June Houston's GhostWatch LiveCam Project
Where do that sounds in Junes house came from??? watch through 5 live cams beneath her bed,
if there are any ghosts....The point is: please visit her Site, and write COMMENST, about that what you see...
June wrote about her project for the WildWeb-Visitors:
Hi Helmut
Thanks for your interest in my work.
Although I consider part of the art to be in the images and in the
reports from Watchers I think it resides essentially in the way the
reports inspire me in making the entire project evolve. This is where
the collaboration between the artist and the audience (members of which I
consider to be the co-authors of the work) is the most interesting, the
most striking. I read all the reports but I post only a few. At the
beginning of the project I used to post about 50% of the reports and I am
now at around 3%. This gives the GhostWatcher its depth. The more
people collaborate to GhostWatcher the better it gets and the more
newcomers will be tempted to collaborate.
I often say that the GhostWatcher works by itself. It took time and a
lot of work to initiate the first thousands of responses but now that
this art project is known by some people and included as a link in
several Web pages my role as an artist has shifted. I has moved closer
to the one of an orchestra conductor and away from the one of a classical
(before-the-Web) visual artist. In my experience that's what
Web-specific art is about.
I hear those strange sounds in my house. I don't know what they are and
they scare me. Actually the fact that I don't know what those sounds are
is the reason why I am scared. I called them ghosts sounds because
that's the first thing that came to my mind. So my goal is to get the
rest of the connected world to help me understand what the hell is
happening in my house. Yes, kind of a virtual neighbourhood watch.
The GhostWatcher has helped me a lot to deal with those strange
occurences. The simple fact of having people discuss my problem is
reassuring. Furthermore some Watchers send pictures--recently I even
received some animations--illustrating their reports. This means that
people are taking the time to do all these manipulations just to help me
deal with this problem.
I get every kind of reaction. Some people are happy to see ghosts, some
are sad not to have seen any, others think I'm crazy or that I need a
life. That's actually why I called myself "a girl with no life" in my
presentation page (http://www.flyvision.org/sitelite/Houston/) and
interestingly enough I now receive a couple of reassuring messages a day
related to that sentence. I still don't know why (I think they've not
read the first pages and went directly to their mailer after learning
about my project) some think I'm a psychic who's going to cure them of
some curious deseases. I receive very few (maybe four messages a week)
insults and I keep the dirtiest, usually unsigned, for my old days...
Check out the reports on every camera's page to get a better idea.
- My background
I didn't like school and my background is New York City night clubs where
I grew up (not the clubs, although...). I actually started doing my own
Web review of New York's night life and came to realize that I didn't
want to give *all* away, especially not my physical life and my
underground friends. I once visualized all those
add-agency-people-who-think-they're-cool-not-even-bad and brokers in some
of the places where I drink drinks and dance dances and I realized I just
wanted to see what I saw there: not them.
After not going to school much I read a few things, learned how to use a
computer, met the Flyvision crew and did the GhostWatcher.
Take care, Love, June
Latest projects on PALIMPSEST:
HyperCassandra (May 8) --> http://www.flyvision.org/Barbarella/cassandra/
Vic's Secret Palace --> palace://194.51.26.81
Camera One