Jumping Rope is the classic children’s game of jump rope transferred into the digital world. Your skill at jumping an invisible rope determines the course of a film narrative. You have to stand between two projection surfaces that each display a different figure holding a jumping rope. You can see on the screen how they are turning the rope but you have to mentally see the rope in order to jump on time. Your talent at jumping is evaluated by a video camera equipped with motion-tracking technology.
If you’re good at it, the characters are encouraging and play with you. There are three different scenarios played by three different couples.
The installation offers a simulated life situation in which you, as an adult, suddenly realise that your behaviour is pruned through a haunting invisible rope by the people around you (your parents, colleagues, boss, etc.), that you might be “trapped” between two characters or still be dancing to someone else’s tune.
In Jumping Rope, the partecipant becomes a part of the cinematic situation and their jumping enables the scenario to progress and the plot to develop.
A work by Portugaly Orna, Talithman Daphna, Younger Sharon (who also made Hearthbeats).