when no one is looking

Description:

This project presents a webpage designed to mimic an everyday, common website, but with a simple twist: when no one is interacting 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.

You can download a windows version of the app: here
a mac version: here
(although it's an executable, it's completely harmless.)


The project is an .exe created in c++ with the openframeworks toolkit. The project should run on most common pc's and laptops, as long at the graphics cards can support opengl. To quit, hit "escape".

The source code is not all that cleaned up, and a tighter version will be posted shortly, but in the meantime, if you are interested, you can certainly download it (along with the modified OF 0.02) here

instructions:
(a) run app
(b) wait
(and don't look!).


when no one is looking is a 2007 rhizome commission