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Pedestrian Levitation.net
Author(s):
Thomas Laureyssens
Institution:
(unknown)
Year:
2005
URL:
http://www.pedestrianlevitation.net/process.html
Project Description:
The creation of the work is based on the movement of pedestrians on a public space. Some pedestrians walk only on the sidewalk and use the pedestrian crossing for crossing the street, other pedestrians freely make shortcuts on the formally imposed traffic situation. Pedestrian Levitation.net is an artwork in public space that reflects on this movement. It visualizes the real movement of people, and adds a virtual movement based on the assumption that people's mind is not subject to gravity or any other physical limitations.

The movement of pedestrians is recorded with a camera from a high place like the roof of a building. A pattern of movement of the pedestrians is extracted by reworking this recording frame by frame with video animation software: it is as if pedestrians draw lines though the space. From this pattern, some dominant directions can be found. These directions will not be exactly what the urbanist foresaw when designing the public space at the location, but be the real flow, the real use of the city by its inhabitants.

The movement of the pedestrians could be regarded as force-vectors thought the space. A person's trajectory from A -> B is nearly never a straight line, as many obstacles are in the way (like buildings), imposed trajectories (pedestrian crossings, sidewalks) and physical limitations (gravity). At this point a question is asked: how would the pedestrians move when they were not limited by anything?

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Manuel Lima | VisualComplexity.com