"Univers Interactifs @ Saline Royale" is an interactive installation developed in the frame of the European project <art.live>.

From the 19th of November till the 2nd of December 2001, the "Saline Royale of Arc et Senans" proposes an interactive installation built up by the European consortium <art.live>.

In this installation, the visitor sees his/her own image integrated in visual scenes and has to interact in order to progress in imaginary spaces. A "transport in fictional spaces" called <transfiction> in the artistico-technical jargon allows the visitors-spectators to travel in the primer of the stories of "Orbae’s Geographers" by the illustrator François Place, published by Casterman Editions.



The transfiction system is made up of large screens and of digital cameras, filming in continuous the visitors, controlled by software. This software is based on an exclusive technology of intelligent computer vision and of digital treatment of the image. The system identifies, in a video flow, the subjects staying at the front stage and separates them, in real time, from the scene. Today, to obtain this result in cinema or television, the technique of the "blue-screen" (chroma key) is used in order to substitute the background and to replace it by others visuals (this is the way the weather forecast is presented). The transfiction system works without any blue screen to integrate the image of the visitors in virtual scenes. It acts like a "magical mirror".

The movements of the visitors are interpreted by the system hence allowing the "spectator", now an "interactor", to participate in the narrative development of the scenarios in the interactive installation. The work presented at "La Saline Royale", composed of two screens and cameras side by side, allows the visitors to interact and to collaborate virtually, in the imaginary universes of François Place.



The transfiction system (mixed reality) is implemented by the European consortium <art.live> and the alterface spin-off of the Laboratory of Telecommunication at the University of Louvain (UCL, Belgium). The consortium <art.live> which is working with different research laboratories (LLN, Lausanne, Grenoble, Lisbon, Paris), small enterprises and Casterman Editions, is exploring new ways of telling stories with new technologies.

Virtual immersion, interaction and collaboration are the mechanisms of this project, which is new in Europe. The transfiction system has been selected for Imagina 2000 (Village of the innovation), installed in the Festival of Comic Strip of Angoulême 2000, as well as for an exhibition in Bercy in March-April 2001 and for a presentation at Beaubourg, in the programme "Cinemas of tomorrow".

For schools, activities and teaching materials are set up in order to allow the children to explore themes of the imaginary, utopia, dream, poetry... At the same time, a competition of writing and drawing is launched. A jury will choose and reward the best works of participating schools.



Classified World Heritage of the UNESCO since 1982, the "Saline Royale of Arc et Senans" is the masterwork of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806), utopist architect of the Enlightment. It constitutes also a rare testimony in the story of the industrial architecture.
Factory set aside to the production of salt, the "Saline Royale" has been created by the will of Louis XV and built between 1774 and 1779 that means 10 years before the French Revolution. At that time, the importance of salt was considerable.
The "Saline Royale" worked as an integrated factory where leaved nearly all the working community. Built up in semi-circle, you could found housing places as well as working ones, there were 11 buildings. Obsolete because of new technologies, the "Saline Royale" closed its doors in 1895. Abandoned, pillaged and burnt in 1918, the Doubs’ department has acquired it in 1927, which begin to restore it. The Claude-Nicolas Institute, International Centre on the Future installs itself in 1972 ; from that date it was dedicated to reflections on the city, it hosts seminars, exhibitions, and architectural schools...

For more information, please contact Alok Nandi, media director.