The idea for this installation was born in the year 1995, 50 years after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The installation deals with this theme in a very abstract way: world history is brought back to the level of the individual fate by letting the viewer interact with a virtual human form on the screen. The virtual form continuously collapses into a state of terrible physical destortion. Only the viewer can change this state, by moving in front of the screen, and triggering the virtual form to wake up from the state of destortion and start to imitate the movements of the viewer. In this way a connection is established between the real body (Rbody) of the viewer and the virtual body (Vbody) of the virtual form, a connection which is a metaphor for the special connection of the fates of the entire world population which came into existence on August 6th 1945, as well as for the problematic connection between human consciousness of the body and its (often perceived as split) mental projection in virtual space. Both connections are strongly intertwined because, after all, the effects of technology take place at the material, physical level, and therefore always exercise a direct influence on the body - and in the case of war technology, even affect the body violently.

INTERACTION The viewer stands in front of a large screen. On the screen is projected an image of a virtual human form which is generated by a computer graphics program. The virtual form is locked in a still position. When the viewer starts to move, he-she causes the virtual form to unfold itself slowly into a position which is mirroring the position of the viewer. When the viewer continues moving, each gesture causes a corresponding gesture of the virtual form. When the viewer stops moving, the virtual form freezes into its current position. Each time the viewer restarts to move, he-she causes the virtual form to transform itself from its current frozen position into a position which is mirroring the position of the viewer. Each time the viewer stops moving, the virtual form freezes in its current position. If no viewer has moved for a while, the virtual form slowly folds itself back into a locked position, which is different from the one before. Transitions from one locked position into the other occur through transitory states caused by the viewer's movements. The virtual form can only be freed from its locked position when the viewer is moving.

SOUND The sound of the installation is interactive as well. When the viewer moves, he-she triggers sounds directly. The movements of the virtual form also trigger sounds. The sound composition increases in complexity as the total energy of the movements increases.

INTERFACE The interface human-machine consists of an infrared camera which monitors anybody in front of the projection screen. The camera signal with the viewer's movements is analysed by a gesture analysis program. The viewer is confronted with human-like forms which he-she can influence directly. The feeling of interaction the viewer gets is one of a subtle link between his-her own physical freedom of movement and the virtual form's dependency. These feelings of physical freedom and of dependency become intermingled in the viewer's perception, as the virtual form gradually becomes a mirrored image of the viewer. As the virtual form becomes more alive, a thin life line seems to form between the viewer and the virtual form, a life line however which is fragile and can cease to exist at any moment.

THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT by Akke Wagenaar. This work is a WWW project, which gives the visitor information about the history and far-reaching effects of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The project consists of a systemical guided tour along ca. 2000 world wide available documents about this theme. The project is an information project: it does not add new information to the WWW, but links a large part of the documents existing on the WWW together. At the same time this project has links to the installation Vbody Rbody.

CREDITS Vbody Rbody: Idea & artistic concept: Akke Wagenaar & Masahiro Miwa Graphics design & programming: Akke Wagenaar Sound composition & programming: Masahiro Miwa Gesture analysis programming: Michael Hoch Human motion programming: Matthias Melcher Copyright: Akke Wagenaar & Masahiro Miwa 1996 The Hiroshima Project: Idea & realization: Akke Wagenaar Copyright: Akke Wagenaar 1995

BIOGRAPHIES Akke Wagenaar and Masahiro Miwa started cooperating in 1993, when they made the interactive computer installation 'Animatrix', which was exhibited at the Art Electronica 1993, at the Siggraph 1993 and at Images du Futur 1994 in Montreal. In 1994 they made the interactive installation '5Animals::Tiger' which was shown at the Videonale 1994 in Bonn, Germany, and at the International Video Biennale in Fukui 1995, Japan. In 1995 they joined together with Michael Hoch and Matthias Melcher to develop the interactive installation 'Vbody Rbody' Akke Wagenaar, born 1958 in the Netherlands, studied audiovisual arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York and logic at the University of Amsterdam. She has been working in the field of video and computer art since 1987. In 1990 she moved to Germany to work and teach at the Institut für Neue Medien in Frankfurt am Main. There she focused her interest on computer art, in the form of interactive installations and programmed animations and videos, writing her own software. In 1993 she was a fellow at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany, where she also has been teaching. From 1995 she has also been working on Internet projects. She exhibited her work at several festivals in Europe, North-America and Japan (Ars Electronica 1992, 1993, 1995, Prisma Art Gallery at the Mediale in Hamburg, Eigenwelt der Apparatenwelt in Frankfurt, Siggraph 1993 in Los Angeles, Images du Futur 1994 in Montreal, Videonale 1994 in Bonn, International Video Biennale 1995 in Fukui-Japan, Digital Salon 1995 in New York, World Wide Video Festival 1996 in The Hague). She won several grants and awards (Prisma Kulturpreis, Wiener Kompositions Wettbewerb, Prix Ars Electronica, MIT's Portrait in Cyberspace, Art on the Net, Multi Media Grand Prix). Masahiro Miwa , born 1958 in Japan, was living in Germany since 1979, where he studied composition with Isang Yun in Berlin and with Guenther Becker in Düsseldorf. Since 1986 he has been working intensively as a composer of computer music and has inspired and organized many concerts and performances. He has been teaching computer- and electronic music at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf since 1988. In 1996 he moved back to Japan to teach computer music at IAMAS in Gifu. He won several prizes and awards: In 1985 he was a guest composer at the STEIM studio in Amsterdam. In 1985 het received the Hambacher Prize; in 1989 he won the first prize at the 10th International Irino Awards; in 1991 the second prize at the International Music Today Composition Contest held in Tokyo, in 1992 the first prize at the 14th Concorse International 'Luigi Rossolo' in Varese, Italy, and in 1994 the 7th Muramatsu Prize in Tokyo. He gave many performances and concerts world wide. His installations in cooperation with Akke Wagenaar were exhibited at several festivals world wide: (Ars Electronica 1993, Siggraph 1993 in Los Angeles, Images du Futur 1994 in Montreal, Videonale 1994 in Bonn, International Video Biennale 1995 in Fukui-Japan). Michael Hoch , born 1963 in Hamburg, received his diploma in computer science at the University of Erlangen/Nuernberg in 1992. Since 1992 he is a researcher at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, department of computer science/audio-visual media. His activities so far include coordinating computer art projects and coordinating workshops and seminars on multimedia, interactive computer interfaces and networks. In 1993 he was an intern at Apple Computer, Cupertino, California, USA, where he worked on edge tracking using snakes with a special application to facial animation. His research interests include gesture recognition, human-computer interfaces, interactive media and artificial life. He has been working on media art projects in collaboration with Knowbotic Research: "smdk: Simulation Room - Mosaic of Mobile Sound Data", an interactive installation (shown at Mediale 1993 in Hamburg, Ars Electronica 1993, Interactive Media Festival, Los Angeles 1994, SIGGRAPH 1994, and Exploratorium San Francisco 1995); "Dialog with the Knowbotic South", an interactive installation (shown at Ars Electronica 1994 and Isea 1994). He won the second prize of the International Computer Graphics Award 1992 for his master thesis on model based facial animation. He won the Prix Ars Electronica 1993 in collaboration with Knowbotic Research for the "smdk" project. Matthias Melcher, born in 1966 in Germany, studied 'computer science' at the technical university in Aachen and 'film & television' at the 'Academy of Media Arts' in Cologne. Since 1990 he has been working on the visualisation of human bodies using offline rendering at first, while specializing in real time simulation since 1992. In 1992 he developed the software and facial expression techniques for the first virtual actor on German television, named 'Traugott'. His actors moved into virtual reality in 1994, extending the installation 'House of Illusion' of the 'German National Research Center For Information Technologie' in Bonn - Sankt Augustin. In 1995 he developed a storyboard and film planning system to evaluate camera motions and cuts for a given three-dimesional film sequence. Since 1995 he has been working on motion capturing and virtual studio environments to set the base for seamless full size live actors.

SUPPORT AND SPONSORING 'Vbody Rbody' and 'The Hiroshima Project' were supported by: Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany. Ministry of Science and Research NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany. Foundation for Art and Culture in NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany. Foundation for the Arts, Architecture and Design, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.