Displaced Perspectives 2.0
"Displaced Perspectives 2.0" (1986 & 2011) by Graham Smith is a teleguidance system.
Displaced Perspectives; archive photo: Graham Smith, 1986
Displaced Perspectives allows viewers to explore distant environments through the video eyes of a remotely controlled robot. It is a teleguidance system which will allow participants in Salerno or Paris to explore a site in Toronto by directing a small video camera mounted on a remotely-controlled robot, which transmits real-time digitized images via the Macintosh computer "MacVision" system.
This ability to see, and control a machine, across the Atlantic is the most visible part of the piece, yet conceptually it is only a surface element. The true power of the piece lies in its definition of communication as an interactive explorative process which results in the construction of a 3-dimensional mental model. The robot uses the same scanning process people use when entering any new space; they look all over and build up a 3-dimensional model from many different perspectives. It is this definition of communication: many small pieces making up something greater than the whole, which lies at the heart of this piece. (Graham Smith, SAI Brochure, 1986)
Displaced Perspectives 2.0 by Graham Smith (2011) from V2_ on Vimeo.
