Computer rendering from Grower, 2002 [Enlarge in New Window]

Sabrina Raaf: Translator II

"I'm not interested in creating an object that people will notice for a few seconds; I want to take over their worlds!"

So says new media artist Sabrina Raaf, who earned an MFA in art and technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999, where she was initially fascinated by the human body and systems technology. Raaf is intrigued by embodiment -- getting viewers to experience artworks in a very visceral way, through their bodies and through the architectural spaces that house them. Over the last five years, this desire has led Raaf to create a host of technologically innovative artworks that do indeed magically usurp the worlds of gallery visitors.

In order to create her immersive worlds, Raaf has steadily tracked the evolution of new architectural materials and the development of "smart environments," namely those which respond to their inhabitants by altering light and sound. The Chicago-based artist has also kept abreast of the evolution of miniature electronics that can be embedded into various surfaces, including clothing, and she's fascinated by biotechnology. All of these interests come into play in her artworks, which establish environments in which people actively explore their relationship to the spaces and people around them. "What excites many about this upcoming era of smart technology is not necessarily the enhancement of control of their space, but really more the idea of intelligent responsiveness and increased personal connection with the rooms they inhabit," she says.

Several of Raaf's most recent projects have been wearable sound artworks. With Dry Translator (2002), for example, Raaf built walls in a gallery that were so sensitive that even the lightest brush of the fingers across the surface resonated through the bodies of the gallery occupants. To participate, visitors donned "audio vests." Each vest, equipped with small speakers, could "hear" sounds as its wearer touched the walls of the gallery. And the sounds included not only those of the wearer as he/she touched the wall, but also sounds of other gallery visitors -- the walls held "wired tentacles" that acted like stethoscopes, so that each touch was transmitted wirelessly to the vests. Raaf says that the walls became almost an extension of each participant's own body such that when they touched them, they simultaneously touched themselves. Reflecting on the appeal of creating these kinds of interactive environments, Raaf notes, "They become alive, rather than being merely objects. They have a much greater impact."

Raaf, who teaches installation art and theory, programming, and photography at Columbia College in Chicago, is currently working on Translator II: Grower, in which a small rover vehicle moves around the periphery of a space drawing vertical lines up and down on the wall with a green crayon. At the end of the installation the bases of all four walls will be covered with fine green lines, which together resemble a cross-section drawing of a field of grass. The height of each line is determined by the level of carbon dioxide present in the room, which the robot reads via a small digital sensor mounted on its shell. It draws a green line after each reading, then moves forward slightly before taking its next reading. The carbon dioxide, of course, is generated by gallery visitors, who affect the "growing" of the robot's drawn grass through their breath -- as well as the "health" of art institutions through their attendance. For Raaf, the project offers a model in which people and machines interact in mutually informative and dynamic ways. "The relationship between Translator II: Grower, the space, and the public really becomes a metabolic one--one of co-evolution. This piece makes visible how art institutions depend on their visitors to make them 'healthy' spaces for new art to evolve and flourish within. Watching the artistic output of a machine that is so sensitive to its environment makes people in the space more sensitive to their environment and its conditions."

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THIS PROJECT'S CATEGORIES: Emerging Fields > Robotics | Science & Technology | 2002