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Main GroupPosted at Nov 1/2005 05:30PM:
Gabriella Giannachi
Word coined by Marvin Minsky to designate: teleoperation systems used in remote object-manipulation applications (Goldberg, 2000: 27)
Telepresence defines:
- the experience of presence in an environment by means of a communication medium’ (Steuer in Ibid.);
- a temporally or spatially distant real environment’ (Ibid.);
- Telepresence is reciprocal (involving both observer and observed) (Ibid.)
The Telegarden (1995-ongoing, networked robot installation at Ars Electronica Museum, Austria, [link]). Co-directors: Ken Goldberg and Joseph Santarromana Project team: George Bekey, Steven Gentner, Rosemary Morris Carl Sutter, Jeff Wiegley, Erich Berger. (Photo by Robert Wedemeyer). Courtesy of Ken Goldberg
Telepresence shows that ‘from a social, political, and philosophical point of view, what we cannot see is equally relevant to what meets the eye.’ (Kac in Goldberg, 2000: 182)
Paul Sermon [link] utilises telepresence in his telematic installations.
'The basic principle used in all the telematic installations I have produced since the beginning of the nineties involves a form of video-conferencing telepresence. By using systems of cameras, video mixers and projectors, two remote participants are combined and framed within the same screen/image. With the help of virtual studio chroma-key effects (the video mix of two identical scenes) the geographically distant users/performers appear in the same room, sitting at either the same table, on the same sofa, or on the same bed. All these works embody open systems of interaction, involving two or more remote locations and participants, linked together via computer data net-works.' (Sermon in Rieser and Zapp, 2002: 78-9).
'All technology is a development of language - a means of construction and interpretation of an environment. The definition of the virtual and real are all part of the same linguistic construct. Technology/language is not an apparatus or attachment of the body, but rather an extension of it. The marriage of the terms 'tele' and 'information' (informatic) encompasses many fields of research, including telepresence - the ability to be in more than one place at one time - ultimately a quantum physics model of teleportation.' (Sermon in Rieser and Zapp, 2002: 78-9).
Images are from Telematic Seance' (1993), courtesy of Paul Sermon
