l'/u00c9loi & Iregular designed ANTIBODIES - an interactive experience in the form of a never-ending video call. Participants only show up and do not have to say anything. anyone can join at any time and all contributors are accepted.

The experience uses the webcam to track the face of participants and record their face gestures. It was commissioned by La Maison de la Culture Ahuntsic, in Montreal (Canada), to replace an exhibition of 3 interactive installations by the same artist.

This pandemic-induced lockdown has taken a toll on all of us, and though it constrains freedom/u00a0for some, it unleashes creativity for others, and that is the case of new media artist Daniel/u00a0Iregui. In order to replace a physical exhibition cancelled because of lockdown, La Maison de la/u00a0culture Ahuntsic challenged the artist to create a confinement-accessible installation instead./u00a0How to achieve that when interactive artworks are simply not complete without an audience?

/u201cAll our installations occupy public spaces, so during lockdown we had to occupy a space the audience could come to: the virtual space/u201d /u2013 Daniel Iregui

The concept of replacing social gatherings with video calls seemed to perfectly echo replacing/u00a0the physical art installation with a virtual one. This is how ANTIBODIES was born: an online/u00a0interactive artwork that can be accessed by anyone at any time. A two part experience, it takes/u00a0the form of a never-ending video conference call. In Part 1, you are confronted with your own/u00a0image filmed by your webcam, while a software tracks your facial gestures and responds with/u00a0overlaid patterns. Part 2 takes you to the /u201cconference room/u201d where you get to witness the/u00a0recordings of all the people who participated in the experience, yourself included. This virtual/u00a0get-together ANTIBODIES highlights the main difference between real-life gatherings and virtual ones: in real life you only see others around you, never yourself, whereas in this /u201cnew normal/u201d/u00a0scenario you are also in the crowd you perceive, you see how others see you, and that may/u00a0generate a plethora of emotions from vulnerability all the way to empowerment. The experience/u00a0also addresses the theme of privacy and other things we had to give up in confinement.

What is next for ANTIBODIES? There are plans to create a version of the piece for public space/u00a0and large-scale projections. To achieve this, the studio will be using a cutting-edge software for/u00a0long distance crowd detection it has been developing for the past two years. Life will eventually/u00a0go back to normal, and ANTIBODIES in the public space will act as a reminder of how our lives/u00a0were completely changed for a period of time.