interactive installation
LED Message Boards, with arduino controllers, sensors and computer | dimensions variable | continuous
'The Oracle', incorporates palmistry, astrology and technology in an interactive installation. Users experience the work in public space, and interface with the work through the glass of a shop front window (a vacant retail unit). The visual element of the work exists primarily beyond the window with 2 LED scrolling message boards suspended within the shop space approximately 3 metres from the window. The LED message boards face the window, are each 1 metre wide, and are suspended side by side at a height of approximately 1.7 metres from the floor.
Users are invited to place their palms upon the exterior glass of a shop window whereupon their palms are scanned and the resulting data relayed to a computer. 'The Oracle', analyses the data and then dispenses advice to the participant in the form of text displayed on the 2 scrolling LED message boards displayed within the shop. The texts are extracted from popular newspaper and magazine horoscopes and are, by their nature, ambiguous. In addition, each of the texts displayed simultaneously on the 2 message boards are contradictory in tone. So, one may offer positive advice, the other negative, one may remonstrate whilst the other praises, one may call for action, the other for deferment, or one may suggest following your intuition whilst the other urges you to think things through rationally before acting.
