Two interesting elements of Deep Walls from Scott Snibbe

Section#1
One of critical elements of Scott Snibbe’s Deep Walls is the silhouettes of visitors’ movements in separated frames. When visitors walk by a wall, a camera will capture visitors’ movements and cast the silhouettes on the screen on the wall. The silhouette in each capture occupies one of sixteen frames in the screen. From the silhouette, I was able to watch the documentation of my interaction with this art work. It is interesting that they are moving silhouettes but not clear motion pictures in color, which is comparatively abstract in terms of visual effect. I am very fond of the color and the texture of these moving silhouettes. The differences of visitors such as clothes, colors of hair cannot be informed from silhouettes. Scott Snibbe’s choice of silhouette eliminates those information and leads visitors to focus their observation and thinking on the movement. This choice also greatly encourages visitors to be involved in the interaction. In a public area like this museum, compared to watching videos with sharp images of themselves, people would feel more comfortable with watching their shadows. I felt very relax and comfortable when I watched my silhouettes and tried new gestures in front of the screen. I just simply moved back and forth at first. But soon I found that to watch the walking of my shadow is not very fun. So I began to experiment more dramatic movement in my recreation of video. I jumped as high as I could while walking in front of the camera, imitating a kangaroo. If it would be a color video, I would be too shy to perform this. And I was very satisfied with my kangaroo-jump-image which almost looks like cartoon. After watching their silhouettes, many other visitors also became more and more brave and brisk in experimentation of body movement, which could be any kind of modern dance.

Section#2
The juxtaposition of sixteen small separated frames on one screen is a complement element to the silhouette in single frame. For an Act/React art work, if the idea that to capture a visitor’s movement and cast the silhouette to the screen seems very common, the juxtaposition of many silhouettes from different visitors would make Deep Walls very attractive because of its abstraction and creation. When I entered the room which the Deep Walls is installed, I was shocked by the juxtaposition of sixteen frames occupying a whole wall. The changing images without connections in the context on the screen produce a visually abstract representation, which slows down my speed in understanding this art work. I had to spend a couple minutes to study the composition and context in each frame. To me, it seems like watching sixteen persons’ shadows walking on a same screen in separated frames. But these shadow images were displayed in a creative way. After I realized those images were records of visitors’ activities, I came to a stage of searching for certain silhouette in single frame. It can be said that this juxtaposition produce a visual effect that hooks and transfers me to a more detailed observation, which is my experience that I describes in section#1.

Section#3
The silhouettes in separated frames and juxtaposition of these frames are the complements of each other. Being piled up to form a fun-to-watch network, these visually attractive images could draw interests from visitors immediately after they enter this area. Then visitors would like to start their interactions with art work. They begins to look at each frame carefully, they would find that the movements were documented in the form of silhouette in order to encourage visitors to join the interaction, which is creatively designed by Snibbe. The combination of these two elements of Deep Walls not only enhances the dynamic visual effect, but also results collaborations of visitors. From the real-time documentations of a group of visitors’ interactions on same screen, I could learn from other people’s movement and created my own. Or I could repeat their movements in my own way, which would also create a different silhouette. According to my observation, everyone begins the interaction by watching and learning other people’s images. And everyone’s record may become the material that other people would like to study before they join the creation. Some families and couples also imitate each other’s gesture and improve the old ones in their interaction. For instance, I saw a couple was holding hands together when they walked. Soon, another couple was holding and kissing each other which was more complicated while they were walking. Strangers talks to each other about their images on the screen and even recreate the video together. It could be said that the visitors formed a dynamic community while they were participating in this interaction.