The Fifth Corner of the Room

 This piece of work is a refined and evolved version of the Physical Expressions project. It is to be physically exhibited and interacted with as a live zoom meeting and a live processing sound visualisation sketch. The sketch responds to the feedback loop created by the four phones mirroring each other. The participant is to be blindfolded and to try to find the four corners by making sound. 

Zoom naturally edits a video recording of a zoom meeting by cutting according to which device is 'speaking'. In this manner I have  an edited video according to sound input. Each phone becomes a mirror recording and echoing the sound input/output in a feedback loop. This creates wave-like variations of high pitched noises, all changing based on a participants movements around the square. 

I have undergone an in-depth exploration of the history of mirrors and mirror technology. I am exploring the sensorial effects of mirrors as tools that create closed circuit systems whereby one is tricked by the stereoscopic illusion of depth upon a flat surface. This illusion is a key element of interactive interfaces in our current smart technologies, whether it be in the form of smartphone or of virtual reality or of artificial intelligence. Mirrors come in various forms, and in my piece they come through the Zoom video application, through the smartphones themselves, and the sound that is created. This is a metaphor for the general ontological realm within which we exist, whereby our relationship to self and world is disturbed by the dualism of being both an observer of ourselves and the subjective self experiencing the world. The fifth corner of a square room is a virtually altered space within ourselves, geometrically impossible and yet present. As the participant looks for the corners they are themselves the fifth corner. The rational impossibility of there being a fifth corner suggests the supernatural nature of this other sensorial space that is created through mirroring, and it is the very absence of the participant. We become ghosts of ourselves in a virtually created reality.