Luc Courchesne
»Portrait One«
1988 - 1990
Documents
Technology

Hardware
The installation requires a Macintosh computer equipped with a serial port (originally a Macintosh SE/30), a touchpad, a Pioneer LD-V 8000 laserdisc player, a 27" video monitor and a pair of amplified stereo speakers. The monitor is encased facing down in an arch-like structure above a pedestal housing the computer/touchpad. The pedestal is also use to position the glass reflecting plate at 45° directly underneath the video monitor. The authoring/delivery software was developed on HyperCard and can be played on MacOS 6.8 or later. The NTSC video sequences totaling 30 minutes are stored on a single CAV laserdisc. Visitors use a touchpad to move the cursor about the computer screen and select questions from imposed lists. The questions are HyperCard buttons sending commands to the laserdisc player via the computer's serial port. Video sequences from the laserdisc are displayed on a monitor facing down above a tilted glass plate positioned at eyelevel. The viewer looking into the glass plate sees a reflection of the video image (virtual image plane) through which the text (set of questions) from the computer screen is visible. The characters have been recorded on a black background; once reflected on glass, the video image thus looses it's edge and the characters appear as ghosts inhabiting the real gallery space.