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 RULER
Katriina Lahtinen
Twenty ten-years-old children are running around in a school hall. They are trying to move like scissors. Animation presenting the same theme is projected to the wall. One boy is sitting and stretching T-shirt over the body - so no one can see his arms or legs. A small group has gathered around of laptop for making a new animation. This time they want to play animation tricks with the globe. Soon the globe is projected to the wall and it is moving very slowly. Next, I can see children running again. They said to me that they moving like globes and planets. I Yes, bodies in space. "How could you combine these elements?" their teacher asks.
Art education project called Flying Desk was arranged in two elementary schools of Espoo during the spring-02. This project is the reason for my installation idea. I call the installation idea here as a Ruler.
In the Flying Desk -project I worked as a co-teacher with a dancer. We wanted to give children an opportunity to express their feelings of an ordinary school day by moving and making moving images and to combine these elements in a meaningful and performative way. During this process I found many interesting questions which I would like to approach through my multimedia installation Ruler. I found myself thinking of the question of quality of collaborative creation process and the range of different expectations, limitations and background issues which have effect on collaborative process. The process stimulated me also to think about the the possibilities of technology to enrich and support the creative collaboration.
In the Ruler I draw lines between the observations of collaborative creation processes and the ways which children use to handle these issues. The Ruler attempts to wake up its viewers to look around and to see their creativity also as a part of the sociality.
The Construction
In the Ruler animations made by the children are projected to two adjacent walls and through the moveable and transparent. Viewers can move the walls mechanically. The Ruler sensitizes its viewers inviting them between its walls to observe the animation from the different points of view and to experience the media performance through their body. The viewers can dive or hide into the flow of media elements.
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