Echo locations

The Echo Locations project is a series of site-specific installations utilizing motion sensing to invite observers to slow down, give the site their attention, and be still long enough for ghostly images to form of how people have moved through the site in the past. The project builds on motion capture, particle systems, and slow interaction techniques developed for Will.0.w1sp. However, whereas the Will.0.w1sp characters move through motion sequences captured in a studio, Echo Locations makes a stronger link to specific locations by capturing motion in real life. The characters recreated by the particle software become similar to ghosts repeating movements that once occurred in the location. Only when visitors to the site are still and quiet do the projections reform and return to their movements. The intention of the piece is to use interaction to make visitors reflect on their personal impact on an environment as they move through a location, and to hint at its history. The installation uses sound in an attempt to awaken curiosity and invite visitors to various locations. The audio environment mixes samples recorded onsite together with simple melodies to create echoes of past inhabitants. If visitors to the site are calm and still, these sounds are played out very melodically, but if visitors move around or make noise of their own, the sound from the particle flows becomes very sharp, with aggressive scratches and hisses. Just as the motion of the particle dancers evokes the sites past history, so does the audio environment.