Espanta Espíritos – A User-driven,

Multisensorial Sculpture
Yago de Quay Keywords
FEUP user-generated content, haptic, video, audio, sculpture,
R. de Mouzinho da Silveira 317 2º installation
4050-421 Porto, Portugal
+351 966 089 603 ACM Classification Keywords
yagostucky@gmail.com H5.1. Information interfaces and presentation:
Multimedia Information Systems

General Terms
Abstract
425

Design, Human Factors, Performance

Who never whispered a secret to a wind chime, or saw
it scare off evil spirits will have the opportunity to do so
Introduction
on a massive scale. The Espanta Espíritos is an
Built during the summer of 2010, Espanta Espíritos
interactive sculpture that embodies the spiritual and
blends haptic, visual and auditory senses with the real,
physical features of a wind chime. This piece presents
the spiritual and the virtual in one space. in its
itself as a giant wind chime made out of recyclable
simplicity the art work favors users input – secrets and
material, the size of a person, ready for outdoors or
faces – and replays them, old and new, in a morphed
indoors. People can whisper secrets to the Espanta
and sensory rich way. Although this piece uses
Espíritos, and through a microphone and a camera, it
advanced technology, it preserves the ancient function
will register these secrets forever. Natural wind, or a
held by the wind chime of attracting kind spirits, the
specially designed reactive fan, will cause the Espanta
secrets, and frightening away lurking evil spirits, the
Espíritos to move, and then play these recordings
Figure 1. Espanta Espíritos morphed sounds. It makes the private become public,
through different audio effects, recreating the secret as
during the Future Place festival yet unrecognizable. Constructs rich narratives from
if said by spirits. To enhance the illusion,
people's secrets. Becomes wiser with time.
phantasmagoric videos of those who whispered will be
projected on the sculpture.
In its core, the goal behind Espanta Espíritos is to: 1)
seamlessly unify old symbols with new media; 2)
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
encourage community involvement in an artistic
TEI’11, January 22–26, 2011, Funchal, Portugal.
ACM 978-1-4503-0478-8/11/01.
project; and 3) Promote sustainable design.
 Wood, cardboard and papier-mâché – Sound
the main materials used – ensure an Sound is at the core of this piece and it provides most
that the sculpture is recyclable of the experience. Recordings (secrets) from users are
replayed through six different modulation effects,
Projection on the chimes and on the representing each one of the chimes. An audio
wall add another dimension to the recording will never sound the same twice, and the way
interaction random selection is coupled with user-generated
content, the reproductions are unlimited.
With a click of a button, anyone can
record audio and video to the art Technology
piece
Powerful software and hardware ensure that the
installation is robust. Continuous information from the
podium and the wind chime travels through Phidgets to
a Max/MSP patch. Video and audio is processed in Jitter
figure 2. User recording a new spirit in the Espanta Espíritos
and Ableton Live 8, respectively.
426

Sculpture
Espanta Espíritos was first debuted in front of Porto’s
The sculpture consists of carefully selected and painted
Faculty of Engineering’s (FEUP) library where it was
materials. The symbols illustrate spiritual traditions of
exhibited for one week. On October 2010 it was
various cultures from all over the world.
selected along 7 others, from over 120 international
submissions, to be exhibited for three days in the
Interaction
Future Places festival.
From the design of the podium to the instructions on
paper, the focus was always to make something that
was intuitive. This was achieved by matching the
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my colleagues at FEUP, as well as the
spiritual connotations that symbolize wind chime with
owners of Maus Hábitos Bar, my mother Isabel, for the
physical metaphors, for example the contact between
paintings and my supervisor Carlos Guedes.
the chimes and the striker. While at the Future Places
festival, the installation collected more than 500
recordings that portray a wide range of emotions.
References
figure 3. Careful thought was put Video description: http://wp.me/pRnGK-5Y
into the interaction design
Video
Video recording of whisperers are replayed through a
projector and coupled with effect to add a “ghost”
appearance.