Drift is a sightseeing telescope developed with Daniel Heckenberg for ISEA 2004. The interface allows the viewer to elastically manipulate time and space throughout the course of a boat journey. Looking forward through the telescope to the front of the boat provides a real-time live depiction of the scene. As the telescope is panned around towards the rear, time stretches and slows enabling the viewer to fluidly examine their environment with considerable detail. Panning further towards the rear of the vessel not only slows time, but also reverses it, revealing the journey’s past images. The sightseer is able to return to the ‘normal’ temporal state by panning back towards the front of the boat. Just as our own memory is not completely under our control, the telescopic views become smeared and distorted as audience members interfere with the dimensions of time and space.

Exhibitions

• International Symposium on Electonic Art (ISEA2004), Helsinki, Tallin, Baltic, 2004

Credits

• This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
• The work is a collaboration with Daniel Heckenberg.
• Thanks to Triclops International for engineering advice.