Place – Ruhr

In this work the viewer can explore a three dimensional virtual environment that is constituted by an emblematic constellation of panoramic locations and events. The installation is physically constituted by a rotating platform that allows the viewer to interactively rotate a projected image within a large circular projection screen. It presents cylinders that actualise particular sites in the Ruhr area. The viewer can navigate this three-dimensional space and enter these panoramic cylinders. Once inside the represented imagery becomes a surrounding cinematic performance which fills the projection screen and presents a pre-recorded situation as an immersive event. The identity of each of the eleven sites is defined by its environmental scenography, both real and artificial, which are conjoined with a time-based occurrence that has been staged there. On the platform there is a column with an underwater video camera. This device is the interactive user interface; its buttons and handling allow the viewer to control his movement through the virtual scene as well as cause the rotation of the platform and of the projected image around the circular screen. A microphone on top of this interface camera picks up any sound that the viewer makes, and this cause the release of continuously moving three dimensional words and sentences within the projected scene. Originating in the centre of the screen, the physical arrangement of these texts in the virtual environment is determined by the path of the viewer movements while they are being generated.