[Video] Professor helps create interactive Olympic sculpture

Whistler Public Library, transformed two weeks ago into Canada Olympic House, is home to an innovative piece of art made possible with the help of a McMaster faculty member.

Waterfall, an interactive video sculpture made out of a vending machine, was created by David Ogborn, an assistant professor of multimedia, with Kim Morgan, David Clark and Rachelle Viader Knowles.

The installation, which will remain at Canada Olympic House for the remainder of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, is meant to address the issue of water conservation. Where the machine should contain chips, chocolate bars and candy, the audience instead finds videos showing the way water is used every day. Pressing the buttons causes the images to fall away, revealing a thundering Webster's waterfall, located in Hamilton, as a reminder of the force of water in the environment as well as its value to human life.

"It's a very simple exterior," said Ogborn of the vending machine shell encasing the work. "But it contains something much more complex and important."

The work, which was commissioned by the Canadian Wildlife Federation, will be included in the 'Whistler Live' section of the Cultural Olympiad, a celebration of a variety of forms of cultural expression at the Olympics.

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