[I-4] When Walking and Talking Become the Duck

Initiating Ethics for Ghost-mapping in Architecture, Education and Performance
by Mikael Powell


“When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”

James Whitcomb Riley’s famous quote at the onset of the 20th century could not, through its simple elegance, presage the future complex relationship between technology and human perception. Even futurists in the mid 1940’s envisioned remote robotic operations when coining the phrases ‘cyberspace’ and ‘telepresence’ with the vehicle of interaction being a proxy of one’s presence (abdicating the projection of one’s actual spirit to a surrogate). In the 1980’s methods such as video conferencing attempted to synchronize audio and visual perception in an effort to simulate direct interaction, but always the participants were cognizant that the users were not truly, personally, present in the exchange. Indeed, that technology was based on connecting two distant presences.

The turn of the latter century brought many sophisticated research developments in the quest for creating the phenomenon of being simultaneously present in remote locations. PingPongPlus is a reactive ping-pong table for participants in two different locations with each sportsman playing against the phantom responses of the other. The Lumitouch system consists of a pair of interactive picture frames. When one user touches the picture frame in their home, the other picture frame lights up in a remote location as if locally activated by a loved one’s ghostly presence. Under development are environmental accessories which produce a two dimensional real-time medium for shared interaction between individuals. Thus, when individuals can meet in real-time with an image of another (either 2D or 3D in real space), with the sound of another and movement of another, interacting with another, can this experience be deemed illegitimate?

I have coined this area of research as ‘Ghost-mapping™' when the element of reactionary movement provides a transaction that is so powerful in establishing presence that even a slight indication of self is adequate to produce the effect. In education, it can provide for a learning environment where all students receive a modulized unique lesson plan at the classroom desk. It can provide another venue of direct interaction for the acting community and transform architectural spaces by incorporation of this new portal. It can extend the physicality of one human to places unbound by time and distance. It can relay intimate loving caresses but also be an agent of remote governmental torture. This essay reviews the emergence of Ghost-mapping and offers reflections on ethical guidelines for the use of this created phenomenon.
(COPYRIGHT © 2005 MIKAEL POWELL. All Rights Reserved)