Chatroom is an augmented chat environment in which the audience is prompted to interface with an assortment of what appears to be standard chat elements. Through a layer of copied desktop and a faked chat interface, captured “chatters” looped into the system appear from the past and what is currently happening in real-time, stuck in some kind of chat echo-chamber. It is an exercise in fascination with the ephemera of chat, extracting a vocabulary of simple human interactions and redundancy. The manipulation of image signal through analog and digital means creates a loop effect a hall of mirrors. The audience simultaneously can input a text layer that outputs into the room like an old school text-to-speech soundtrack.
The piece utilizes video chat software, CCTV surveillance cameras, max programming and analog video technology, with output displayed on a mix of flat screen monitors and video projection.
