Technology Meets Consciousness

Media City Bergen, home to Norway’s national media technology cluster, opened in 2017 and wanted an interactive work for its new hub. Nonspace developed the media installation Eiris with VOID, a digital media personality that responds to reactions online and to people in the room.

About the project

Media City Bergen is a landmark innovation hub in Bergen’s city centre, serving as the headquarters for Media Cluster Norway, the country’s premier media and technology cluster. Opened in 2017, this 45 000 m2 complex, co-owned by Entra and Oslo Pensjonsforsikring, brings together broadcasters like TV2 and NRK Vestland, publishers such as Bergens Tidende and Bergensavisen, tech firms like Vizrt and Vimond, plus the University of Bergen’s Department of Information Science and Media Studies.

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Eiris is a dynamic personification of our relationship with media, shaped directly by the viewer. The interactive installation can be experienced as entertainment or as a deeper questioning of our media age and how technology affects our social interactions.

(Work developed under ANTI)

Experience

Installations

Brand Experiences

Spatial Design

Media City Bergen (MCB) is home to the Norwegian National Media Tech Cluster. The building houses Norway’s two largest broadcasters, NRK and TV 2, a University of Bergen campus, the newspapers BT and BA, international media technology companies such as Vizrt and Vimond Media Solutions, and many other creative, media and tech companies. The space is used by executives and public figures, journalists and technologists, students and entrepreneurs, and also works as a new public space in the city.

In November 2017, Media City Bergen officially opened its doors. As part of launching a new international hub for media and technology innovation, the interactive media installation Eiris was developed in collaboration with VOID.

Like a media personality of the information age, Eiris presents and personifies content. Like a person, an entity in today’s society is defined by its interactions: their form, quality and frequency. We are what we share, why we share and how we share.

Influenced by how content is received online (the number and types of reactions each new article gets: like, love, anger and so on), the installation changes its appearance, behaviour and personality. Aiming for the Eliza effect, the human tendency to unconsciously read artificial behaviour as human, the installation expresses its agency through the illusion of a living, moving, blinking eye.

Eiris is also affected in the immediate environment, by single and combined human interactions, live and over time. Interactions such as eye contact, movement & gestures or lack thereof.

The combined effect is a provocative and emotive presentation of media, blurring the boundaries between medium, content and audience.

Through this system of influence, Eiris has become a dynamic personification of our relationship with media. Its nature is shaped by the viewer, who plays a direct role in forming Eiris’ persona. The result is an evolving experience, interpreted as anything from entertainment to a deeper questioning of our media age and social interactions through technology.