4 = 1

Interactive installation

at the ‘4 in 1’ building Breukelen.

September 2006 

Artist: Geert Mul        

Production: Mothership

Software: Carlo Prelz

3D Design: Joris Rockx

SmartSkin Interface: Courtesy of Kentaro Fukuchi

The ‘4 in 1’ building houses four organizations: a (toddler) day-care centre, a Library, a music school and a High school.  The organizations cooperate in a pragmatic fashion.

The artwork “4=1” intends to enhance the awareness of the collective presence of the four organizations at the 4_in_1 building.

The installation consists of four units, one in each organization, containing a computer, a screen and a Smart Skin sensor. The units are interconnected, and are activated when a hand is placed on the sensor.

When a person places his hand on the sensor, the ‘print’ of that hand will appear on all the screens in the installation. It will also start the creation of a ‘collage’ of images, specific to the location from where the installation is activated.

This set of images is the result of a daily query for images on the Internet. The query is specific for every organization, resulting in categories of images like ‘children’s drawings’(day-care centre), ‘pop-culture’ (High school), ‘notation’(music school) and ‘syllabary’ (Library).