Pedestrian Gestures

1994

Paragon Station, Hull & tour, commissioned by Hull Time Based Arts/Arts Council Film and Video

A series of three computer animated, interactive videoprojection and sound installations in various locations within Hull’s Paragon Station. Building upon the earlier Woolwich Foot Tunnel piece, Pedestrian Gestures is also based on interpersonal communications in public spaces (and the lack of it), with the images and sounds seeking to question and explore aspects of our often unconscious daily exchanges with both strangers and our surroundings.

The piece is made up of a number of encounters, intimate in both nature and scale. Animated eyes, mouths, hands and verbal utterances examine the gesture as a form of communication. Viewers encounter short photographic and audio snippets as unexpected moments in their day, inadvertently choreographing their own experience of the work with the sensors triggering a variety of audio and animated responses. Surveillance in reverse.

This piece has also been shown at The Junction, Cambridge; Victoria Station, Manchester; Nottingham Train Station and various sites in Linz, Austria as part of Objekt:Video. Pedestrian Gestures was originally commissioned by Hull Time Based Arts/Arts Council Film and Video for the Root ’94 Festival in Hull.