Artists: Antti Tenetz, Dave Lawrence

Type of project: Interactive video/sound installation

Dimensions: 8m (length), 4m (width), 2.5m (height)

Materials: 1 projector, computer, sound speaker system, IR-camera, web/surveillance camera, computer screen for wb/surveillance camera


Encountering and living side by side with wild animals in nature has inspired this project; situations where you look into animals eyes and the animal looks at you and senses you. Those experiences of encountering allow nature to deeply penetrate our consciousness and culture - through the presence of animals. We are not separated from flow of evolution. We have carried nature and animals, as they have us also, through millennia. We are part of this big combination of dynamic interaction amongst living entities that inhabit earth. Humans painted pictures of animals, bestiary and sacral art inside deep caves. Nowadays we study our human quality and mental development by investigating those ancient spaces of emotional and rational interaction. Our presence, being and confrontations with nature are echoing those deep caves and rock walls, resonating to present day analogue and digital representations of animals. This work is an aspect, one can say, a way to explore our presence and effect in this changing world.

An Observation is an interactive video/sound installation. Using both interactive movie technology and surveillance camera techniques the work combines more than one location and point of view. It is Real Time time-based media. The work is based on the idea that we (humans) are observing animals but these animals can simultaneously observe or have a “point of view” looking at us too. The presence and movement of visitors in the An Observation space changes the content of moving image of arctic animals (i.e. video tracking triggers arctic animal behaviour) and there are also changes to the surveillance camera feed (that presents the point of view of animals). The soundscape evolves in empathy. The media trace the experiences of confronting nature.

In a wider sense, the installation opens up the chance to make a personal observation about our place in nature and about its impact.

Jaakko Erkinaro, Research Professor, Oulu Game and Fisheries Research, Finland
Mari Heikkilä, General Curator, Ranua Zoo Intendent Mammals and birds
Sakari Kankaanpää, Park Superintendent, Urho Kekkonen National Park, Finish Natural Heritage services
Panu Orell, Oulu Game and Fisheries Research, University of Oulu, Finland

Inspiration and advices: Annick Bureaud, Dimitrios Charitos, Max Eastley and Olga Paraskevopoulou
Programming and technical issues: Jeremy Bernstein, Matti Niinimäki and Dimitris Charitos
Contributions to recorded sounds: Anssi Laiho
Contributions to underwater filming at Muorravaarakka and Suomuriver: Panu Orel