Missing
Mediatrix / Seductor Productions
Missing is a collaborative project by Mediatrix / Seductor
Productions, originally developed as a touch-screen installation
for the Artspace exhibition Electronic Bodyscapes.
Photographs, text, sound, drawings, video and film stills have been
recontextualised as narrative threads which reference and link to
one another in response to the user's actions. Navigation of Missing
has been intentionally designed to induce feelings of dislocation,
offering glimpses of meaning in a coherent world which nonetheless
refuses 'mastery' by the user. Travel through Missing is
not pre-determined: by touching on different parts of screens the
user will activate different links, but there is no guarantee that
they can repeat their track, the path is different every time.
As well as creating a non-linear architecture, Mediatrix/Seductor
also wanted to intervene in the space between the user and the computer
screen. Touching the screen requires a much more consciously sensual
relationship between the user and Missing than is possible
with a mouse - an interaction which highlights the relationship
between looking/voyeurism and touch in both personal and virtual
spaces. The user is seduced into relinquishing their instincts for
control, and into going wherever their touching takes them.
Missing, at first glance, seems to be nothing more than an
electronic wig catalogue, but the more inquisitive user soon finds
that, just as in real life, things are not what they seem...
Currently, a 'sampler' of Missing is being constructed for
the Electronic Bodyscapes world wide web site. Copies of the limited-edition,
mouse-friendly CD-ROM
version of Missing (for Macintosh PowerPC computers only)
are available for sale from The Physics Room : individuals $70; organisations
$150.
Reviews, Essays & Articles
Architecture of association
compelling viewing
The Press, 1997 Sept. 3, p. 14
Garrett, Louise.
Missing, Mediatrix/Seductor Productions at The Physics Room : the
work enlarges on the possibilities of the computer as an expressive
medium.
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