Supersymetria
Krzysztof Mazur (Poland)
Winner in the Intermedia Artwork Concept category
International Competition for the Intermedia Artwork 2018
The title of the installation refers to one of the models in elementary particle physics. According to this model, particles discovered within the standard model may be accompanied by superpartners reflected as though in a distorting mirror. Currently, it is the most promising mathematical model, based on which experiments have been undertaken in search of new elementary particles. However, in a broader perspective, the design of this interactive installation is a variation on the topic of quantum physics. The installation will be a cube consisting of five-meter screens, on the sides of which the reflections of the person moving around inside will be projected. These reflections will not be projected naturally, but rather in a way which gives the impression of the reflection’s displacement in time and space. The reflections will converge to a symmetrical state, corresponding to the natural reflection only, when the person is in the center of the cube.
The winner in this category wins an opportunity to carry out the project.
The organisers shall work with the author to prepare the project and to fund its public presentation and promotion during the next edition of the competition.
Jury verdict justification
ICIA 2018 Jury: Izabella Gustowska, Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, Michał Ostrowicki / Sidey Myoo, Mirosław Rogala, Jeffrey Shaw
The jury appreciated the originality of the work within the context of scientific discourses. This interactive installation has been based on the ideas of multi-dimensions within the social aspect. The project possesses the values of dynamic, unpredictable reality and human relations. It appreciates the relationships amongst the art, science and technology.
Artists
Krzysztof Mazur graduated the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts and philosophical studies at the Jagiellonian University. He is the creator of interactive installations and projects taking on topics at the intersection of art and science, stimulation of artificial life, ecology, quantum physics phenomena and OTW, GPS-art or audio-art. In the field of philosophical aesthetics, he engages in the topic of interactive artwork understood as an autonomous entity, studies the processes of shaping new varieties of art, and works on the concept of adaptive aesthetics, attempting to describe the role of the artist and their creative work in the process of man’s mental and cultural assimilation of the products of science and high technology. More of his work can be found at www.interactive.art.pl.
Moving around inside the cube, the person will be monitored from outside by two thermal-vision cameras, separately for the x and z axis. During tests, the moderately thick, white, plastic foil of the screen was transparent to infrared radiation generated by the person, which made it possible to obtain the person’s properly outlined thermal shape. For screens 1 and 2, the thermal camera images will be reflected horizontally and modified to a monochromatic shadow. That way, after entering the cube, a person will see their shadows on the screens moving towards them from the end of the room. Screens 3 and 4 incorporate a local, long horizontal reflection of just the person, which will give the impression of the person’s shadow moving in the direction opposite to the natural leg movement. As a result, an additional impression of alternation through a symmetrical reflection of the shape, and alternation of the future and past in the person’s motions on the screens, much like a quantum particle superposition. In the vertical axis (floor and ceiling), I would present my own artistic variation on the subject of two mathematical interpretations of elementary particle behavior, i.e. the “Copenhagen interpretation” and the “de Broglie-Bohm interpretation”.
The ceiling screen would be an area where the outline of the head would appear with variable probability. The probability of the head reflection appearance would increase as the person inside approaches the center of the ceiling. Data used to determine the specific position would be related to data of Internet meteorological stations. Collapse, i.e. the reduction of wave function to a specific state, and in the installation – the appearance of the head outline, would be triggered by the person stopping in place, and fade as the person moves around. On the other hand, the deterministic particle trajectory related to the Bohm “pilot wave” would be associated with the moving image of the marks of feet disconnected from the person walking on the cube’s floor. Additionally, this would allow for the illusion that the reflections of feet are moving from the future to the present, and into the past after crossing the axis of symmetry.
All the reflections, shadows and marks displayed by the 6 projectors would converge symmetrically in the x, z and y axes only, when the person is exactly in the center of the floor. Additionally, the moving images of the person visible on the screens can be accompanied by spatially positioned sounds. This, however, requires development of a feedback between the image from the cameras and the sound processor, which should be achievable.
Demo work in progress 2020

