OHCE/ECHO Original

OHCE(ECHO backwards), is a 5 metre, 3 dimensional interactive sculpture that was launched at Pitch Music and Arts Festival 2020, just 5 days before social distancing was enforced and the pandemic hit the world. The work was designed as a mirrored reflection of the project ECHO, which has travelled the world collecting personal stories and the facial identities of over 40,000 people. ECHO is an artwork that combines immersive facial tracking technology and personal storytelling to elicit empathy and connect strangers. For OHCE, Georgie Pinn has crafted these portrait images into a rich body of interactive, generative animation and sound work that the audience are able to trigger in real-time. She collaborates with creative technologist Johnathan Crowe to add further immersion as the public are able to capture their own portrait image and manipulate the pixels of the image with a touchscreen interface. Living in today's world of social distancing the irony of the work is profound, as the giant head protagonist beckons the audience, saying "TOUCH ME", Half human, half machine, thousands of faces merge into one, their single clear identities respected and abstracted. The project uses immersive technology and storytelling to connect strangers . It also references the idea of bias in algorithms and machine learning as data mirrors our choices and perspectives. OHCE highlights our responsibility for self awareness. Can machines teach us to be better humans?