sooj – LookingOutwards01

Peeping Hole (2010), by Kenichi Okada and Naoaki Fujimoto

Peeping Hole, displayed at “The Definition of Self” exhibit in Tokyo in 2010, is an interactive installation work that shares the viewer’s views through the peephole to the others through projection.

Set with a tall wooden plank with a hole drilled through its center, the work leads viewers to interact with an image of people playing at the beach through its peephole as shown below:

As the viewer brings his or her eye close to the peephole, a project hanging from the back ceiling would project the viewer’s real-time visions to the wall above the viewer, while he or she is preoccupied to look at the image and thus, unaware or what’s going on outside. This uses the eye motion tracker to project the viewer’s vision on a real-time basis.

Meanwhile, not knowing what is happening from behind the eyes, the viewer would feel the freedom to interact with the image however they want: basing on his or her preference, the viewer may linger on to a certain part of the image or make habitual eye motions throughout the interaction.

This installation is interesting to me in that, it not only successfully communicates with both the viewer and the others standing behind the viewer, but also allow the viewer and those bystanders to “interact” with each other. By having viewers to reveal their habits and preferences through the projection, the others would be able to understand better of who the viewer is and what preferences he or she has.