The Basics | installation | Public space | Web Version | Technical
Webversion

Using a specially programmed search engine, users can call up images from the Internet which match their search term. The project's search engine is built on top of the most popular image search facilities available on the Internet (e.g. Google). Supplied with a search term, the engine produces first a «hit list». This list can be several thousand images long, depending on the term. The images on this «hit list» provide the «raw material» for the movie . Following the ranking on the «hit list», the images are animated into a film in real-time, following a fixed and predetermined score, which consists of a series of interwoven loops.
Each film has an individual trailer, displaying the search term as the title and each film lasts until the «raw material» is used up.

 

Since march 2003 «One Word Movie» has been shown as an installation in Media Arts Centers in Europe, Australia, Korea and, as an adapted version, online. What became evident during that time and across the venues is the intuitive character of the work. People from diverse backgrounds, some with, many without any experience with media arts, took up the offer enthusiastically and had films generated based on their own keywords. The work is so self-explanatory that people needed no guidance. Entering a term and hitting return poses no challenge at all. Yet, the results fascinated people, many spent a long time with «One Word Movie», even looking on as others entered their search term.


Indeed, one of the important aspects of «One Word Movie» is the social interaction among the viewers in a public setting. In the often surprising films, the juxtapositioning of images creates rich fields of associations, random and meaningful at the same time.