Gallerydrive - The Grand Illusion, Niklas Roy (Germany)
http://www.niklasroy.com/oscarsignorini/

Dear Jurors of the Oscar Signorini Prize

I was very delighted, when I've heard that you have suggested me for the Oscar Signorini Prize 2008 and I have decided to propose my latest project, "Gallerydrive - The Grand Illusion" for the award. I was working on this installation for the last 2 ½ years (with small interruptions where I was building other machines) and I just finished the work on this project this fall. Because the final webpage of the project is not online yet, I have assembled the required information for you on this page.

My medium of artistic expression are machines. And like a painter who mixes his own oil paint out of pigments, I put a lot of effort into the development of my own electronic circuits, into programming my pieces and into building the custom mechanic hardware. I don‘t have experienced a formal education in engineering and due to that, all of my projects are accompanied by a learning process, where I dive deeper and deeper into the world of electronics and mechanics.

Even if the work that I propose might not look, at a first glance, as what is usually called a "robot", it involves and depends strongly on electronic and electro mechanic elements. The purpose of those technical parts in "Gallerydrive - The Grand Illusion" relates directly to the root of the word "robot", to the Czech term robota, which means work. In my case, the technology serves the visitor. The mechatronic parts work for him in order to create an outstanding art experience that I will describe in the following text. The description is accompanied by videos, photos, and sound files in order to give you a good understanding of the project.

Project Description

"Gallerydrive - The Grand Illusion"is an instant art museum machinery. The installation explores the borderline between reality and virtual worlds; it uses elements of an amusement fair for an exceptional and immersive art perception experience.

The visitor takes a seat on a robotic chair, the Gallerydrive car, which processes him automatically through the installation. He cannot do anything else than perceiving. He finds himself locked in the passive role of a motion controlled observer, who follows a precisely choreographed path through a real world cyberspace. In order to give the visitor‘s perception the required emotional foundation, the whole ride is accompanied by a synchronized sound composition, that he perceives via headphone.

After sitting down and starting the ride by pushing a button on the car‘s own touch screen, the car drives the visitor slowly the way towards the "Robotik Room", a self assembling white cube machine.

When the visitor has reached the center of the installation, when his car stops in the middle of the white cube machine, a giant transforming mechanism will start its work: It assembles a mini exhibition space around him, an ideal cube with four white walls and four golden frames. The visitor is encapsuled in an exhibition space of surreal perfection.

The bright white light turns off and the show inside the cube begins. Step by step, the visitor is driven in front of each of the four golden frames. What he sees now, when he has reached the core of the installation, contrasts as much as possible with the monumental physical transformation process that he has just perceived a few seconds ago. It is a serial presentation of the most elementary parts of each virtual world: Three pixels in the primary colors red, green and blue.

Each projection of a pixel is accompanied by a sound composition that lets the viewer see far more than just the pure color inside the frame. Each presentation of a pixel lasts for thirty seconds. The little touch screen, that is attached to the car, shows an increasing progress bar - and when the time is up, the car drives him to the next position, in front of the following frame, in which the proximate pixel is projected.

The fourth pixel, however, surprises by exceeding the minimalism of the three pixels before. It is not even colored. It is purely binary, it is just black and white. Or, to be more precise, it is first plain white, accompanied by a composition of sonic feedback loops, then it turns into a black pixel, apparently referring to Malevichs black square and locating the whole scenario on the fundament of his ideas of suprematism.

After this show has finished, the white light turns on again, the room disassembles and the visitor is driven back to the point where he entered the car. The visitor is clearly asked to use the contemplative drive back for re-thinking his perceptions. The visitor will leave the car, and there will have happened a little physical transformation process in his brain. Some synapses will have been activated, some proteins will have synthesized and the visitor will remember "Gallerydrive - The Grand Illusion" as a weird voyage between reality and imagination.

At the End...

... I'd like to invite you also to have a look on my webpage. Amongst the descriptions of my other projects, you'll also find my vita there. I hope that all this material helps you in your discussions and I sincerely wish you a very good decision.

If you have the feeling, that you would like to learn more about my proposed project, here is also a list of related links, which will allow you to get far deeper into the subject:

Gallerydrive Webpage
Gallerydrive itself was planned as a very open project, that would enable artists and curators to create exhibitions with a very high level of immersion. The possibility of controlling the physical movement of visitors within art shows offers many new opportunities which still have to be explored. An automatic installation like "The Grand Illusion" can only be a first minimal step in this field.

Gallerydrive Building Diary
While I was working on the Gallerydrive car, I wrote down my experiences in an online diary. Besides personal thoughts and ideas, it also contains a collection of all schematics and codes of the project. The work is started and documented in a way, that other artists can build their own Gallerydrive cars, based on my R&D work.

Gallerydrive Video Album
I have accompanied the process of building the Gallerydrive car by filming many little videos. In this album, you can find them all and see how the project developed step by step.

Robotik Room Webpage
Even if I've built the Robotik Room with the clear vision of using it in a Gallerydrive ride, it can certainly be useful on its own, as I describe on this webpage.