I, You, We is an interactive audio-visual performance which is created to overlay our mirror image with that of others, thereby blurring the concept of “me vs. you” into a collective “we.” This interactive audio visual installation explores how blurring one’s vision of self might allow for the transformation of singular self-identity into collective being.

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Breaking down the normative concept of spectatorship and audience, this performance strives to understand how the media representation of different races and genders can be reconfigured in the context of interactive audio-visual live performance. How can seeing one’s own self-representational image on a screen overlaid with images of others affect one’s perceptions and understanding of self in relation to others? How will the viewer’s gaze be affected when sound is simultaneously triggered? How can we break down or disrupt the common impulse to categorize people at first glimpse? Can we tap into a collective consciousness where deeper connectivity within the human race is realized, felt and experienced, despite other differences? These challenging questions form the backdrop of this provocative interactive media performance.

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In this interactive media performance, I invite viewers to stand in front of cameras and have their images projected onto a screen. As participants stand in front of the camera station, their face images will be blended in with the previous person’s face via face tracking technology; as the camera detects the face, a corresponding sound or music will also be simultaneously triggered and played aloud in the space. In this context, audience’s participation not only contributes to the video installation but also becomes a participatory live music performance since I will be performing improvisational music on the violin and cello. As participants act as a section within a large futuristic orchestra, this performance further blurs the boundary between audience and artist/performer. Lastly, the music I am improvising on a violin and cello will affect the lighting/color of the video thereby further creating interactivity and reciprocity between sound and vision in a live performance. The violin pitch recreates the colorful portraits of audiences' blurred faces to celebrate one human race.

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The audiences’ participation is represented in various forms, such as in exact mirrored images, symbolic figurative forms involving the interplay of light and color on the transformation of facial features, and hybrid forms that blur their and other participants’ faces via face tracking technology and Silt scanning technique. The facial reflection constantly shifts and evolves throughout the performance. 

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Programmer: Hans Tammen

Performed in

• SeenSound: Visual and Music Series, March 7, 2020, 4:30. Recorded virtual performance, LoopBack Room, Melbourne, Australia 

• Moxonic Festival, Missouri Experimental Sonic Festival, Warrensburg, Mo, March 5-7,2020)

• Performing Media Art Festival, Indiana University South Bend, South Bend, Indiana (Feb. 20-21, 2020) 

•  Splice Festival, Miami University, Oxford, OH (Feb 20-22, 2020) 

• Bronx ArtsSpace, Bronx, NY, Jan 10-11, 2020

• National Association of Composers USA, Ed Cabell Theatre, University of North Georgia, Gainesville, GA. (Dec. 1st, 2019).  (MUSIC only)

• 27th ACM International Conference on Multimedia, Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions Nice Acropolis, Nice, France (Oct 21-25, 2019). 

•  Artech 9th International Conference on Digital and Interactive Arts, Altice Forum Braga, Braga, Portugal (Oct 23-25, 2019)

•  Studio 300 Digital Art and Music Festival, TransylvaniaUniversity, Lexington, Kentucky (Oct. 3, Oct. 4, 2019) Two performances. 

•  Djanogly Recital Hall, Audio Mostly Conference, (Sept 18, 2019), University of Notthingham, Notthingham, UK

• ” Convergence, International Conference/Festival of Music, Technology & Ideas, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK (Sept. 15, 2019)

•  Lecture-Recital, Music Diaries, International Workshop Festival, Pylaia- Hortiati Municipal Conservatory, Thessaloniki, Greece (2019).

• Live violin and cello improvisation, IEEE Games, Entertainment and Media Conference, Yale University, New Haven, CT (2019)

•  Live Violin and cello improvisation, CICA MUSEUM, Art Teleported, Brooklyn, NY (2019)

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