Sacraments of Initiation

Baptism and the eucharist are "sacraments of initiation that gives life to the body of Christ and renews each member." I am working with the idea that the eucharist is a symbolic act that not only is a taking in of Christ's blood and body for each individual, but also a symbol of membership that defines the body of Christ as a group of believers. Therefore, the strength of the body of Christ is directly related to the number of individuals that believe and the degree of their faith (tie back to the placebo effect).

I am investigating interactivity with the materials of light, color and water to produce various effects. The interactive component introduces variation in which the end result will be increasingly spectacular as the number of participants increases.

The first set of images produced is not so much about interactivity, but was produced by ice frozen on glass and street light at night.













I made this simple animation to show a color effect that becomes more complex as more colors are involved (and thus more people if each color was to represent the presence of an individual in a space).

The idea behind the following two images is the interaction of light beams, mist and reflection as triggered by the motion of individuals in the space. As the number of individuals increase and move, so will the spectacle of light reflections. The mist not only enhances the effect, but also is symbolic of aspersion.





The following video is an interactive installation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. Each individual's pulse is registered and converted into the light display.