Digital dog comes to Tyneside Cinema in free interactive art installation on Pilgrim Street
Sniff (2009) by Karolina Sobecka
Thu 14 November 2013 - Sat 4 January 2014. After dark (not Christmas Day and New Year’s Day) Shop window at Tyneside Cinema, Pilgrim Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne www.thepixelpalace.org/sniff
Tyneside Cinema is proud to present Sniff, a free interactive art installation by artist Karolina Sobecka, which will project a computer-generated dog onto the empty shop front on the Cinema’s ground floor. The dog uses video game technology to follow and respond to people walking past the window on Pilgrim Street, and will bark, jump and wag his tail depending on how passers-by interact with him from Thursday 14 November 2013 – Saturday 4 January 2014 after dark.
Presented as part of Tyneside Cinema’s digital art programme, Pixel Palace, this will be the first time that Sniff has been shown in the UK outside of London, and the first time Karolina’s work has been exhibited in the North East of England. The software development for the installation was led by artist James George. Sniff uses an infrared Kinect camera developed for the Xbox 360 game console and video tracking software to ‘see’ passers-by, and a video game application renders the projection and controls how the dog reacts to people’s movements. His behaviour will change over time and he might become more enthusiastic or bored, friendly or nervous depending on how people interact with him.
Dominic Smith, Curator of Digital Media Arts for Tyneside Cinema, said, “We are very excited to present this playful and unusual installation by Karolina Sobecka, which we hope will capture the imagination of people as they pass by Tyneside Cinema’s new shop front window on Pilgrim Street. The installation also marks the beginning of an expansion of digital art at the Tyneside, which is due to open a new cutting edge video gallery in 2014.” Karolina is based in New York and works with animation, computer games and other media to create artworks which explore how we interact with the world we create and imagine. Like Sniff, her works often engage with public space and take the form of interactive installations and urban interventions, and have been shown all over the world including the V&A in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Medialab Prado in Madrid.
Sniff will be installed in the window of Tyneside Cinema’s ground floor shop unit on Pilgrim Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 2014, Tyneside Cinema will turn this space into a new café bar including a cabaret cinema space where customers can watch a rich programme of films and live performances. The Tyneside’s existing bar on the third floor will then be transformed into a new fourth screen, which will be a new 40-seat cinema by night and a video art gallery by day.
In September 2013, the Cinema launched a public appeal to raise the £100,000 to help make this project possible, and has already raised over £50,000 in donations. To find out more about the Tyneside Cinema redevelopment and to make a donation, please visit www.tynesidecinema.co.uk/appeal. The Tyneside Cinema Appeal 2013/14 is sponsored by Muckle LLP. Sniff is presented by Pixel Palace, Tyneside Cinema’s digital art programme. Based in one of the UK’s leading independent specialised film and media venues, Pixel Palace works with artists, audiences and technology specialists to explore and play with the future of moving image. Previous commissions by Pixel Palace include Kelly Richardson’s video installation Mariner 9, a spectacular 12-metre long vision of Mars which was seen by over 10,000 people at its world premiere at Whitley Bay’s Spanish City Dome in August 2012, before embarking on an international tour. For more information about Pixel Palace, please visit www.thepixelpalace.org. See Sniff outside Tyneside Cinema on Pilgrim Street every evening after dark from Thursday 14 November 2013 until Saturday 4 January 2014 (not Christmas Day and New Year’s Day). To find out more and to see a video clip of Sniff from a previous installation in Brazil, please go to www.thepixelpalace.org/sniff.
