When No One Is Looking

by Zach Lieberman
http://thesystemis.com/whenNoOneIsLooking

When No One is Looking presents a webpage designed to mimic an everyday, common website, but with a simple twist: when no one interacts with the page for a certain amount of time, the elements on the site appear to come to life. Seemingly static elements start to bend and sway slightly, and all of the things on the page seem to breath a collective sigh of relief that they can finally move and live again. The result is a kind of absurd fantasy, envisioning what happens on websites when no one is looking. At the slightest sign of a viewer's presence, however, the objects sneak back into place, as precisely as they can, in order to mimic the original, still webpage.

This work is inspired by the Melies film from 1905, Les affiches en goguettes. The film begins with a worker attaching a poster to a wall full of advertisements. At first, as characters stroll on the street in front of the wall, nothing seems to happen. However, when nobody is present, the wall magically springs to life, and the figures inside the advertisements pop out, jumping across the frame, conversing and interacting with one another. When the street becomes populated again, these figures jump back into the wall, freeze, and become advertisement once more.

Bio
Zachary Lieberman's work uses technology in a playful and enigmatic way to explore the nature of communication and the delicate boundary between the visible and the invisible. He creates performances, installations, and on-line works that investigate gestural input, augmentation of the body, and kinetic response.