Artist Measures Visitor Attention Span With Kinect-Powered Tape Measurers
From Dylan Schenker at The Creators Project:
How much time do we spend looking at a work of art when we’re in a museum or gallery? Do we really take the time to reflect and let the work sink in? Or do we simply breeze by in an effort to see as much as possible? Some studies suggest that the average visitor only spends about 5 seconds looking at each work, but Mexican media artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has found a different way of measuring this interaction.
Lozano-Hemmer’s new installation Tape Recorders takes a more physical approach to calculating the answer to this question. Composed of a series of automated measuring tapes fixed to a wall, the tape ascends to the ceiling when visitors are present, tipped-off by a Kinect sensor. Once it reaches its peak, the tape crashes down, unable to hold itself up any longer, and is then reeled back in. Visitors can walk past the full spectrum of tape measurers, making them grow in succession as if performing the “wave,” or stand in front of one to force it to its crashing point. It also tabulates the collective time spent in front of the installation and prints out the summation every hour.
"Tape Recorders" (2011) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer from bitforms gallery on Vimeo.
Subsculpture 12
motorised measuring tapes, kinect tracking systems, computers, cameras, thermal printer, custom-made hardware and software
dimensions variable
Rows of motorised measuring tapes record the amount of time that visitors stay in the installation. As a computerised tracking system detects the presence of a person, the closest measuring tape starts to project upwards. When the tape reaches around 3m high it crashes and recoils back.
Each hour, the system prints the total number of minutes spent by the sum of all visitors. Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
On view at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney until February 12, 2012.