Multi-sensory Simulators - Text 5
Inside, for four and a half minutes the viewer was subjected to a singular multi-sensory experience. Images were projected onto a glass screen, whose format was reminiscent of a television set, by means of a 16 mm projector concealed at the back of the egg whose distance from the screen was doubled by a system of mirrors. Sounds were played on speakers placed on either side of the viewer (and connected to a tape machine, also concealed behind the screen). This experience was augmented by temperature variations (caused by two fans sending hot or cold air through the egg) and by vibrations (synchronized to the images and produced by a system installed under the seat).
The film shown in this nook – a shortened version of Alias, made by Edmund Alleyn in 1969 – was an experimental, often rapid or syncopated montage of found or shot images which offered a kind of critical portrait of the contemporary world and of media. After this experience, the Introscaphe opened and the viewer was released.
