@ Pixelache Helsinki
Hide and Seek is a project being realized at ENSAD, jointly in Installation & relational devices and Locative media research groups.
Exhibited at Pixelache 2010, festival of electronic art and subcultures in Helsinki.
Hide and Seek is an interactive work of art for iPhone or iPod touch that leads you to a internal conflictual situation where you have to hide what you are dying to see.
Firstly, the screen looks like a uniform flesh-colored surface, conveying an idea of skin, caress and touch. While touching the screen, the person notices the reaction of the device: his fingertip reveals a ghost image, hardly visible with its low contrast. By touching the screen with a second finger, she/he soon notices that not only the image is revealed under both fingertips, but also it has also more contrast and is better visible. Driven by curiosity, she/he will then put all five fingers in contact with the surface. Under her/his fingertips - and only there - clearly appears the image and its erotic nature: skin, folds or nipples. Now understanding what is hidden under his fingers, the person will not necessarily stop touching, even though she/he might feel trapped. On the contrary, she/he adopts a voyeur attitude.
The work illustrates the quote "Hide this breast that I cannot see" (Cachez ce sein que je ne saurais voir) from Tartuffe by Molière, where the character is a dishonest puritan dying to say "Unveil this body that I want to see".
The experience might seem frustrating, since it is not possible to perfectly see the image. In order to see it better, one has to hide it oneself. It is actually not the system that is hidding the image - on the contrary, it reveals it - but rather the person's fingers. One ends up in a contradictory situation where one has to hide the image in order to see it.
Whereas the fingers hidding the screen (the fat finger problem) is considered a problem in Human-Computer Interaction, however, it is consciously used as an opportunity here and becomes the purpose of Hide and Seek.
@ Pixelache Helsinki
Contrast of the picture changes according to the amount of touch on the screen.
In addition to the contrast changing according to the amount of touch on the screen, the picture only appears under the touches.
In addition to the contrast changing according to the amount of touch on the screen - slightly less than before, for getting interest at first touch - and the picture only appears under the touches, the frontier between revealed and unrevealed area is more fuzzy/subtle.
Hide and Seek featured in the Sensitive Surfaces webpage of the Interactive Installation research group (EnsadLab).
Hide and Seek in the Interactive Installation research group (EnsadLab).
Hide and Seek in the Locative Media research group (EnsadLab).