the subjective construction of an imaginary space in the mind of eachparticipant based on his or her decisions as he or she navigated in space.

Some social aspects of telepresence art

Ornitorrinco embraces new technologies with ambiguity. It reveals amixture of enthusiasm for new artistic possibilities and a critical perspectiveon the social implications of these new technologies. On the one hand itreflects the cultural conditions of late-twentieth century society in respectto its attempt of eliminating the consequences of geographic distance inhuman affairs. Ours is a society that can save lives or massacre othersocieties from afar. Physical presence is acquiring a more and more secondaryrole in both processes. We use remote vision to look inside our own bodiesand inside celestial bodies. We collect samples from both. We make decisionsand implement them based on what we see and on what we sample. Ironically,the distances between different cultures shrink on a physical level butremain largely untouched on a social and political level. The perpetuationof distance as such, be it territorial or symbolic, becomes an impedimentto knowledge of different cultures and viewpoints. In this sense, perhaps,the simulated experience of a new identity with Ornitorrinco (the participant"becoming" the telerobot) might have implications other thanstrictly artistic. On the other hand, by creating a displacement of electronicdevices that would otherwise simulate human senses with expected coherence,the piece also questions the conventional wisdom that equates new technologieswith progress and social improvement. Technology is generally seen as aprecise, logical and reliable extension of our senses (notions which contributeto the reinforcement of a utilitarian view of the world based on the dangerousand controversial concept of "progress"). In order to createOrnitorrinco, we appropriate, deface, transform and subordinate technologyto artistic experience. This experience aims to engage the participantin questioning established artistic values and the social structures thatsupport them. Ornitorrinco purports to provide a participant (in Place1) with conditions that allow for a remote experience of presence in anenvironment of which the participant has no previous knowledge (Place 2).In the current stage, the project aims to do so by allowing a person tosee through the eye of a telerobot and control its motion in space froma remote location in real-time. By employing a regular telephone line ofthe sort used ubiquitously for private interpersonal communications, asopposed to the more unaccessible forms of commercial or industrial communications,this project introduces the notion of "personal telepresence",which makes telepresence a subjective and individualized experience opento creative inquiry. As the participant explores the remote environmentand gathers image after image of that environment, he or she constructsa personal mental image of the space. This mental space will vary fromperson to person. In this sense, each participant creates in real-timea personalized imaginary environment. Each person navigates in a relativelydifferent space. It is clear that in science the goal of telepresence isto improve human performance in otherwise inhospitable places, such ascoal mines, nuclear plants, outer space, or bottom of the sea. In art,telepresence will have very different goals. As I see it, telepresenceart will be characterized by the creation of invented worlds populatedby imaginary creatures embodied in electronic parts. Most of all, telepresenceart will create the context for the participant to explore these worldsÑ not from a human scale, but from the perspective of their denizens.

The collaboration

Ornitorrinco only became possible with the technical expertise of EdBennett, with whom I started to collaborate in 1989, in Chicago. From 1989to 1992, Bennett built several versions of Ornitorrinco, creating the practicalconditions for experimentation. Our first event was performed in 1989,in a satellite link between myself in Rio de Janeiro, and Ed Bennett inChicago. In July 1992, Ornitorrinco was experienced publicly for the firsttime as part of the Siggraph '92 Art Show. Although for different reasons,Ed Bennett and I were equally motivated to collaborate in the creationof this telepresence installation. In my case, I have been working withtelecommunications media since 1985 and I always felt that telecommunicationsart could and should go beyond the exchange and manipulation of messages.In 1988, while still living in Rio de Janeiro, I drew my first sketch fora pair of telerobotic sculptures to be controlled over regular phone lines.Ed Bennett has worked with other artists before. Coming from a more scientificbackground, he welcomed the opportunity of designing and building a systemthat was rich in technical as well as conceptual challenges.

Vision and motion systems

Ornitorrinco blends modified consumer electronic products with circuitboards and electro-mechanical parts custom designed by Ed Bennett specificallyfor the work. The numbers on the keypad of a touch-tone phone form a codecreated by us which the participant uses in a variety of combinations.For example: by simply pressing and releasing the number two, the participantactually moves forward about a foot. Pressing and releasing the numberfour enables the participant to make a ninety degree left turn. Pressingthe number two and then the number four, for example, allows the participantto combine the two commands and navigate around obstacles. Fresh imagescan be obtained just by pressing and releasing the number five. The motioncontrol and vision systems of Ornitorrinco are time-multiplexed over asingle phone line. This means that the participant uses only one line bothto transmit motion control signals and to request and receive fresh images:A) Motion control: The tone generated by the keypad in Place 1 travelsover the phone line to a telephone in Place 2. The signal is transmittedto Ornitorrinco, decoded and amplified to drive the motor relays. Ornitorrincomoves at the speed of 40 feet per minute over level ground. Skid steeringgives it a zero turning radius. B) Vision: Ornitorrinco's vision systemtransmits a video signal over a 900 MHz carrier to a video modem connectedto the phone line. At Place 1 another modem converts the signal back tovideo for viewing.

Conclusion

The Ornitorrinco telepresence installations to be produced in the nearfuture will continue to play on the displacement of geographic references."Ornitorrinco in Copacabana" was the title of the one createdfor Siggraph '92. Bennett and I are currently working on the next installation,to be called "Ornitorrinco in the Sahara". By attaching namesof existing geographic areas, many of which a large percentage of the participantswill have never experienced in body, the work plays on cultural expectationsand preconceptions, which are fueled in part by clichés circulatedin the media and in part by our own lack of knowledge and understandingof foreign cultures and places. The remote environment where the participantis telepresent may or may not have elements that make reference to thelocation it is named after. Clearly, again, the question is not and couldnever be that of mimicry, resemblance or duplication of an existing environment.The question is that of the image-which-now-becomes-place. The participantexperiences the image not as a sign in the semiotic sense of the word,but as a locus. Without direct access to the remote environment, and withoutprior knowledge of it, the participant structures imaginarily the spacehe or she experiences according to his or her decision-making process.The work then becomes the ephemeral bridge between real spaces and themental architecture instantiated by the participant as the navigation takesplace. Ornitorrinco is a first step. Taken from the perspective of theshoe. It should be understood not as a single event or a finished piecebut as a platform for ongoing aesthetic experiments.

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