Sarah Rubidge and Beau Lotto worked on a research project between 2004 and 2006 that explored the potential of using the feeling states that result from viewing complex patterns of colour and motion as an interactive interface. Our aim was to create digital installations displaying complex patterns of motion and colour that evolve according to the unconscious physiological state of the viewer. The resulting imagery, the qualities of which echo the flowing qualities experienced in somatic movement forms, did not aim to ‘represent’ the state of the viewer, rather to present a manifestation of the viewer’s interaction with the imagery achieved through a process of selection and adaptation in the software system.

The installations that develop out of Fugitive Moments emerge as a form of kinetic digital ‘painting’, specifically designed to affect their viewers’ physiology as they evolve in the custom-built software. As the visual imagery evolves in both shaping and motional quality it harbours an echo of the intricacies of the hidden flows of energy that lie within a dancer's movements, which in itself will affect the physiology of the viewers.

Two manifestations of Fugitive Moments were shown at the Otter Gallery, University of Chichester between 23rd November and 15th December 2006. Fugitive Moments I is a large single screen installation, placed in a darkened room, featuring imagery designed by Sarah Rubidge. Fugitive Moments II is a hanging installation in the main gallery space, conceived by Beau Lotto and designed by Beau Lotto and Sarah Rubidge, onto which the digital imagery is projected. In addition to artist-generated imagery, in this version of the installation viewers have the opportunity to create their own evolving imagery using the Fugitive Moments software. The evolutionary interventions that occur when these installations are running are normally internal to the system. During the exhibition at the Otter Gallery the ongoing series of biometric experiments which were undertaken during the Fugitive Moments research were continued, giving some viewers an opportunity to experience the effect their physiological responses had on the evolution of the imagery.

Click here for draft of conference presentation 1 year into the research for Fugitive Moments