Lover’s Leap

title

1995

year

Mirosław Rogala

author

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synopsis

The interactive environment of Lover’s Leap was collaboratively developed by Ludger Hovestadt and Ford Oxaal. The work consists of a multimedia installation and a CD—ROM. The former registers the movement of the people in a room and uses the bodies of the viewers as triggering impulses, the latter uses their hands. It involves both the public and personal space of a viewer. This situation allows the audience to freely pick the participants and the spectators. More ↓↑

The Lover’s Leap also bases on an assumption there is a relation between the self—contained entity of a work and the viewer’s interpretation even though it begins to exist only when activated by a user. The reason for this project’s inception was a place — the Lover’s Leap — on the route from Chicago to Jamaica, with a military radar station at the very centre of a tragic love. Photographs of busy Chicago intersections have been processed using custom—developed software to create a brand new perspective. The CD version of the interactive installation allows continuous 360 degree navigation in all directions within Chicago’s alien cityscape. It’s possible to „travel” at various speeds. After you stop, a random video sequence from Jamaica appears. The motion in perspective is a mental structure reflecting the leaps and a free association in the cognitive process. The Lover’s Leap allows new experiences on both levels.

Place and date of recording: MultiMediale 4, ZKM Karlsruhe, 1995

video

artist's bio

Mirosław Rogala (PL), b. 1954, painter, printmaker, photographer, creator of installations, video, and multimedia forms. He uses the experience in the field of music, painting, and video, and presents images and sounds, situations and emotions representing a form of universal communication disregard national borders. His works are known for consistently using interactive media for the embodiment, expression and transformation of various existential senses.