esencia: A Case Study on Reinterpreting an Interactive Art and Science Installation Based on a Real-Time Atomic Physics Engine

The complex nature of interactive art challenges existing methods of art preservation. While technology offers almost unlimited possibilities for this genre of art, it also introduces significant risks of hardware and software obsolescence. This, in turn, often leads to an irreparable loss. This paper presents a case study on reinterpretation as a preservation strategy for interactive art. We worked with danceroom Spectroscopy, an award-winning interactive art and science installation facing the risks mentioned above. We outline the dependencies of danceroom Spectroscopy and their update to new software framework and hardware, including depth video processing, and particle simulation with GPU acceleration that resulted in system’s performance improvement. We also highlight the importance of proactive preservation techniques for digital interactive artworks, and the challenges of working with complex computational processes and custom hardware.

keywords: Interactive art, preservation, reinterpretation, art and science, installation, depth sensors