Sugrue
Delicate Boundaries
U.S.A., 2007
Delicate Boundaries explores the fragile and sometimes unperceivable juncture between real and physical space. (I don’t understand the difference between real and physical space?) This work is an interactive installation that uses the body as an extension of the digital ecosystem inhabited by a crowd of digital bugs. By means of a projector mounted over the installation space the swarm moves in natural-inspired ways and takes on extraordinary patterns. When a presence is detected, the creatures move from the screen onto the human body. Delicate Boundaries generates an animated illusion and a virtual intimacy due to the transfer of the bugs’ virtual behaviour onto the real bodily space. The interface senses the contours of the human body, invading it in life-like manners, and giving the illusion of an ambiguous stranger passing through. The installation evokes a sense of hospitality instead of the traditional break between the real and the virtual. Hospitality leads to learning and appreciation, turning the behaviour of artificial entities into ritualistic visions.
Christine Sugrue is an interaction designer, researcher, and creative technologist. She graduated from the Design and Technology Masters Program at Parsons School of Design in 2005, and has worked as a key researcher in the Ars Electronica Futurelab. In 2007, she received a fellowship at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center where she researched and developed media art, interactive installations and performance technology. Currently, she is an artist-in-residence at Hangar in Barcelona.