Art: +-now

+- now (2008) is an interactive art installation comprising sand and realtime computer generated imagery. Installed at Beta_space in the Sydney Powerhouse Museum. Sound heard in the videos is ambient museum sound

Real-time 3D computer graphic imagery is generated in response to interaction gestures. This imagery is both a monochrome screen image and a coloured image that augments the sand.

Gestures in the sand are rendered as accumulating, layered images. Over periods of time the monochrome image reveals new shapes in these 'visual echoes', promoting a reflective experience. At the same time the coloured image behaves like a liquid, affording an immediate sense of play.

+-now comes out of landscape and philosophy. Thus the work asks the audience to consider the different ways users can ‘be'. It focuses on the deep involvement one can experience in certain types of interaction, such as being engrossed in a conversation or lost in an activity. An everyday comparison might be cloud gazing, and the interpretation of figures there. That is, as one interprets form and meaning they may start to lose themselves in their surroundings.

User testing has been conducted of interaction with this system. More information is availabe on the Bio pages.