This installation explores the use of technology in creating a strong connection to a remote physical location. The Western Wall ( הכותל המערבי ) in Jerusalem is one of the most sacred sites for Judaism. For over 2000 years, people have been coming to this wall in search of hope, thankfulness and belief. Current internet technology allows for the availability of a 24 hour real-time virtual connection to the wall, through a website. This installation aims to break the convention of the computer screen, creating an enhanced connection to the wall using touch. The installation is implemented using 3d technology and touch sensors, embedded within a real rock. The touch sensitive rock lets viewers navigate through different niches created in 3D space, using real-time webcam feeds broadcasting live images from the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

presented:

Bronfman Center Artist Fellow Exhibit, New York, April 2007
Young Investigator's Forum for Culture Technology, KAIST - Korea, October 2006
ITP hallway Gallery, New York University, fall 2006
ITP 2006 Spring Show

A grant for this project was given by the Bronfman Center, as part of the artist fellowship program, 2006-2007

I am intrigued by the immense amounts of information available online, and am interested in enhancing existing boundaries for interaction with this data. The touch sensitive interface allows users to navigate through different niches created in 3D space, viewing images from several live webcams from the Kotel. The internet allows us to feel a sense of connection between two or more remote locations. By posting photographs online, we are sharing memories of a moment with anyone who has online access. In search of enhancing a frozen still moment, I long to recreate a presence of a place, a moving image that can transport to a viewer the essence of a faraway location. People travel thousands of miles to come and touch the wall. It is an extremely haptic experience, feeling stones which are thousands of years old. By using rocks as a viewing interface for this installation, I strive to maintain some of the important essence when visiting this location.

In this project, I explore the creation of an intimate connection to the Kotel itself, and not the people who are there. Most people at the site in Jerusalem don't realize that these cameras exist and broadcast footage online. For this reason, there is no moral problem nor or any surveilance issue. Through the images, it is not possible to see faces, yet a general sense of activity in the location is felt. Over a while, one can start noticing the different patterns occuring at the Kotel: sunrise over the wall, the changing densities of prayer times, religious holidays, a heightened police presence upon security problems, and more.

The webcams broadcast images from the Kotel in real time, 24 hours a day, excluding the Sabbath.

By placing a folded piece of conductive sheet between a real rock and a foamboard base and connecting it a qprox touch sensor, it is possible to create a display that reacts according to its' viewers touch. The qprox sensor circuit is connected to a PIC chip, which then communicates with the computer. The latter runs virtools 3d software, and communicates to the PIC chip through a custom building block I wrote. The building block is written in C, using the virtools SDK, and creates a 'Serial Read' function which can then be used from within the Virtools program to manage serial communications with any external hardware object. Every time a user places their hands on the rock, the qprox sensor receives a signal, passes it on to the PIC, which then passes it on to the PC (via serial communications), and finally into the Virtools program, which then changes the display accordingly. In the ITP spring show, the 3D live webcam display started rotating, and revealing other live views from the wall upon receiving a touch. As the viewer let go of the rock, the display would slowly settle back to its original position - front view of the Kotel.