Referencing the environmental objectives and representation methods of Impressionism, Et Tu es Monet is an interactive screen-based piece that is activated by the motion tracking of bodies, revealing spatial and temporal imagery of Claude Monet’s Haystack series within the audience’s real time environment. The audience becomes the art as they are reflected within the screen leaving traces of pixels with movement and play captured by the camera, distorting the image and creating new iterations of images the more they interact with it. This immersive piece combines art and technology, inviting viewers to engage with pivotal and historical pieces of art history in a contemporary manner.

"From the start, we aimed to make the exhibit visually interactive. Emir, a former participant of VIS-A-THON, highlighted the utility of a depth camera for creating interactive art pieces in his work for the previous iteration of the event. Inspired by this, we decided to use a similar approach as an input for our project. We realized that monitors, screens, and TVs are commonly used as output devices to convey visual stories. The major challenge was determining the story our exhibit would tell. From discussions with Rafael and other critics, we understood that this is an inverse problem for an artist, who usually has the story dialed in; it is the medium that remains unclear."

-Tony & Farhang

“When I first was introduced to Tony and Farhang, it was evident they had a knowledgeable background in machine learning and “interactive” visualization already. Conceptually, they have interests in politics, climate change, and issues surrounding surveillance, overlapping with themes I explore within my own practice. After a couple meetings, it was clear to me that it would be beneficial to use visual language to be able to communicate with each other, sharing artist references to see what resonates the most amongst the group. Imagery and references as our main language was pivotal to our communication well into the collaboration process- from the brainstorming phase to actuation and prototyping. It was also a way to start to direct the project along certain paths aesthetically.”

-Gery

"Our initial pitches revolved around the themes of surveillance, media, and propaganda. We incorporated an individual’s movement into the playback of a video to convey that mere consumption of such media has no apparent merit; it only rots the mind. To gain a clearer picture, one must actively move and seek the truth, rather than remain complacent with what is being fed to the masses. With insights from Gery and Rafael, we shifted our focus to themes of glacier melt and global warming, echoing Olafur Eliasson’s work in more ways than one. However, this theme often brought a sense of gloom and doom, preaching to the choir as everyone has heard the message, leaving them feeling helpless. We wanted to avoid this and instead introduced contrasting themes—Cyberpunk and Solarpunk—to allow people to experience both gloom and hope for a future where technology and humanity coexist, for better or worse. In retrospect, it seems surreal how the exhibit evolved to an appreciation of Monet’s work. The themes discussed earlier were subtly present in the final piece, with movement in one's space revealing the Haystacks as if one were removing the background with their actions. One does not have enough time to take it all in before another Haystack picture is presented from a different angle and in a different season. With enough repetition, a sense of transitory melancholy from the previous frame followed by the yearning for the next frame is instilled in the viewer."

-Tony & Farhang

"The project went through many iterations up to the day of presentation at the Nature Lab. During the latest iteration before beginning to work together IRL, we were considering ways to represent climate change’s impact on geological landscapes, especially the masses of glaciers, while simultaneously looking at the benefits of human intervention in nature. This dialectical piece would be represented through objects, video, and sound. During our IRL sessions, however, we surprisingly prioritized continuing to finesse the visual language that would bridge Tony and Farhang’s skills and my own. Tony served as mediator between the technical side of the project, which Farhang was managing, and Tony and I were conceptually working through the images that would be the base of our experiments."

-Gery

“With each step forward we questioned the “why” and learned to collectively speak on what is working visually vs what is not. This was not only based on the story we had created but also based on our instincts (which is my main methodology within my art practice). The structure of the project was based on navigating a balance of control from the user and creator’s perspective. I learned that the sense of control and legibility is a priority to be able to duplicate processes that can be understood by any author. The collaboration ultimately melted multiple methodologies that derive from both art and science practices.”

-Gery

“For a two-member team, we had more manpower than others. Farhang's skills shone in the development of the exhibit from an engineering perspective, incorporating movements from the camera to displaying them with a temporal effect on the screen. Tony served as the bridge between Gery’s creative direction and Farhang’s engineering tasks, spending most of his time translating creative chaos into software terms for Farhang to implement. What stood out to us both was how differently someone from an art background thinks compared to someone from an engineering background. For the former, it is the subjectivity that evokes a drive; for the latter, it is the desire to find and maintain objective consensus. The exhibit features both elements, allowing the interactivity to be reliable and reproducible for everyone while also leaving each individual with a unique experience and interpretation.”

-Tony & Farhang