Originally published in Leonardo, Vol. 29, N. 5, pp. 389-400,1996. Different versions of this paper have appeared in the following books:
1 - "Telepresence Art on the Internet", in The Visualityof the Unseen, Dmitry Golinko-Volfson, ed., Borey-Print, St. Petersburg,Russia, 1996, pgs. 111-122.
2 - "Telepresence Art on the Internet", in the proceedingsof the III Interface Conference, Klaus Peter Dencker, ed., Hans-Bredow-Institut,Hamburg, Germany, 1997, pgs. 210-219.
3 - "A Arte da Telepresença na Internet", in A Arteno Século XXI, Diana Domingues, ed., Edusp, São Paulo,Brazil, 1997, pp. 315-324.
4 - "Arte de la Telepresencia en la Internet", in Ars Telematica- Telecomunicación, Internet y Ciberespacio, Claudia Gianneti,ed., Barcelona, L'Angelot, 1998.
Ornitorrinco and Rara Avis: Telepresence Art on theInternet
Eduardo Kac (with a technical appendix by Ed Bennett)
Two of the many new technologies that have opened up new areas of artisticexperimentation are telepresence and virtual reality. Scientific telepresenceresearch has focused on telerobotics and teleoperation. The developmentof commercial virtual reality technologies has enabled a new level of interactionbetween humans and computers, allowing individuals to experience a completelysynthetic environment from immersive or second-person perspectives. Whenused in radical ways, as a conceptual gesture that critiques aspects ofthe mediascape and contemporary life, hybrids of these and other technologieshave helped electronic artists chart new directions for art [1].
Current scientific research clearly points to a future in which telepresenceand virtual reality will become more integrated than they are now [2].This integration will enable actions that will take place inside an immersivevirtual environment to affect a physical reality and vice-versa. The samecan be said about the use of these technologies in art. However, todayan objective distinction can still be made between the two [3]. In thissense, I will refer from now on in this essay to the word telepresencein relation to telerobotics; i.e., remote control of a non-autonomous robotin a distant physical space. I understand virtual reality as related tothe creation and experience of purely digital worlds.
The distinction between telepresence and virtual reality can be furtherclarified by comparing the processes of these two technologies. virtualreality relies on the power of illusion to give the observer a sense ofactually being in a synthetic world. VR makes perceptually "real"what in fact only has virtual (i.e., digital) existence. By contrast, telepresencetransports an individual from one physical space to another, often viaa telecommunications link. Telecommunications and robotics can bring togetherthe transmission and reception of motion control signals with audiovisual,haptic and force feedback. Telepresence virtualizes what in actuality hasphysical, tangible existence.
In fact, from this point of view, it would almost seem that virtualreality and telepresence technologies are opposite in nature. However,I propose that the rise of these two technologies indicates that the newdomain of human experience and action now encompasses with the same intensityelectronic space and physical space. Digital or synthetic worlds may become"equivalent" to tangible realities, since both telepresence andvirtual reality technologies can project human action beyond its ordinary,immediate grasp.
The Ornitorrinco series of installations (Ornitorrinco means platypus,in Portuguese) is an ongoing collaboration between hardware designer EdBennett and myself. This collaboration, a long-term, ever-changing telepresenceart project, started in 1989 [4] after initial conceptions and sketchesI realized in the preceding two years. Through Ornitorrinco. I proposeto unite three areas of aesthetic investigation that so far have been exploredas separate artistic realms: robotics [5], telecommunications [6] and interactivity[7]. I will now discuss some conceptual implications of our networked telepresenceinstallation Ornitorrinco in Eden. A discussion of my networkedtelepresence installation Rara Avis will follow.
Interaction, Telepresence, and Netlife
The introduction of televirtual technologies in society at large isremapping our domain of action and interaction in all public spheres. Today,as in the past, new information technologies redefine the human experience.It happened with the mechanical press, photography, telegraphy, the telephone,the phonograph, cinema, radio, television, the personal computer, the Internet.New information technologies generate new situations as well as new waysof understanding familiar scenarios. They have the power to modify thesocial arena through the introduction of new forms of intercourse and negotiationof meaning. Today our systems of symbolic exchange are beginning to incorporatenew multimedia elements introduced by the merger of telecommunications,real-time computing, and world-wide networking. It is clear that phonecalls and e-mail messages will never be the same when full-motion video(30 fps) takes over pervasive wide-bandwidth digital lines. Conversationswill become multimedia and telepresential experiences, incorporating tactilefeedback, for example, will become ordinary. Technology will continue tomigrate towards the body, reconfiguring, expanding, and transporting itto remote sites [8].
At the end of the twentieth century new art forms use technology tosuggest a new concept of human potential, one that expands the reach ofhuman presence in real time beyond spatiotemporal barriers. Through events,systems, and ephemeral installations this new art operates in the realmsof mediascape and netlife [9], and interface the human body to computersand other electronic devices. The dominant presence of the object in thevisual arts [10] makes room for the immaterial experience of telepresence[11]. While a few decades ago we spoke about the process of dematerializationof the art object [12], it is time now to acknowledge that immaterial artis already practiced in the present.
Many artists working today with the tools of their time merge technologiesof the visible and the invisible, configuring synthetic and telepresentialenvironments in which physical boundaries are partially removed in favorof virtual and remote navigation. A new aesthetic is emerging as a resultof the synergy of new non-formal elements, such as co-existence in virtualand real spaces, telerobotic navigation, synchronicity of actions, real-timeremote control, body-sharing of telerobots, and collaboration through networks.The telepresence installation Ornitorrinco in Eden integrated allthese elements simultaneously.
Ornitorrinco in Eden
Ornitorrinco is the name of both an ongoing series of telepresence artinstallations and the telerobot used to realize them. This noun was chosenearly on as the telerobot's name because of the unique nature of the platypus,which is popularly thought as a "hybrid" of bird and mammal.The objective was to imply kinship between the organic (animal) and theinorganic (telerobot).
Ornitorrinco events have always involved at least two locations geographicallyremote from each other. One or more members of the public, the participant,navigates through an installation at a remote location by pressing keyson a telephone keypad and receiving visual feedback in the form of stillor moving images on a computer or video monitor. Each new installationis always built to the scale of the telerobot, and not to a human scale.
The networked telepresence installation Ornitorrinco in Edenwas experienced publicly worldwide over the Internet on October 23, 1994,for approximately five hours (after more than one year of private experiments).This piece bridged the placeless space of the Internet with physical spacesin Seattle, WA, Chicago, IL, and Lexington, KY. The piece consisted ofthese three nodes of active participation and multiple nodes of observationworldwide. Anonymous viewers from several American cities and many countries(including Finland, Canada, Germany, and Ireland), who received informationabout the event via listserv groups and word-of-mouth, came on-line andwere able to see the remote installation in Chicago from the point of viewof Ornitorrinco (which was guided by anonymous participants in Lexingtonand Seattle).
The mobile and wireless telerobot Ornitorrinco in Chicago was controlledin real time by participants in Lexington and Seattle. The remote participantsshared the body of Ornitorrinco simultaneously. Via the Internet, theysaw the remote installation through Ornitorrinco's eye. The participantscontrolled the telerobot simultaneously via a regular telephone link (three-wayconference call) in real time. The space of the installation was dividedinto three sectors, which were all interconnected. The predominant visualtheme was the obsolescence of media once perceived as innovative and thepresence of these media in our technological landscape. Obsolete records,magnetic tapes, circuit boards, and other elements were used primarilyfor their external shape, texture, and scale, rather than function. Thisworked as a direct comment on the disposable environment we live in, madeof products that become obsolete faster than users manage to understandand master their functionality. Theatrical lights were also used to enhancethe visual experience and to control the projection of shadows in specificareas of the installation. Small objects were placed in strategic pointsin the space, including plastic globes that were actually pushed aroundby the telerobot, a self-propelled circular object which hung from theceiling and moved in unpredictable ways, a little stationary robot withglowing eyes which upon close scrutiny revealed itself as a swiveling fan,and a mirror which enabled participants to "see themselves" asthe telerobot Ornitorrinco. Objects like these provided the viewer withsurprise encounters along the path of their exploration of the space andhelped convey the atmosphere suggested by this teleparadise of obsolescence.
One of the main issues raised by this piece is the cultural need fora more direct sense of shared space and mutual presence in remote, networkedenvironments, virtual or otherwise. As Geert Lovink pointed out in ourpanel at Ars Electronica, in 1995, as hundreds of viewers/readers log onto Web sites today, for example, they remain completely unaware of eachother's presence in the same server [13]. As a result, technologies thatare marketed as promoters of social interaction remain developed and practicedas information-dissemination technologies, as preservers of the same socialisolation that characterizes television. The mutual awareness of participantssharing the body of Ornitorrinco already reveals the social (and political)significance of such experience. Unable to fully control the body in theirown terms, they must cooperate for any navigation to be realized.
Telepresence: telecommunications as a space for action
In the new interactive and participatory context generated by this networkedtelepresence installation over the Internet, communicative encounters tookplace not through verbal or oral exchange but through the rhythms thatresulted from the participants' engagement in a shared mediated experience.Viewers and participants were invited to experience together, in the samebody, an invented remote space from a perspective other than their own,temporarily lifting the ground of identity, geographic location, and physicalpresence. As the piece was experienced through the Internet, anybody inthe world with Internet access could see it, dissolving gallery walls andmaking the work accessible to larger audiences. With Ornitorrinco, we transformelectronic space from a representation medium into an actuation medium.
By merging telerobotics, remote participation, geographically-dispersedspaces, the traditional telephone system as well as cellular telephony,real-time motion control, and videoconferencing through the Internet, thisnetworked telepresence installation produced a new form of interactiveart--one that does not conform to unidirectional structures that form themediascape. In the next century mass mediaÕs monological discourse(one-to-many) will renew its system and its reach through pseudo-interactivegadgets, trying to absorb and domesticate the multilogue (many-to-many)genuinely practiced on the Internet. It is also clear that more and morepeople will live, interact, and work between the worlds inside and outsidethe computer. The expansion of communications and telepresence technologieswill prompt new forms of interface between humans, plants, animals, androbots [14]. The Ornitorrinco project has pursued this strategy while atthe same time insisting on undermining current trends toward stabilizationof standards and other regulatory practices. The aesthetic of hybridizationexplored by Ornitorrinco calls for alternatives to the hegemonic configurationof the mediascape.
With new low earth orbit satellites, wearable computers, portable satellitedishes, virtual retinal displays, wristphones, holographic video, and awhole plethora of new technological inventions, new media will continueto proliferate, but by no means can this be seen as an assurance of a qualitativeleap in interpersonal communications. Ornitorrinco in Eden createsa context in which anonymous participants perceive that it is only throughtheir shared experience and non-hierarchical collaboration that littleby little, or almost frame by frame, a new reality is constructed. In thisnew reality, spatiotemporal distances become irrelevant, virtual and realspaces become equivalent, and linguistic barriers may be temporarily removedin favor of a common empowering experience.
Rara Avis
In the pursuit of new aesthetic possibilities, two strategies I haveembraced are the hybridization of technologies and the exploration of hiddenaspects of the new mediascape. In this sense, I use telecommunicationsmedia to implode their unidirectional logic and to create, in the domainof the real, a new kind of experience that gives precedence to democraticand dialogic experiences.
Rara Avis, an interactive networked telepresence installationthat has subtle auto-biographical elements, is the piece I created forthe exhibition Out of Bounds: New Work by Eight Southeast Artists, withtechnical direction by Ed Bennett. This exhibition was realized betweenJune 28 and August 24, 1996, at Nexus Contemporary Art Center, in Atlanta,as part as the Olympic Arts Festival [15]. I
n Rara Avis, the participant saw a very large aviary as soonas he or she walked into the room. In front of this aviary the participantsaw a virtual reality headset. Inside the aviary the viewer noticed a strongcontrast between the thirty flying birds (zebra finches, which were verysmall and mostly gray) and the large tropical macaw, which was perchedand immobile. This macaw, like any other, has a long saber-shaped tail,a curved powerful bill, and brilliant plumage. Upon observing the behaviorof the birds, the viewer noticed that the macaw the most commandingbird in the aviary appeared motionless. Only its head moved.This tropical bird was in fact a telerobot. Since the macaw's eyes wereon the front of the head, as is the case of an owl, the telerobot was calleda Macowl .
The viewer was invited to put on the headset. While wearing the headset,the viewer was transported into the aviary. The viewer now perceived theaviary from the point of view of the Macowl and was able to observe himselfor herself in this situation from the point of view of the macaw. The tropicalbird's eyes are two CCD cameras. When the viewer, now a participant, movedhis or her head to left and right, the head of the telerobotic Macowl movedaccordingly, enabling the participant to see the whole space of the aviaryfrom the Macowl's point of view. The real space was immediately transformedinto a virtual space. The installation was permanently connected to theInternet. Through the Net, remote participants observed the gallery spacefrom the point of view of the telerobotic Macowl. Through the Internetremote participants also used their microphones to trigger the vocal apparatusof the telerobotic macaw heard in the gallery. The body of teleroboticMacowl was shared in real time by local participants and Internet participantsworldwide. Sounds in the space, usually a combination of human and birdvoices, traveled back to remote participants on the Internet.
By enabling the local participant to be both vicariously inside andphysically outside the cage, this installation created a metaphor thatrevealed how new communications technology enables the effacement of boundariesat the same time that it reaffirms them. The installation also addressedissues of identity and alterity, projecting the viewer inside the bodyof a rare bird who not only was the only one of its kind in the aviarybut was also distinctly different from the other birds (in scale, color,and behavior). The piece can be seen as a critique of the problematic notionof "exoticism", a concept that reveals more about relativityof contexts and the limited awareness of the observer than about the culturalstatus of the object of observation. This image of "the different","the other", embodied by the telerobotic Macowl, was dramatizedby the fact that the participant temporarily adopted the point of viewof the rare bird. Despite its glorious beauty, the telerobotic macaw couldfly. A new metaphor emerged in this context; viewers might have decided,once they were back into their own bodies outside the cage, that flyingis ultimately not a great advantage after all, if all birds, big and small,rare or otherwise, remain immured together and have nowhere to go.
This piece created a self-organizing system of mutual dependence, inwhich local participants, animals, a telerobot, and remote participantsinteracted without direct guidance, control, or external intervention.As the piece combined physical and non-physical entities, it merged immediateperceptual phenomena with a heightened awareness of what affects us butis visually absent, physically remote. Local and on-line participants experiencedthe space in complex, different ways. The local ecology of the aviary wasaffected by Internet ecology and vice-versa.
By the phrase "Internet ecology" I mean to clarify that theInternet is a shared resource, and that its global behavior changes dramaticallydepending on many unpredictable, uncontrollable factors, including thedensity of nodes in a particular geographic region, bandwidth availabilityand allocation, nature of the connection, modem and direct-connection speeds,processing power of individual personal computers and servers, choice ofconnectivity software, and user traffic at a particular time. In this sense,it is important to stress that networking is not broadcasting. To be onthe Internet is not similar to transmitting a program over the air (despiteemerging technological tours de force, such as satellite-enabled downloadingof Web pages and broadcasting television on the Net). Networking is a complexsystem in which one's actions directly affects everybody else (whetherone is aware of it or not), and I do not mean from a content-only standpoint;under certain circumstances, for example, one participant's slow modemcould cause a whole videoconference to bog down.
While many members of the general public expect the Internet to functionin the same "stable" and "efficient" manner of thebroadcasting industry, and are often disapointed to find out that thatis not the case, it is precisely the current status of the Net as an unrregulated,global open space that I find to be fascinating from a cultural, philosophical,and political point of view. Unlike broadcasting space, which is controlledby a few who own the right to transmit and decide what is seen and heardby everybody, the Internet, today, defines a new kind of telematic spacethat has not been codified in art history books. This space can accommodatepictorial representation (as when an image is displayed), but this newspace is not, in itself, purveyor of a single picture-making style (asin the representational space of Cubism, for example). This new worldwidedigital space, which is on its way to incorporate real time as wide-bandwidthdigital networks become available, calls for a major transformation inthe way we approach human endeavors -- particularly art, since verbal,visual, and acoustic signs form the core of the network. Telepresence artmakes it clear that action at a distance must be incorporated into therepertoire of elements explored by artists via networks (digital, analog,or a hybrid of both). As much as these new aesthetic elements expand themultimedia horizon of contemporary art, we must not embrace the technofilicor the technophobic extremes. Both positions are dangerous in that theyfail to address the deeper, more complex social implications of new technologies--eitherby blindingly embracing them or by fearfully refusing to accept their impactin our lives.
In Rara Avis, these social implications are also a crucial point.The topology of Rara Avis was carefully designed to expose the socialgap implied in technological development. As the video feed, from the pointof view of the Macowl (as seen by a local participant), went out from theAtlanta space into the Internet, one eye was digitized in grayscale (withthe freeware Cu-SeeMe) while the other was digitized in color (with thecommercial product Enhanced Cu-SeeMe). While anyone with Internet accesscould download the freeware and participate in the interactive componentof the work, full participation in color was only accessible to those whohad already purchased the commercial version of the freeware. The grayimages were subsequently and automatically uploaded to the Rara AvisWeb site, where they became even more accessible--since more people todayhave access to (and feel comfortable with) the Web than to videoconferencingon the Internet [16]. The color feed was re-routed to the MBone, the multicastingzone of the Net, which only a much smaller group of individuals can accessat present. Those lacking access to more powerful media saw the space inAtlanta in grayscale, at speeds that depended on the software, hardware,and connectivity available to them. Those with access to newer technologywere able to experience the space differently, in color and at frame ratesthat reflected the processing power and bandwidth available to them [17].In its geographic dispersal, Rara Avis was intentionally never exactlythe same to remote or local participants.
The merger of local ecology with the cybersphere was perceived in varyingways by viewers and participants worldwide, depending on the kind of accessthey had. This clearly suggested that the mediascape--the highly technologicalenvironment in which we live--modulates and defines our perception of reality.Which makes us realize the inequalities promoted by technology, and, moreimportantly, that reality is negotiation, and that it is never the samefor everybody.
References
1. R. Harley (Ed.), Cultural Diversity in the Global Village; Proceedingof the Third International Symposium on Electronic Art. (Sydney: ANAT,1992); K. OÕRourke (Ed.), Art-Reseaux (Paris: CERAP, 1992); R. Verostko(Ed.), The Art Factor; Proceeding of the Fourth International Symposiumon Electronic Art (Minneapolis: MCAD, 1993); R. Kriesche (Ed.), Teleskulptur3(Graz, Austria: Kulturdata, 1993); L. Poissant, ed., Esthétiquesdes Arts Médiatiques (in French) (Quebec: Presses de l'Universitédu Québec, 1995); C. Gigliotti, Aesthetics of a Virtual World: EthicalIssues in Interactive Technological Design (Ann Arbor: UMI DissertationServices, 1995); S. Penny, ed., Critical Issues in Electronic Media (Albany:SUNY, 1995); M. Lovejoy, Postmodern Currents; Art and Artists in the Ageof Electronic Media (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1996).
2. S. Fisher, "Virtual Environments, Personal Simulation &Telepresence," S. Helsel and J. Roth, eds., Virtual Reality: Theory,Practice and Promise (Westport, CT: Meckler, 1991) pp. 101-110; M. Finchet alli, "Surface Modification Tools in a Virtual Environment Interfaceto a Scanning Probe Microscope," Proceedings of the ACM Symposiumon Interactive 3D Graphics (New York: ACM, 1995) pp. 13-18.
3. T. Sheridan, "Defining our terms," Presence 1 , No. 2,272-274 (1992).
4. E. Kac, "Ornitorrinco Rio/Chicago: Experiência 1,"34 Letras, No. 7, 80-81 (1990); E. Kac, "Ornitorrinco: Exploring Telepresenceand Remote Sensing", Leonardo 24, No. 2, 233 (1991). See also S. Osthoff,"Object Lessons", World Art, No. 1, 18-23 (1996).
5. J. Burnham, "Robot and Cyborg Art," Beyond Modern Sculpture(New York: Braziller, 1968) pp. 312-376; J. Reichardt, "Towards themachine as a person and vice-versa or Robots in Art," in Robots; Fact,Fiction, and Prediction (Middlesex: Penguin, 1978) pp. 48-61; A. Jan, "SurvivalResearch Laboratories", High Performance 8 No. 2, 32-35 (1985).
6. F. Forest, "Communication Esthetics, Interactive Participationand Artistic Systems of Communication and Expression", M. Diani, ed.,Designing the Immaterial Society, Design Issues IV, Nos. 1 & 2, 97-115(1988); R. Ascot, & C. Loeffler, (eds.), Connectivity: Art and InteractiveTelecommunications, Special Issue, Leonardo 24, No. 2, (1991); B. Breland,(ed.), Navigating the Telematic Sea, Special Issue, New Observations No.76, (1990); E. Kac, "Aspects of the Aesthetics of Telecommunications,"J. Grimes and G. Lorig, (eds.), Siggraph Visual Proceedings, (New York:ACM, 1992), pp. 47-57.
7. R. Cornwell, "Interactive Art: Touching the 'Body in the Mind',"Discourse 2, No. 14, 203-221 (1992); A. B. Morgan, "Interactivityin the Electronic Age," Sculpture 10, No. 3, 36-43 (1991); Wooster,A-S. (1990). "Reach Out and Touch Someone: The Romance of Interactivity,"D. Hall and S. Fifer, (eds.), Illuminating Video, (New York: Aperture,1991) pp. 275-303.
8. Stelarc, "Prosthetics, Robotics and Remote Existence: PostevolutionaryStrategies," Leonardo 24 No. 5, 591-595 (1991).
9. In my telematic interactive installation "Teleporting an UnknownState" (1994-96) the concept of netlife, or life that depends on networkactivity for its survival, was realized. A single seed was planted on abed of earth on July 22, 1996. Internet participants worldwide were invitedto point their cameras to the sky and transmit photons to the installationspace. Light from the sky of many countries around the world came togetherin the space to help the growth and development of a single life form.Evocative of the sun, a circular lens broke through the darkness and projectedonto the fertile soil the light transmitted live via the Internet. Photosynthesisdepended on remote collective action from anonymous participants. Collaborativeaction and responsibility through the network were essential for the survivalof this organism. Birth (germination), growth, and death on the Internetformed a horizon of possibilities that unfolded as participants dynamicallycontributed to this work. The piece was shown in "The Bridge",the 1996 Siggraph Art Show, at the Contemporary Arts Center, in New Orleans,from July 22 to August 9, 1996. See C. Gigliotti, (ed.), Siggraph '96 VisualProceedings (New York: ACM, 1996). On the Web, see http://www.ekac.org/teleporting.html.
10. M. Fried, "Art and Objecthood," Artforum 5 No.10, 21 (1967);F. Colpitt, Minimal Art; The Critical Perspective (Seattle: Universityof Washington, 1990), pp. 67-73.
11. E. Kac, "Towards Telepresence Art," Interface 4, No. 2,2-4 (1992); E. Kac, "Telepresence Art," in Teleskulptur3 , R.Kriesche, (ed.), (Graz, Austria: Kulturdata, 1993), pp. 48-72. See alsoE. Kac, "The Internet and the future of art: immateriality, telematics,videoconferencing, hypermedia, networking, vrml, interactivity, visualtelephony, artistÕs software, telerobotics, mbone, and beyond"(in German), S. Muenker and A. Roesler, (eds.), Mythos Internet (Frankfurt:Suhrkamp Verlag, 1996).
12. L. Lippard, (ed.), Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Objectfrom 1966 to 1972 (New York, Praeger: 1973).
13. See K. Gerbel and P. Weibel, Mythos Information -Welcome to theWired World (Vienna, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1995).
14. R. Weiss, "New Dancer in the Hive," Science News 136,No.18, 282-283 (1989); P. Fromherz and A. Stett, "A Silicon-NeuronJunction: Capacitive Stimulation of an Individual Neuron on a Silicon Chip,"Physical Review Letter 75, No. 8, 1670-1673 (1995).
15. Out of Bounds: New Work by Eight Southeast Artists was curated byAnnette Carlozzi and Julia Fenton. Rara Avis credits: Eduardo Kac, conceptualdesign and direction; Ed Bennett, technical direction; Bob Connell, exhibitdesign; Joe Peragine, space design; Charles Bynaker, network systems programming;Michelle Lindsay, coordination and research assistance. Rara Avis sponsors:Apple Computer, Inc.; VictorMaxx Technologies, Inc.; Home Depot; Universityof Kentucky; Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. See K. Maschke, ed.,Out of Bounds: New Work by Eight Southeast Artists (Atlanta: Nexus ContemporaryArt Center, 1996). On the Web, see http://www.ekac.org/raraavis.html.
16. This, of course, is bound to change very soon, since videoconferencingon the Web itself has already been developed in its preliminary state.
17. The expression of social and technological inequality representedthrough access to higher or lower color-depth and frame rate was suggestedby science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash (NewYork: Bantam, 1993). On page 41, for example, he describes "the avatarsof Nipponese businessmen, exquisitely rendered by their fancy equipment"and "black-and-white peoplepersons who are accessing theMetaverse through cheap public terminals, and who are rendered in jerky,grainy black and white".
TECHNICAL APPENDIX
Ed Bennett
Ornitorrinco is the name of both an ongoing telepresence art projectand the telerobot used to realize the project. Ornitorrinco events alwaysinvolve at least two locations or "Places" geographically remotefrom each other. In Place A, a member of the public, the "participant",navigates through a specially designed environment at a remote location(Place B) by pressing keys on a telephone keypad and receiving visual feedbackon a video or computer monitor. The telerobot Ornitorrinco is a self-propelledmobile platform upon which experiments in teleoperation, remote control,and sensing can be mounted.
The intent of Ornitorrinco's design is for the remote participants inPlace A to have sole control over its actions. If, however, a movementresults in collision with an immovable object, stalling could damage thetraction motors. Upon contact, spring-loaded bumper bars on the front andback ends of the platform trip switches, detecting whether the contactis made on the left, center, or right side of the platform. When contactis detected, say on the left, the left motor direction line is toggledmomentarily, reversing that motor while it runs. Both motors are then shutoff until the next command is received. This gives the telerobot the appearanceof "bouncing" off of obstacles. We have termed this action "decolliding".If the participant in Place A is receiving images often, the effect ofthe decollision process should be apparent and not disorienting.
Ornitorrinco consists of several interconnected systems. The telerobotis made from aluminum plate; it is two feet square and 18 inches high (plusextendible antennae). It is powered by a 12 volt lead-acid battery feedingtwo 3 amp traction motors and on-board electronics. Electronic systemsinclude a black and white CCD video camera, microphone, radios, and motioncontrol circuits. The wireless telerobot is connected to its base station(the transcoder) by two radio links, one for sound and video, and one formotion control. It travels at a fixed speed of 45 ft/min, and steers byrotating the left and right pairs of wheels in opposite directions in thefashion of some heavy construction equipment, enabling turns to be madewhile standing in place.
The first Ornitorrinco remote links were accomplished using a singlestandard telephone line for sound, image, and motion control. The telephonekeypad was chosen as the input half of the user interface (instead of ajoystick, for example) to make a direct reference to the telephone networkand make any tone dial telephone in the world one half of an Ornitorrincotelepresence station. The other half was a videophone. We used a pair ofLE-4 Still Image Transceivers with the one in Place B being interfacedinto the transcoder. When the participant in Place A pressed a key on thetelephone keypad, the touch-tone signal sent to Place B via telephone wasreceived by the transcoder then transmitted to the telerobot via radio,decoded in the telerobot, and the command executed. Keys 2 and 8 representforward and backwards, respectively, keys 1, 4, and 7 are left turns, andkeys 3, 6, and 9 are right turns. Key 3 turns right 15 degrees, key 9 turns270 degrees, and so on. Key 5 causes the telerobot to stop if it is moving,and simultaneously signals the transcoder to send an image from the telerobot'scamera back to Place A, a process requiring about six seconds. When thetelephone line was not sending motion commands or receiving a video image,the line carried environmental sounds from the telerobot's microphone fromPlace B to a loudspeaker in Place A. The telerobot's on-board motion controlelectronics are hard-wired logic with an instruction look-up table in EPROM.
As the Ornitorrinco project evolves, Eduardo and I are developing networkedtelepresence. Our first experiments in networked telepresence were in preparationfor "Ornitorrinco in Eden". We altered the control and communicationtopology to permit something closer to a live video feed to be carriedto multiple "Place A's" and to achieve simultaneous multi-pointcontrol of the telerobot's motion. This was accomplished by sending thevideo feed from the transcoder into an Internet-connected computer runningCU-SeeMe, rather than the videophone, and using a conference call betweenChicago (Place B), and Lexington and Seattle (Place A's), for motion control.In this case, key 5 was used only to stop the telerobot, since video imageswere coming live via the Internet. This hybridization of POTS (Plain OldTelephone Service) and Internet obviously points to our next technologicalstep in the continuation of the project, which is to realize all controland feedback through computer networks. In the case of Ornitorrincoin Eden, anyone on the Internet could see what was happening. Lexingtonand Seattle shared control of the "body" of the telerobot inthat three-way conference call. We are currently working with technologies,including the Web, that enable many people worldwide to simultaneouslycontrol and receive feedback from a freely mobile telerobot through theInternet.
Telepresence art can take many forms. In the case of the ongoing Ornitorrincoproject, the participants controlling the telerobot are always geographicallyremote from the telerobot. Rara Avis, which was shown at Nexus ContemporaryArt Center in Atlanta, used a different spatial model defining the relationshipbetween the telerobot, i.e, the Macowl, and a local, rather than remote,participant who controlled the motion of the telerobot.
Rara Avis integrated personal telepresence (point-to-point) andnetworked participation. The participant in the gallery wore a CyberMaxxªVirtual-Reality headset containing two color LCD video displays. Videosignals going to the left and right eyes were distinct, providing a stereo(3D) image. The video signals originated in the Macowl's "eyes",two miniature, color CCD cameras designed for police work ("body cams")or other covert surveillance. Dimensions of a single camera were 1-3/8"x 1-3/8" x 3/4" with a 1/16" diameter lens aperture, and78 degree field of view. A specially fabricated mount provided the multi-axisadjustability and 65mm "pupil-to-pupil" spacing needed to duplicatehuman stereo vision. The camera assembly was siliconed to the inside ofthe Macowl's head, which was mounted on the shaft of a large model airplaneservo, which in turn, fit into a pocket on the top of the Macowl's neck.The servo had 90 degrees of movement in the horizontal plane (yaw). Servoposition was controlled by a custom-built interface card running in a 386computer. Custom software for the 386, based in part on sample code inthe CyberMaxxª developer's kit, interpreted the yaw position informationfrom the headset's built-in tracker. The participant, therefore, controlledthe direction the Macowl was looking by moving his/her head from left toright. Video signals going from the cameras to the headset were genlockedand multiplexed so that the headset accepted them.
Camera video also fed a monitor recessed into the gallery wall so thatmore than one person in the space could see the Macowl's current pointof view. Those viewing the monitor did not see in stereo, rather the imagefrom only one "eye". Other video connections included those totwo PowerMacintosh computers, each running a CU-SeeMe client providingglobal accessibility to, and interactivity with the environment. One PowerMacsent gray (black and white) digital video to the Internet. Sound from remoteCu-SeeMe conferees also entered the gallery through this computer. Thesound was amplified and sent to a loudspeaker giving the Macowl a "voice".The other PowerMac, running Enhanced Cu-SeeMe, sent color video to theInternet. Both computers were connected to an omnidirectional microphonein the aviary. This microphone provided remote participants with soundsof the environment in Atlanta. These two PowerMacs were connected via Ethernetinto an ISDN router. Rara Avis's dedicated ISDN line was configuredfor 128 kbps. The line was active 24 hours, 7 days a week sending the colorand gray feeds to the Rara Avis CU-SeeMe reflector running on aSun SPARCstation at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington. It was fromthis SPARCstation that the connection to the MBone was made. When participantson the Internet viewed the inside of the aviary in Atlanta, their connectionwas to Lexington. The Rara Avis Web site was served by a Macintoshcomputer (networked to the SPARCstation), which got a fresh CU-SeeMe imageevery 5 seconds. In order to accommodate those remote participants whohad slow modems at home (less than 28.8 kbps), the automatic reload rateof the captured CU-SeeMe image placed in the Web site was set at once perminute. However, by pressing the Reload button on one's browser, the remoteparticipant could get a fresh image more often than at one minute intervals.On a high-speed line, reloading retrieved a fresh image right away.
Acknowledgments E. Kac and E. Bennett would like to thank Steve Waldeck,Joan Truckenbrod, and Michael Rodemer, who have given their continuingsupport to the Ornitorrinco project since its beginning. E. Kac would liketo thank Simone Osthoff, Rodrigo Toledo, Nelson Pataro, Steve Waldeck,and Jane Peters for their support of Rara Avis.
Glossary
Written by Eduardo Kac with Ed Bennett
analog--a method of storing, representing or transmitting informationusing continuous variations of a physical quantity that represents (viaanalogy) the original; for example, the continuously changing voltage ona standard telephone line representing the speaker's voice; by contrast,digital storage, representation, or transmission relies on breaking downthat continuity into discrete numeric units (see digital).
bandwidthin broadcasting, it is the frequency range betweenupper and lower limiting frequencies (measured in Herz - cycles per second);in networking, the amount of data that can be carried by a channel (measuredin bits per second).
browsersoftware for navigating the Internet; the most popularbrowser is Netscape.
CCD camera--miniature video camera that uses solid-state image sensors(charge-coupled devices).
clientsoftware that enables the user to access a remote server;running the proper client software, the user can, for example, upload anddownload information to and from a server.
Cu-SeeMe--videoconferencing software developed by Cornell Universityin 1992 and available both for Macintosh and PC platforms.
digitala method of storing, representing or transmitting information;digital information is always represented as ones and zeros; computerstoday are digital.
EPROMErasable Programmable Read-Only Memory; a kind of memorychip.
Ethernetlocal area network protocol and wiring system thatenables fast transmission of data; currently, Ethernet has, on average,a transmission rate of 10 mbps.
feed--transmission of a signal (e.g. a video signal) from one pointto another.
force feedbackthe kind of feedback received by the remoteoperator of a device when this device enables him or her to feel the actualphysical resistance of tangible objects; for example, if the remote operatoris wearing a robotic glove and he or she pushes the remote device--say,a robotic hand--against a wall, the operator would feel the resistanceof the wall.
fps--frames per second; the frame rate of standard television is 30fps.
freeware--software made available free of charge, usually downloadablefrom the Internert.
genlocking--synchronizing two video sources, allowing part or all oftheir signals to be displayed together; this is accomplished with a GENeratorLOCKing device.
haptic feedback--same as tactile feedback; the kind of feedback receivedby a remote operator of a device when this device enables him or her tofeel the actual physical texture and shape of tangible objects; for example,if the remote operator is wearing a robotic glove and he or she uses theremote device--say, a robotic hand--and rubs it against sandpaper, theoperator would feel the flat sandpaper texture.
hard-wired logiccontrol circuit that uses logic chips ratherthan a microprocessor.
head tracking--the ability to track head motions of the user of a particulardevice, such as a virtual reality headset, for example, usually to feedthe resulting position information to another device, such as a computeror a telerobot.
ISDNIntegrated Services Digital Network; international digitaltelecommunication standard that enables transmission and reception of digitalinformation (voice, data, video, fax, control signals); the usual bandwidthof ISDN is 128 kbps (by comparison, the current standard modem speed is28.8 kbps).
kbps--kilobits per second (1024 bits per second); a bit (binary digit)is the smallest unit of digital data (one or zero).
MBone--multicast backbone; a network that exists within the Internetsince 1992 and which is made of routers that forward information (usuallyaudio and video) efficiently to other networks in such a way (i.e., multicasting)that streams of information only travel once through any given wire onthe network.
mbps--megabits per second (approximately one million bits per second);more precisely, 1024 kbps (see kbps).
mediascape--term coined in analogy with the word "landscape";the term suggests that we are surrounded no longer by a natural environment,but by media; it implies that our experience of reality is mediated bymass media and telecommunications systems; it may also imply that our realityhas become this new communications environment; while the word "landscape"refers both to an expanse of scenery and its visual representation, theterm mediascape refers exclusively to the mediated environment we inhabit,and not to any form of pictorial depiction.
multiplexingin video, a process that integrates two or morevideo signals into one channel.
network topologythe spatial configurations and the connectivitysystems of a network.
personal telepresence--in the Ornitorrinco project, where it originated,the term is used in analogy with the personal computer, i.e., an accessibletelepresence system used by an individual on the desktop, usually fromone point to another (although multipoint personal telepresence connectionscan also be made).
real time--immediate transmission and reception of a signal as it isproduced by a device, without delays; live television is a common exampleof real time transmissions.
reflector--software developed by Cornell University to re-transmit incomingaudio and video information to participants of a videoconference.
router--device that routes data from source to destination; routersare the fundamental building block of the Internet; over long distances,Internet data automatically passes through many routers.
serversoftware that enables remote users, running client software,to download and upload information to and from a computer.
servo--short for servomotor; a type of electric motor that has internalfeedback; a servo receives a control input signal and automatically positionsa physical load.
SPARCstation--SPARC stands for Scalar Processor ARChitecture; SPARCstationsare fast and powerful workstations developed by Sun Microsystems.
teleoperation--action executed at a distance under remote control.
telerobotics--the field dedicated to the study and development of mostlynon-autonomous robots designed to be remotely manipulated.
transceiver--device capable of both transmitting and receiving information.
transcoder--device developed by Ed Bennett to interface Ornitorrincoto the telephone line, receiving audio and audio, and transmitting motioncontrol wirelessly.
videoconferencing--bidirectional, or multidirectional, simultaneoustransmission and reception of video (and usually audio, too) for interpersonalcommunication.
wide-bandwidth digital lines--at the current pace of technological development,it seems that the new digital lines going into homes via cable modems inthe United States have bandwidth of 10 mbps; at the same time, much widerbandwidth systems are already available in business settings (40 mbps T3lines or 100 mbps Ethernet lines, for example), and gigabit speeds areimminent in the near future.