"Life Equation"



Andreas Voussouras is attempting, for the first time, to create an interactive, interdisciplinary work, based on Information Technology, mathematical Chaos Theory, Music and digital image processing. Nevertheless, the "raw material" he is using is the same with the one he has been using to create his previous works. These works are sculptures and installations, containing images from collective memory, photographs, video and old Super 8 films where the protagonists are anonymous people and their every day lives.

In KAOStrax, Vousouras is feeding his repository of images with digitized pictures showing the causes, the events, the victims and the impact of contemporary global conflicts. The V-Motion software, designed and created by John (Terra 1) Dikaiakos is getting as its input the waveform and timbre of the music, the images from their repository, but also the input form a camera targeting the work's viewer, and her/his direct interaction via a MIDI keyboard which become part of the structural elements of the resulting visual output. This output is a flood of rich, chaotic and unique visual material within which the image of the viewer is an integral part.

The catalytic factor of this spectacular visual transformation is the implementation within the software application of the logistic equation, exhibiting chaotic behavior. This equation is also known as "Life equation", as biologists are using it to calculate the evolution of an animal population over time, considering birth and death rates. This equation is the entity that transmutes images and sounds of the mainstream linear dualistic perception of conflicts to non-linear and chaotic ones, multi-factorial and quasi-unpredictable.

In this way, the conventional myths of the "good" and the "bad", of the "sacrificer" and the "victim" leave their place to a more realistic and closer to real life scenarios, where virtues and roles are interweaving in infinite combinations over the course of time. Time is here represented by the rhythm of the work's sound remix, consisting of composition and speech -as the eschatological sermon of a street preacher.

The final result displayed on the screen is an autonomous, almost uncontrollable sequence of new and unique images. The whole installation resembles almost to a technological entity that seemingly possesses its own willpower and is "conversing" with its interacting viewer. The visual sequences and the determinative rhythm and pitch of the sounds could be considered as perceptible tracks of chaos, hence the name of this work (KAOStrax = Chaos tracks).

KAOStrax is an interactive multimedia installation enabling us to live and participate in the transformation of the dualist perception of image to a chaotic, non-linear system aiming to provide a lively approach to global conflicts through forms, colors, rhythms, speech and sound.


Anna Hatziyiannaki
Art Historian




ARS ELECTRONICA 2002: "Art as the Scene of Global Conflicts"

Curator: Anna Hatziyiannaki

Software Design and Programming (Vmotion): John (terra 1) Dikeakos

Technical Consultant: Dimitris Skoufis

Video Creation: The artopos crew: Andreas Daniel, Aris Pasouris, Eleni Basta, Danae Puiguiraud

Production: Empty Pocket Masterpieces, ART TOPOS (www.artopos.org)



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