Created by Keyvane Alinaghi, Simon Lebon and Damien Marchal, Boo! is an interactive installation created using Processing and Pure Data that allows viewers to interact with zombies in the projected scene.
The unusual component of this scene is the strange behavior of the zombies. When the viewer hides his face or turns his back to the image, the zombie who had been facing him takes a few akward steps forward. When the viewer looks again at the zombie, the latter stops dead in his tracks. It is as if a mere glance from the viewer—whether expressing curiosity, disgust, or fascination—were enough to awaken a feeling of shyness or shame in the breast of the blood-thirsty creatures. The esthetics of the installation are those of currently produced video games. The script, however, runs counter to the rules of the genre, providing an unusually negative ending. The zombies end up devouring their victim whenever there are no viewers or when the viewer, horrified, hides his face in his hands, peeping at the screen through his fingers instead of looking at it directly. Once the zombies have finished their meal, the frame of the scene expands, revealing a new victim. The only changing aspect of the action is the time it takes to eat the victim, which depends on the attitude of the spectators.
Technical Direction and Art Direction : Keyvane Alinaghi
3D Infography : Simon Lebon (Meconopsys)
Software development : Damien Marchal
With support from EnsadLab, as part of the school’s research program on relational set-ups. Additional support from the French National Research Agency, as part of the research program Praticables – Dispositifs artistiques: les mises en œuvre du spectateur, and from the Maison européenne des sciences de l’homme et de la société (MESHS), Lille.
(Thanks Emilio)
