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## Urban Drawing Version 1 (2005)

by Robert Watson

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Combining balance and interaction is how everything shares space. This is an important concept in many aspects of our lives. I incorporate this idea in some way in every work. Balance is found in the concept of translation. Physical space and movement provide the context of the interaction. What needs to be underscored is the viewer and the piece share the same space. The qualities of the physical space affect the nature of how they move through it. When seeking a balanced, give-and-take relationship between viewer and machine, movement should be complimentary. Often this means one side adapts to the other. What is enticing about working with these fundamentals is that I can tip the scales in a myriad of ways to create tension. The work can enter or present unexpected or priviledged spaces; it can get in peoples' personal spaces or disrupt their movement. The translation it presents can ...

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###### Full Description

Combining balance and interaction is how everything shares space. This is an important concept in many aspects of our lives. I incorporate this idea in some way in every work. Balance is found in the concept of translation. Physical space and movement provide the context of the interaction. What needs to be underscored is the viewer and the piece share the same space. The qualities of the physical space affect the nature of how they move through it. When seeking a balanced, give-and-take relationship between viewer and machine, movement should be complimentary. Often this means one side adapts to the other. What is enticing about working with these fundamentals is that I can tip the scales in a myriad of ways to create tension. The work can enter or present unexpected or priviledged spaces; it can get in peoples' personal spaces or disrupt their movement. The translation it presents can be a challenge, a compliment, an insult, or can be hidden at first, waiting to be discovered.

I mentioned “personal space”. All the elements I have discussed, the give-and-take relationship, the movements, the input, and the tension, combine not just into a conversation but a space in and of itself. And when I create that, record it and present it in a gallery, I invert the space and make it recursive. For example, with UDv1, the presentation of that space does not occupy the wall exclusively: incorporating the UDv1 device with its camera and screen directed at the viewer, the work creates a new space, an interactive space that runs an interactive space inside itself. Therefore, this becomes a unified experience, one thing the viewer enters. In the gallery, the viewer is interacting with UDv1, but this viewer is also walking on the street because the work is also on the street and they are in the work.

###### Work metadata

- Year Created: 2005
- Submitted to ArtBase: Tuesday Mar 7th, 2006
- Original Url: http://www.robertwatson.ca/documentation/udv1/
- Permalink: http://www.robertwatson.ca/write-udv1.htm
- Work Credits:
  - Robert Watson, creator

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