The Fall Beyond Tomorrow’s Life is an interactive environment that unites water and sound. The primary components of the piece are a horizontal volume of water, a hexagonal multichannel speaker array, a multichannel audio interface and a computer vision apparatus. The computer vision component, which consists of (6) infrared (IR) emitters, an IR camera and a computer, are positioned above the volume of water and are used to capture the motion of any object that interacts with the surface of the water. The motion of this interaction, and the resultant waves, are captured by the IR camera and translated into spatialized sound by the software running on the computer. The volume of water is an analogue of the room in which it is placed - interaction in specific areas of the volume cause sounds in a similar area of the room.

The impetus of this project was the investigation of water as a novel interface. Although impractical from the viewpoint of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), water is inextricably tied to human existence and therefore holds the potential of a unique membrane of interaction. Our bodies are composed largely of it and life on Earth cannot exist without it: in abundance it is life-giving and too great an overabundance or scarcity of it is death. It has alternately symbolized life, love, death, rebirth and renewal in myriad cultures since the dawn of mankind, and is never far from anyone’s conscious mind in this era of mass environmental concern. I seek to create an environment that has at its focus a volume of water, which the viewer encounters with little or no added artifice. When the viewer disturbs the surface of the water, or even bends over to look into it, sounds resonate accordingly.

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