Spatial Hyperlink

Spatial Hyperlink, © 2013 Wan-Ying Lai, Ming-Chang Wu, Shen-Guan Shih. Photo © 2013 Ming-Chang Wu.

Spatial Hyperlink, a telecommunications art installation, explores an ideal social interaction. The work encourages viewers’ awareness of others’ psychological states via speaking boxes through which images and sounds can be transmitted over unknown distances. Devices installed in different places become a giant communication network. Users are able to influence remote doors by opening their own. With each opening, the people and the scenes behind the doors become visible to people in other locations around the world.

Each door opening creates a unique experience, a personal assemblage made up of sounds and images created by interactions with the piece. In addition, the sounds of knocking and the user voices are anchored in space and attract passersby to come near and respond. Communications across remote distances are precipitated and accelerated when people happen upon the installation in action, creating a Spatial Hyperlink. The linking process itself consists not only of accumulating sounds and images, but also the users’ exploratory behavior. Users can talk, smile, transmit a kiss, or just ignore the opportunity. In this way, a new kind of social interactive mode emerges the moment a knock on the door is answered.

Spatial Hyperlink, © 2013 Wan-Ying Lai, Ming-Chang Wu, Shen-Guan Shih. Photo © 2013 Wan-Ying Lai.

Spatial Hyperlink, © 2013 Wan-Ying Lai, Ming-Chang Wu, Shen-Guan Shih. Photo © 2013 Ying-Torng Chen.