Periphery is designed as an immersive environment to run continuously over an extended period of time. The environment consists in part of the physical (an irregular wall of mirrored and white panels surrounding and enclosing the space) and in part of the virtual (four video projections onto the panels and a quadraphonic sound system). The technology is intended to augment the effect of the physical environment as seamlessly as possible, and to create a convincing and confusing illusion. The interplay between projections and reflections is crucial -much of the effect of the installation is given by the refraction and fragmentation of the projections by the mirrors.

There is very little pre-recorded material involved -most of the material is taken in real-time from two cameras and a microphone. The aim is to produce new kinds of 'reflections', both visual and sonic, that span both space and time (ie. the 'reflections' may not be quite real-time, but may be delayed by anything from seconds to weeks, or distorted in time so that motion becomes displaced). The installation has a 'memory' such that material is stored on the disks of the computers and may be brought into play at a later date. In this way, a visitor to the installation may be confronted by the 'ghosts' of previous visitors.

The installation runs on four Apple Macintosh computers. One operates as the 'brains' of the system, controlling the other machines and running a program developed using Cycling74 Max (an object oriented programming language for interactive systems). This constructs the underlying 'rhythm' of the installation (based on cycles of 2, 4, 8, and 16) according to various rules, principally based on probabilities (resulting in a kind of controlled chance). It incorporates a basic movement sensor (operating from one of the cameras) so that it 'knows' when there is someone in the space. It also operates the sound, which is a mixture of pre-recorded samples (chosen according to the 'rules' mentioned above) and samples and sonic distortions made in real-time from the microphone (this will pick up speech in the space, but will also pick up what is coming out of the loudspeakers, providing a further level of distortion). The other machines run the video, using Image/ine, a developmental software system developed by STEIM in Amsterdam, specifically for the live manipulation of video. The machines are synchronised such that there is always a strong relationship between them -they will always be doing much the same thing, but with different material. Techniques include image distortions, layerings, temporal distortions, and long-term sampling of material.

The material captured by the installation over an exhibition period is also incorporated into an internet site (see Clips section), which forms an integral part of the work, allowing remote users to monitor accumulated activity in the space.

Equipment Diagram | Layout Diagram