In every media art exhibition there has to be one piece, that doesn't work. This time it was unfortunately mine.
The initial idea came from the Tapiola tower, where used to be a cafe at the 13th floor some years ago. There's a balcony at the 13th floor with a view over Tapiola.
The whole towers is now mainly in corporate use and the balcony is not open to the public anymore. I think people in general enjoy seeing the world from a high place, from a bird's perspective. I at least have the habit of climbing up somewhere in a new city, where i can see the place and get an understanding of my surroundings. It is said also that it's good for the mental health to see the horizon every day, you know where you are. So I wanted to give this view back to the people of Tapiola, even though I couldn't let them actually go up to the tower. How to have the view without physically entering the viewing place? Place a webcam up on the tower, stream the video online, have a viewing place at the other end.
For some time I've been interested in how new technologies change our perception of the world. We are more and more observing the world through a lens, and we are actually seeing an image of the world, not world itself. Webcams are supposed to be authentic as they are recording in real time, but of course the view is very limited and the quality of live streaming in 2012 is still far from seeing with your own eyes. Still, some people accept this limited view as the truth. Hopefully for some other people this limited view is not enough and they get angry about seeing only so little. This would ideally result into a citizen initiative to open a cafe up to the tower again.
I have used real time video and cameras in some installation, but I've never used streaming video before. It takes time for the video to be transported through internet. This is why the people looking into the box would see what happened about 15seconds ago. Streaming the video online created also the problem why I wasn't able to achieve my goal and make the piece work. Apparently the video had been streamed, although it might have stopped a few times, because the company's internet connection wasn't the best either. And the internet connection at the other end was too slow to be received, because i only used my mobile phone as the internet connection. I should have tested this in advance and if this had been exhibited for a longer period of time, I would have. Also I had a logistic problem, that prevented me from fine tuning the work once it was set up. The camera was located on top of the tower and the viewing place was placed at the Heikki Von Hertzen's square, below the tower. I couldn't leave the box without guard, as it held a computer and a screen inside. So I was unable to move between these two places. I checked the video upstairs and it looked fine, but when I got down, I couldn't get the image appear. For the presentation I used an image taken by the other cameras placed at the tower tapiolakamera.fi . This was a still image and the viewing box wasn't visible in the picture as I would have wanted it to be, so that the person looking into the box would see himself.
Also this was only a demo. If I would have this exhibited for a longer time, I'd need to make the box weather proof as well as the camera upstairs and I would need to search fro better internet connection. Hopefully there will be a free super fast internet connection everywhere in the near future, that will solve one problem.
I sat on a bench near the box for an hour or so and I was observing the people passing by. Many seemed to be interested, but only a few got the courage or time to take a look. The teenager were disappointed that they only saw the construction site in the box. So was I.
I wanted to embed the video here, what it would have looked like if it had been working, but as I was on it, the Bambuser server was down:( will do it later.
Thank you Andy for getting us out from the Helsinki city and transportation aid, that was immensely appreciated!
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