The annual culmination of the collective work of MSc students in multimedia at Trinity College Dublin has gone on display at the university's Douglas Hyde Gallery.
For the third year, the class of 31 graduates has drawn on video, images, sound and touch to articulate diverse themes through their final-year projects.
The seven installations are based largely on the user experience, and visitors are required to interact - at the most basic level - with each of them. In many cases different people will derive different experiences depending on the path they choose to follow.
This year's winning project, Dark Vision, explores the world of privacy and the information garnered through surveillance cameras. Via two genetically engineered sisters, the user is slowly fed information about the characters.
Built on Macromedia's Director and Flash technology, the user controls the sisters' progress through the story. By gathering information, taking control of surveillance systems, and hacking into computers for passwords, the story rests firmly in the hands of the user. Dark Vision received the award for its design and execution.
An award for originality was won by the Bird of Paradise installation. A visual adaptation of the work of Scottish psychiatrist, Mr Ronald (RD) Laing, the exhibit documents fragments of people's experiences, allowing the user to view video scenes from the perspective of individual characters. The project highlights the complexity of interpersonal human relationships and how one person's behaviour can influence that of another.
Another notable exhibit, 4B4, centres around a stone tabletop etched with lines representing the internal forces of mind, body, spirit and surroundings. Intersecting these are the external forces of technology, identity, art and entertainment.
When these lines are activated through a crystal placed in a hole, they trigger an interactive movie which reflects the juxtaposition of internal and external forces.
In one scenario, the intersection of body and identity is represented by a graphical animation of a wall of flesh moving to the soundtrack of bodily noises. Within the wall, a series of "hotspots" trigger quotes about the body and how it is perceived.
Other installations are designed to engage the user through movement on a floor surface, or simply through light and sound. According to Mr Barry O'Neill, chief executive of Rondomondo, and an exhibition judge: "Whether the applications you look at are art, information, or narrative based, there is one consistent factor across each of them, and that is that the creators have put user experience first and technology second."
The exhibition runs until October 9th, and is open to all.
