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Historical
look at Telepresence
Epistemologists have long coupled experience with being
present, and abstraction with being distant. With the advent of technologically
mediated knowledge, the experience and abstraction coupling serves as
a foundation for change.
In the past, people thought that the 'here' was the world of perception
and action, and that the 'away' was the world of things that were not
'here' such as angels, sea monsters, the dead, Gods, etc. The things that
were 'away' were told in stories, in religious rituals, in memories, and
in philosophy. They were viewed as real, but unable to participate in
the 'life-world'.
This mode of thinking has been eroded through technological development.
We now know that the moon is not made of cheese, rather it is rock with
topographic formations. Now surgical operations can occur over a large
distance, and human flesh is healed from afar. The world of technology
and the human world have a lot in common. Experience and direct agency
are part of both.
It is no longer true that the real world and fictional worlds are emotionally,
psychologically, or morally insulated from one another. Our everyday lives
are imbued with the fictive in television, access to communication with
others, films, and mediated viewing. Commonly people challenge the notion
of reality by questioning whether or not something is "really happening".
Even with technological developments, the Internet has distance. Although
delays in transmission of information are lessened, distance remains a
feature of our Internet-based interactions with others. Our sensory engagement
is primarily visual, and is augmented by auditory, tactile and olfactory
sensations, yet it is still very different from the way we engage in the
things around us. Telepresence strives to bring those things that are
far away from us near to us. It may be possible to come closer to our
experience with those things near to us through Virtual Reality.
Things on a screen are not 'there' in the way the monitor is or a keyboard,
or whatever interface we use. The computer gives us a representation of
the objects that are presented on a screen. They are not really there.
The monitor screen is the screen, not a representation of one.
The medium has to disappear in order to properly interact with another.
Essentially, we need to overlook the medium and when we are able to do
that, we are able to attain the 'appearance' of objects and things detached
from the place bound world we inhabit. If a technology existed where we
could be re-embodied electronically in the space we were observing, without
the need of mediated engagement, the distant place would be the 'here'.
Telepresence does not yet offer this
"Virtual reality is generally understood as hyperreality that has no referential
origin." Yet, people who don a glove and a headset to enter Virtual Reality
are at times able to construct the world they enter. The result is more
than passive acceptance of a simulated world, it instead plunges the user
into a place and time that is seemingly different from the one they left
to enter the Virtual world. It isn't opposed to the real or the material,
but to the actual. This is an in-between world, it isn't just pure presence
and it isn't just a simulated fantasy.
Telepresence, rather than a technology or tool for obtaining knowledge,
can be viewed as a deception, allowing users to engage in lies rather
than truths.
Representational technologies have been used throughout history to enable
action and to deceive the viewer, so that the viewer is able to manipulate
reality through the representation that is possible in the technology.
Film or fictional cinema is based upon lying to a viewer. An example of
this is the studio set where viewers are led to believe that an actual
space exists where a story takes place. The viewer is placed inside the
space and to identify with the characters and to experience the story
from their point of view.
Editing and montage is the mainstay of these artificial realities in film.
Montage can be temporal as experienced within a driving scene where rear
projection images are used in the background to "move the car". Temporal
montage is more common as it can cause a sense of present in a virtual
space.
Electronic keying is an advance in technology and allows one to combine
fake realities such as a weatherman in front of a map. In addition to
electronic keying, computer imaging makes layering images possible and
allows for the creation of moving images of non-existent worlds. The focus
is no longer on creating an illusion of reality, but one where the importance
is blend virtual and reality together.
Virtual reality provides a subject with the illusion of being present
in a simulated world and being able to actively change this world. The
user is given control over an artificial reality. Telepresence is different.
Telepresence allows the subject to control the simulation and the reality
itself. It enables one to remotely manipulate physical reality in real
time through its image. The body of a teleoperator is linked in real time
to another location in order to affect reality at its location. Through
telepresence one can repair a space station, bomb a military base, or
perform surgery.
Essentially telepresence is about anti-presence or acting over distance
in real time. Telepresence involves electronic transmission of video images,
so the construction of the representations allows for this to take place
at the same time, or 'on the fly'. It therefore allows action to be adjusted
on the fly. The ability to receive information about a remote place in
real time allows us to manipulate physical reality in that place by our
being able to affect that place. The power of a "real-time remote control"
has not previously existed.
The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and the Telepistemology in the Age
of the Internet, edited by Ken
Goldberg, page 158.
Telepresence and Art
Telepresence Art
is a subset of electronic interactive art. It is based on telecommunications,
the human-machine interface, and computers. The stress is not on composition,
but on choice and action and bringing the audience into the foreground
of the piece. The audience becomes the 'user' or the 'participant'. The
context of the work is more open-ended and unfolds as the user participates
within the framework of the piece.
Telepresence is viewed as a new art form or medium. In this form of artwork
the wordage that is often used is cyberspace, virtual reality and telepresence.
The common use of these words causes confusion. Time and space are intimately
involved in telepresence.
William Gibson first introduced the word cyberspace to the public in his
book, "Neuromancer". When he used it he introduced it's meaning as "a
graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer
in the human system." Cyberspace is a man-made space where people who
are equipped with hardware can engage with a digital environment and other
people in an environment based upon vision, hearing, and sometimes feedback
devices. The ability to interact in this environment is dependent on hardware
and software.
The phrase "virtual reality" was first used by Jaron Lanier, and is more
generic than the word cyberspace. "Virtual reality" is a field of activity
where humans engage and interact in a man and machine made environment.
Images are used that represent computer data. The metaphor used to clarify
the term "Virtual" is referring to the image of a person 'inside' a mirror.
Similarly, the space that is behind the flat surface is a "virtual space".
The same thing occurs in the screen of our computer monitors. The surface
of the mirror or of the monitor is the boundary between the surface of
the "virtual" and the "real". "Virtual reality" combines the ideas of
3-dimensional space and the person entering into a virtual image, where
the participant is immersed in cyberspace.
Until recently, telepresence has been the focus of the scientific community
giving us access to worlds that are too dangerous for us to visit: operating
lunar vehicles from afar; robotic arms underwater and in space. Telepresence
in the art world does not have the same goal as its use in the scientific.
Scientists are interested in control of action in an environment that
is remote. In the art world telepresence focuses on communication. In
painting and sculpture the communication is unidirectional. The painting
or sculpture broadcasts to the viewer. This communication structure is
the same in mass media where the television or radio transmits information
to the viewer. Telepresence art questions this form of communication and
highlights the act of engagement with a piece.
Telepresence art looks at the cultural changes that are coming about as
a result of remote control, remote vision, telekinesis, and the real-time
exchange of visual and audio information. It challenges the interface
or relationships that exist with the help of technology. It creates a
unique context or field where participants enter the artwork to experience
invented remote worlds. This can bring such things as scale and perspective
into first-hand experiential realms for the viewer. The viewer becomes
the participant. The amount of immersion is often dependent upon the interfaces
used to link the networking machines that drive the remote world, the
more intuitive they are, the more immersive they are.
The palette of the artist is the computer network, the interface, and
the remote environment. The 'brush strokes' are the communication and
relationships that are built between the palette and the participants.
Telepresence brings into art a new communicative experience. The sender/receiver
model isn't complex enough to deal with the multimodal nature of networked,
collaborative, and interactive events that are possible with telecommunication.
In telepresence links, images, video, and sound are transmitted but there
are no senders that are attempting to convey particular meanings to the
receivers. It's an individualized bi-directional experience.
According to Buadrillard, communication is "an exchange, … a reciprocal
space of speech and response. Telepresence allows for feedback, and action
that can create change in the remote environment. Therefore, it is bi-directional.
The ability to remotely manipulate distant objects, including remotely
located people raises questions about our relationship to the objects,
how can we know those objects, and about our relationship to ourselves,
our minds and our bodies. Telepresence art explores these issues by presenting
experiences and situations that test our conceptions of presence and absence,
seeing and being seen, and manipulating and being manipulated.
Being here and now means being present with your own physical body. Jackson
Pollock used to give art performances using his body. He was confronting
the issues of the art of presence rather than the absence.
Digital technology has brought us the idea of the disembodied presence.
Telecommunications art goes back to the late 1970s. Two artists, Kit Galloway
and Sharry Labinowitz, created a piece called "A Space with No Geographical
Boundaries" in 1977. Artists performed virtually on one screen from different
continents. In 1980, they created a public interactive performance entitled
"Hole in Space", that used large screens and cameras to virtually link
two streets in NYC and LA. People who walked by figured out how the screens
and cameras worked and started using them.
With the ability for real-time action in one's present and physical space
able to affect change in a remote environment, the idea of distance is
undergoing a revolutionary change focused on the irrelevance of time on
global scales. What is interesting about this is looking at and attempting
to understand how these changes will alter social and cultural norms and
how it will create new ones, what unpredictable things will come out of
this, and what contexts will be created in art forms.
The transmission of video images and sound over great distances becomes
a new place, a bridge in real time that creates the new world of a telelocation.
The continuity of time that occurs in video supercedes the integrity of
real space. If we experience this daily in an office or studio or lab,
what effect will this have on our daily lives, our understanding of things
and places, and our relationships. What type of relationships do we have
with our answering machines, our cell phones, and our ATM machines?
Prior to the advent of electricity there was a public space that was an
important part of daily life. Once towns had electricity, people stayed
home more and family life became more private. Now our public space is
the public image which includes surveillance, relationship, and memory.
Social behavior is changing because of the ubiquitous nature of video
surveillance, videophones and the popularity of camcorders and webcams.
The historical development of images creates three kinds of logic. The
formal logic of the image occurred in the 18th century with painting,
engraving and architecture. The figure was the primary importance, and
the flow of time was irrelevant. Time was absolute. Photographs and Cinematography
came about in the 19th century and issued in the dialectical logic of
images. The images corresponded to events in the past, a different time.
At the end of the 20th century we saw the advent of video, computer and
satellites. This brings us to the age of paradoxical logic; images are
created in real time. This gives priority to speed over space, to the
virtual over the real, and so it transforms our idea of reality to something
that is constructed. That realization allows us to see that reality has
never been given; it has always been either generated or acquired. Images
never really copied reality, they just gave it shape. However, the paradox
is that it is no longer a well-defined distinction between the duplication
and the real.
It used to be that the shortest distance between two points was the straight
line; with telepresence, the shortest distance is real time via satellites.
Our understanding of speed or the intensity of time used to be expressed
in distance per hour…. Time is now expressed in bauds or bytes per second.
In an art context, remote communication is an exploration of the aesthetic
of change. It is about the focus of real time over real space, and the
relationship of the artwork and the participants.
Links:
http://www.ekac.org/Telepresence.art._94.html
http://www.ekac.org/dialtelep.html
http://baby.indstate.edu/CU-SeeMe/devl_archives/oct_94/0266.html
http://baby.indstate.edu/CU-SeeMe/devl_archives/oct_94/0266.html
http://www.ekac.org/ornitorrincoM.html
http://www.ekac.org/interactive.html
1 - William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace Books, 1984), p. 51.
2 - Jean Baudrillard, "Requiem for the media," in Video Culture, John
Hanhardt, ed.
(New York: Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1986), p.128.
3 - Machiko Kusahara, "Presence, Absence, and Knowledge in Telerobotic
Art",
The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of
the
Internet, edited by Ken Goldberg, p. 199.
Technological
Theories and Models of Telepresence
Slater's & Usoh's Model
In 1993 and 1994 Slater, Usoh, and Steed identified telepresence as the
suspension of disbelief, where the user is in a world other than where
there real bodies exist. They see two sets of determinants for the sense
of presence: external and internal factors.
External factors involve display quality and consistency of presentation
that are visible across either the monitors or HMDs as well as the ability
to interact between the two environments, and the ability to view onself
as the anthropormorphic image utilized in interaction if using an avatar.
The other important factor in the external realm is the ability to affect
actions in the 'other' environment.
Internal factors are the sense feedback to either construct some new entity
within one's mind, an external entity, or remembered. Senses must play
the visual, auditory and/or kinestetic representation systems. The other
internal factor is perceptual which has to do with the point of view of
the user. It may be first person point of view, the point of view of an
observer of action, or an abstract point of view, which would be as if
the user wasn't present at all.
In order for telepresence to be effective, it must have characteristics
that allow for the different styles of communication inherent to the users.
Sheridan's Model
Sheridan describes telepresence as "the ideal of sensing sufficient information
and communicating this to the human in a sufficiently natural way that
she feels herself to be physically present at the remote site," (Sheridan
(1987).
Sheridan also calls telepresence a "compelling illusion" and "a subjective
sensation." According to Sheridan, telepresence is a phenomenon where
the user loses awareness of the local environment s/he inhabits. To Sheridan,
telepresence is an experience, a sort of existential existence where the
user becomes convinced they exist in the remote environment.
The strength of telepresence is based upon the richness of sensory information
and the amount of control the user has on the distant environment.
Steuer's Model
Steuer says "presence is the sense of being in an environment." Telepresence
happens when a user is simultaneously involved or participating in a local
environment and in an electronically mediated remote environment and feels
they are more a part of the remote environment. Communication mediums
are responsible for this 'feeling' of being more a part of the remote
environment.
Steuer's framework has two major dimensions that are the determining factors
of telepresence. These are vividness (which is the ability of a technology
to provide a sensory rich environment) and interactivity (the ability
to influence the content of the mediated environment). He also states
that the experience is personal and the impact of these factors will differ
among different people.
According to Steuer, vividness has both breadth and depth. Breadth is
the number of sense modes that information is presented. Depth is the
amount of information within the available modes. Broadband offers more
depth. Breadth would include more channels of information such as visual,
audio, and force feedback.
Interactivity has three main categories… speed, range, and mapping. Speed
of interaction is response time. Real-time is the upper most limit for
speed. Range is the power of the user to interact and manipulate the environment.
How much can the user change the environment and to what degree? Mapping
is how the user can affect the remote environment, and is determined by
the type of controller that is utilized for telepresence.
Schloerb's Model
Schloerb states that telepresence occurs when "the person perceives that
he or she is physically present in a remote environment." He makes a distinction
between objective and subjective telepresence.
Objective telepresence involves performance in being able to perform a
remote task. Subjective telepresence involves the judgement of the user
that the user is physically present in the remote environment, it isn't
related to successfully performing a remote task. Subjective telepresence
is experiential in nature.
Schloerb doesn't look into the relationship between machine and user except
to say that the information flow between the two is "the most important
type of control/sensory transformation."
Schloerb believes that the most important aspect of telepresence is the
abiltity to do work and his work focuses on objective telepresence and
also questions the usefulness of subjective telepresence.
Zeltzer's Model
Zeltzer offers a different perspective. He views presence as a "sense
of being in and of the world. " His theory is that the important characteristics
of graphic simulations include autonomy, interaction, and presence. The
degree of human control is autonomy, the ability or capability of real-time
control in interactivity and the bandwidth available for sensory feedback
is the presence.
He views the degree that the world is capable of simulating the interactions
possible in a physical world so that the model is able to respond to real-time
inputs from the user. He focuses on the method that interactivity is available.
Zeltzer's three components define his "AIP cube" - Autonomy, Interaction,
and Presence. A system that can be mapped to the maximum on all three
components is a virtual reality system. He doesn't share the ideas of
the benefits of presence that many others hold, he thinks that there is
a high likelihood that a high presence would be physically demanding and
tiring.
Witmer's & Singer's Model
Witmer and Singer define presence "as the subjective experience of being
in one place when one is physically in another", and "a subjective sensation,
much like 'mental workload' a mental manifestation."
They are interested in whether or not presence corresponds with fidelity,
whether or not there is a relationships between presence, learning and
preformance. They look at the question about whether or not presence can
be measured.
Witmer and Singer categorized factors that might affect the experience
of presence and say that there are four major categories of factors: control
factors, sensory factors, distraction factors, and realism factors.
Psychological Approaches to Telepresence
Behavioral Cybernetics Model
During goal directed actions humans respond to information present in
the environment by manipulating the enviornment. This changes the feedback
and elicits other feed-forward response. Humans conduct feed-forward with
the aim of controlling feedback in a continuous or contiuously sampled
process that persists until reaching some feedback goal. This give and
take of feedback and feed-forward alters the experience and the relationship.
Changes can occur when there are time disturbances when the timing of
feedback and feed-forward are unexpected, or when the spatial relationships
are different than expected, and in filtering the amount of information
is different than expected.
Optimizing the disturbances by finding solutions to these unexpected differences
is the goal since Cybernetic telepresence is the degree that these disturbances
are avoided.
Telepresence as "Flow" Experience
Flow is a state where the user's attention is so concentrated on some
task that outside stimulus doesn't interfere with the experience. This
includes the non-awareness of time passing. Immersion is another term
for this. Even the awareness of 'self' disappears, this is questioned
in terms of whether telepresence is a distinct class or whether or not
flow is happening during the user's experience with telepresence. Sheridan
suggested in 1992 that even clever storytelling can induce this state.
Telepresence as Distal Attribution
This view begins with a psychological distinction between sensation and
construction. Loomis called telepresence "a compelling impression of being
at the location by the slave device" and identified this as distal attribution.
A person externalizes and creates an identity that is including the external
world. Sensation is the awareness of physical energy, and perception is
the construction of meaning utilizing sensation.
Telepresence can be seen as the degree the user makes the distal attributions
the remote environment. If one were to shif the awareness of self from
their own hand/arm to a robotic arm as part of them, then the distal attribution
would be effective and successful. The difference between telepersence
and distal attribution is how aware the user is of the linkages (robotic
arm). If the user transcends the robotic arm as his own appendage, this
is telepresence. If, on the other hand, the user recognizes that the robotic
arm is the slave device at all times, then this is distal attribution.