inoutSite I [1998]

27.02.2009

Bei den Instllationen des “inoutsite”-Projektes wird die Häufigkeit der Passagen von Personen auf öffentlichen Plätzen untersucht und in virtuelle Bilder und Klänge umgesetzt.
inoutsite1_01

Das sich ergebende Bild kann gesehen werden als erste Annäherung an eine virtuelle Architektur. Inoutsite I und II zeigen die Statistik des Raumes: Pfeile (grün) indizieren die Gehrichtung, Linien (hier Röhren) sind die Spuren der einzelnen Personen. Die Höhe des Netzes, das wie eine 3D Chart und luftiges Dach über dem Platz schwebt, zeigt die Gesamtverteilung der Spuren auf dem Platz. Umso niedriger das Netz, umso seltener war dort eine Person.

inoutsite1_02inoutsite1_03

memory of space

27.02.2002

The installation “memory of space” links local and geographical dimensions.

It is a cybernetic installation using real time video input and tracking data from video footage. It produced a representation of a public place showing the history of the traces of passengers.

Memory of space is one stage within the framework of the inoutsite project that depicts space in its temporal alterations and explores how individual experiences of „space“ generate the social construct of city. To what extent is the experience of a public space conditioned by me and my (unique) memory – to what degree is it determed by the conventions that result from social intercourse with others and from architectonic/geographic factors? In this case, an large, much-frequented square is monitored by a central camera. The video signals are passed on to two computers which edit the material. The first computer screens an image resulting from an analysis of the movements of people crossing, meeting and/or lingering on the square. Based on the collected movement data of the previous few hours, the second computer calculates an image describing the qualities of the place. The installation „memory of space“ links local and geographical dimensions.

screen print of the software


An aerial view underlying the virtual scene enables an examination of the virtual picture with regard to its potential relationship to large-scale axes. At the base of the virtual picture is a grid-like system of coordinates which, via a self-organizing map (a simple, self-orgaizing neuronal network), is distorted according to the actual usage of the place.
At the same time walking speed and direction are applied to the coordinates, pushing them along their direction of travel. A video-texture comprising the video image of the tracked place is mapped onto the coordinate system offering the viewer references to the real place.
As a result of this investigation, the monitored place can be divided into „territories“: areas of rest and walking lanes. These lanes are inscribed as a „network of corridors“ (grey lines) onto the distorted (by the movements) reproduction of the square. The remaining spaces – the places where peoples showed a tendancy to dwell (walking speed = 0) – were marked red.

mos integrated into an urban setting

Exhibition situation in Madrid

Concept: Ursula Damm

Programming: Matthias Weber

inoutSite II

27.02.1999

Exhibition at Canary Islands 2007

After 1989 a series of drawings of geometric patterns, to be considered as mathematical descriptions
of space, evolved out of earlier sculptural works. Space became declined in its proportional
rhythms of finite and infinite dimensions and recursions. The pattern drawings which developed
are a canon of shapes intended as the foundation for large-scale urban planning.The polymorphism
of the patterns enables individual elements to be inserted into already existing proportions,
generating a calculated description of the “new” from the already existing “old”.
The result of these calculations was a set of basic geometric forms with a long-range effect forming
the basis of the first interactive installation “trace pattern”. In this installation patterns are
automatically calculated and linked to the movement of people walking in a particular space.The
resulting proportions can be examined “virtually”.

For “inoutsite” (see also http://www.inoutsite.de) a tracking-software was developed specifically
for the surveillance of public spaces (programm authors:Thomas Kulessa and Matthias Weber).
This experience with the machine processing of traces of movement brought about a gradual
shift in the main focus of the work – from the construction of descriptive models to the observation
of movements. In the installation of the “inoutsite” project the frequency of visits to the site
under surveillance was analysed and then translated into image and sound.The resulting virtual
three-dimensional shapes can be considered as the first virtual architecture.

Inoutsite I und II zeigen die Statistik der Raumnutzung.

screen print with schematic spacial setting

The red arrrows point in the direction of walking, the lines are the traces of people in the space. The height of the net, which hovers like a virtual roof over the observation area, shows the frequency with which a place is walked.The more people stand at a place, the lower the net sinks. The cloud in the center shows the same information as the net, differentiated by intensity levels. Sounds act as a “monitor” of visitor movement: low tones represent edge positions.

Videoausspielung 1990

Sculpting the clouds (a Text by Katja Davar)

Ursula Damm navigates spaces. As long as I have known her this has been her main occupation in
one form or another. I recall her gait at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf that I watched from a
distance and even then it struck me that the person coming towards me was somehow navigating
the space of that long, endless corridor in a different and definitely less earth-bound way than
many. Looking at her artwork over the past years, the spatial aspect has always dominated in
some form and her ability to turn what could almost be termed a scientific research project into
something visually exciting is for me the core of the work. Assuming that Ursula Damm could
just as easily have found her way into pure science, the respect that her work commands is one
quite different to the subjectivity often associated with an artistic production. From her sculptural
roots that moved into a virtual space, to dynamic architectural arenas and the visualisation of
human movement – if one were to analyse the movement through the work as one that is physical,
perhaps one could say that the camera perspective (angle) has constantly increased until, as in the
most recent works, one has a bird’s eye view of her production. Ursula Damm’s interest in the
interior and exterior, i.e. programming and interface, or re/search and re/sult, or even local and
global leads me to believe that she is in a strange way attempting to leave a particular state of
being in order to discover another. Could this be the age-old desire to fly? To view the world at
an angle known only to birds and the wind? Increasingly the works have a real oddness about
them, they defy categorisation, which naturally makes them troublesome, as the viewer has to
weave an individual vocabulary in order to assess them.
Ursula Damm embraces a multi-tiered approach not only through the utilisation of images formed
partly through technology, but also through the usage of waste-products – possibly the stuff from
which science is made – and lastly her passion for the interactive about which we have argued
many a time!
The complex reflection on an analogy between space, time, the human and flight all find expression
in the work of Ursula Damm, perhaps the question is not when will the clouds be sculpted
but from whom.


Katja Davar

trace pattern II

27.02.1998

Räumliche Anordnung der Installation

Im Vorraum ist eine Kamera installiert, welche Besucher aufnimmt. Sie können sich auf einer Videowand sehen, Töne erzeugen und mit den Geometrien spielen, die ihre Bewegungen interpretieren. Pfeile geben die Gehrichtung an, der Durchmesser der Kreise wächst mit der Gehgeschwindigkeit, das hellgrüne Polygon umfaßt Personengruppen, das türkisfarbene Polygon beschreibt den Zwischenraum zwischen zwei Personen, die “Bleistiftlinien” zeichnen die Wege der letzten Minuten.

Trace Pattern Ausspielung

Blick ins Congresszentrum des Multimediaforums in der Messe Köln

lInstallation im Multimedia Forum Köln 1997

Hardware: Tracking System auf Windows Computer, Grafik auf Silicon Graphics

Blick aus dem Fokus der Kamera auf die Leinwand