“Echo” by Kendyl Rossi, Georgie Pinn

Exhibiting Artist(s):

• Kendyl Rossi
• Georgie Pinn

The key intention of Echo is to create a vehicle for the exchange of empathy. As the world becomes more complex and digitally connected, the role of empathy is becoming increasingly important as an antidote to personal loneliness and an ideological isolation. Echo is an immersive artwork that takes the form of an interactive booth-based installation. The work is user specific, relational and explores notions of connection through an interactive exchange of personal narrative. Touch screen, real-time facial tracking technology combines animation, storytelling, and portrait to highlight intersections between strangers. In doing so the installation is able to collect and share an embodied archive of cross-cultural experience that elicits compassion. Informed by narrative theorist PJ Manney: “Storytelling is both the seductive siren and the safe haven that encourages the connection with the feared “other.” How we relate to stories and storytelling can be seen as an acid-test for empathy”.