Ord & Stol

[Literally "word and chair"]

A semiotic fun fair or spatial poetry or both.

A spatial and interactive sound installation at Gallery Eat Me, Copenhagen, September 1996.

(Radio interview [in Danish].)

The room

The 4 x 4 m room was divided into 64 squares, each equipped with a sensor.

Sensors in their raw state:

A carpet was then placed on top and a chair in the corner.

The sensors are connected to a computer controlling two loudspeakers.

Content

The installation runs in 4 modes, each lasting 15 minutes:

Mode 1: Spatial poem - Each square on the floor has a specific word that is said in the loudspeakers if one steps on it. It is therefore possible to use the installation to create your own sentences; a specific sentence will be a specific path around the floor.

Mode 2: Sound toy - 4 long samples (T.S. Eliot, Frank Zappa, William Burroughs, and a weather forecast) are assigned to each quarter of the room. The duration of the samples makes it possible to create echo effects by running around the room.

Mode 3: Spatial poem 2 - This one a collection words from the slightly romantic Danish poetry of the 1980's (rain, neon, tarmac, dark, cigarette, lies etc...)

Mode 4: Happy floor - Each square remembers how many times it has been stepped on. Initially, it will simply say "uhmn". Progressive steps makes each square more agitated until it finally overflows, leaving simply a mechanical "beep". If the room is full of people, the room therefore goes from relaxed to ecstatic to finally mechanical beeping.

In all four modes, sitting on the chair will cause the word "stol" [chair] to be said.

Technology

Not that it matters, but: Standard floor sensors (used for alarms), 300 m of cabling, connected to a 200mhz pc via some isa cards, computer running a custom program in Dos, written in C++. The system plays sounds correctly even if all 64 tiles are pressed at the same time.