Paul Sermon
«Telematic Vision»

Paul Sermon began developing interactive installations while he was still a student. His principal aim was to create an intimate, communicative set-up over a distance and to develop open systems that give participating visitors the greatest possible creative scope. This also applies to his later Internet projects
'Telematic Vision' consists of a structure, identical in each case, at two locations that can be as far away from each other as wished, and are connected by telephone: a blue sofa, opposite it a large monitor, and a small monitor on each side of the sofa. A video camera records the events on the sofa and sends the images to a video mixer. The pictures from the two locations are mixed and transmitted to the large monitors. Additionally, live television images are fed in as a background. Person A sits on the blue sofa in one location. Person B sits on the blue sofa in the other location. On the large monitor the two people see themselves sitting together on a sofa, whose 'cover' is made up of television images.
The two (or more) people on the sofas can react to each other and to the situation through mime and gestures and communicate with each other. They find themselves together in a virtual space, despite the distance separating them. Sofa and television evoke the everyday situation of passive TV consumers, though here they are involved in an open, complex form of action and interaction. At the same time the people sitting on the sofa become actors performing in front of the public standing around them.