Hyperessay – 10,000 Moving Cities

The Artist

The artist in focus is Marc Lee. He is a Swiss media artist who has created various interactive art projects, installations and performance art for almost 20 years, which is displayed all over the world. His artworks are very daring which would normally showcase cultural, political and social meanings in them.

His works have been exhibited in museums all over the world, such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, South Korea, New Museum in New York and the Intercommunications Center in Tokyo, Japan.

Marc Lee also does lectures and teach in workshops about art and interactive art around the world such Shanghai Institute of Visual Art and China Academy of Art in Huangzhou.

The Artwork

The chosen artwork by Marc Lee is 10,000 Moving Cities. It is an interactive net-based installation. There is the Virtual Reality version which has a telepresence-based element added to it, and also an Augmented Reality version which has an accompanying app that would be used and plays a part in the interactivity of the installation.

Interface selection where users get to select a city or a location that they would want to see displayed

Before the installation could begin or before the user could interact with the installation, the user would have to select a location or a city from an interface by searching or selecting a blue or red pin on the interface. After the city or location is selected, images, sounds, texts and videos would be searched on the internet. These sound would then be displayed or projected at the location of where the user is at. The images, videos and content displayed on the installation itself or displayed through the app or devices, depending on whether you are viewing the installation through Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality. Every time a city is selected, a new search will take place hence the experience will be different every time.

These two different platforms will be explained more below.

Virtual Reality (VR)

The version with the Virtual Reality, or VR, is viewed through devices that users use, namely high-tech goggles such as an HTC Vive or anything similar. This device will be located inside a space where sound could be projected and immersed by the user, and also an area where the user could actually move around without bumping into anything or anyone. As mentioned before, the user would select the location or city via the goggles. The visuals would then appear through the goggles and displayed on tall imaginary buildings. The user would then get to look up or down and move around the space to immerse themselves in the installation.

Below is a video to see how the HTC Vive is used and how the installation works for Virtual Reality.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Then there is the Augmented Reality version that makes use of a mobile app to view the displayed visuals. In real life, there will only be an empty space, but when viewed through an app on a smartphone or a tablet, the user gets to see imaginary buildings appearing right in front of them and throughout the space. The user would also get to carry around the device with the app and walk through and amongst these imaginary buildings to view them closer and in greater detail. What is displayed on these imaginary buildings are similar to the one displayed in the Virtual Reality version, but again, the images and the sounds played are not the same and will vary for everyone.

Below is a video that would help to show how the app and the Augmented Reality works in the installation.

Offline version

There is also an offline version where the installation does not use any apps or devices. The basic set up for the installation are real physical white cubes of varying heights spaced on in a space. Similarly, the user still selects a city or a location on an interface, but instead of appearing through goggles or mobile devices, the images will be projected on the white cubes. These cubes would then represent the different buildings that make up the city skyline. The user would then be allowed to walk through and amongst these cubes with projected images and videos as if they are walking through the city that they have selected. Sounds would also be played in the location to add to the immersive experience.

The offline version of the installation is shown in the video below.

Entropy

For this installation, entropy – the lack of order and predictability – is seen here as the images projected on the cubes or displayed in the VR are all in a way randomized to that moment and for different people. The users in a way also would not know what would be displayed or what would appear. Even if they have a rough idea on what would appear, they can’t exactly decide on what the images will be and it will always be different for different people. Also, as mentioned earlier, every time a city is selected, a new search will take place and new images, sounds, texts, and videos will appear, creating a different and an unpredictable experience every time, hence, entropy.

Immersion

This installation is definitely an immersive type of installation where the users get to use their many senses to engage and interact with the installation. The user gets to see the images projected through the app, the goggles or the cubes. They get to hear the sounds played in the area that adds on the to the immersive experience. They also get to walk around the space with the goggles, the mobile device or even walk among and in between the cubes with displayed images.

Conclusion

In conclusion, 10,000 Moving Cities is an immersive installation by Marc Lee where users get to experience the ever-changing cityscape. The content of the installation is different every time so there is a sense of entropy for the users. He also allowed users to experience this through Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality or even an offline mode where users get to walk about a physical space without any devices on. With this, he has allowed users to experience the installation with different platforms, with each of this platform similar to each other, so that the experience is similarly immersive yet different in content.

References

Lee, M. (1970, January 01). 10.000 Moving Cities – Same but Different by artist Marc Lee. Retrieved from http://marclee.io/en/10-000-moving-cities-same-but-different/

Hyperessay – Artist and Artwork Selection

Artist:

Marc Lee is a Swiss media artist that has created interactive art projects, installations and performance art for almost 20 years. He is very daring in his works which would normally showcase cultural, political and social meanings in them.

His works has been exhibited in museums all over the world, such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, Intercommunications Center in Tokyo and New Museum in New York.

He also does lectures and teach in workshops about art and interactive art around the world such as Shanghai Institute of Visual Art, and China Academy of Art in Huangzhou.

Artwork:

10,000 Moving Cities is an art installation that involves several projectors and white large boxes. The installation begins when the user selects the desired location that would be projected onto the white large boxes. Once selected, various moving images from the internet will be projected onto the large boxes. The user can then walk through and in between the large boxes and immerse themselves with the visuals projected as if they are there in the city that they picked earlier. Sounds from the internet will also be played alongside the images to make the experience for the user more immersive.

With the millions of images in the internet, every projection on each surface and also every projection by a different person will be different. That is why the installation is called 10,000 Moving Cities – Same but Different.

Midterm Project: Face Pong

Groupmates: Christina, Esther, Syam.

For our midterm project, we did a Facepong game, where a ball bounces around the screen and the paddle is the face through face detection. To score points, the player has to hit the ball with the paddle. However, if the ball touches the bottom of the screen, a point will be deducted.

To increase the difficulty, there will be different stages where after reaching certain scores, like the ball getting smaller, the paddle getting smaller, and also a wall coming down from the top of the screen to make the play space smaller.

What went well? What didn’t?

Even when we split the work amongst ourselves, there was no issue when combining codes as we took most of our reference from the same source and the coding style and how we organise the code is similar between 3 of us.

The main challenge for the coding is still definitely how to make it work as a lot of the codes in a way overlaps each other. If we tweak one code to fix one problem, it will mess up the other codes and we would need to frequently backtrack our process if we were to make any changes.

Who did what?

Christina did the hardest one, in my opinion, which is the face detection. She faced the biggest problem but managed to overcome it.

Esther did the shrinking effect, where it would be applied to the ball and the paddle after some time which is to increase the difficulty.

As for me, I did the wall that comes down from the top of the screen. I also did the scoring system, where a point will be added whenever the ball hits the paddle and be deducted when the ball touches the bottom of the screen.

What major difficulties were there?

There are quite a few difficulties faced.

The ball keeps going through the paddle, in between the top and bottom of the paddle, and every time that happens the scoring system adds multiple points.
Initially, we wanted to add a game over + lives function, but then we realise that would make the game almost unplayable as the ball will keep falling to the bottom.
The mirroring function did not work properly so we had to look for codes online to see how to fix it. This took the longest to fix.

Click here to see the issue we had with the face detection and mirroring.

What problems still exist? How might you solve them?

The paddle and the ball would still glitch when interacting with the ball. We might need more time to fix this with trial and error.

How would you move this project forward?

Would definitely still try the lives system which would make the game more challenging. Adding more levels would be awesome too, like adding more obstacles and challenges or objectives would make the game more interesting. Sound and music could be added to make the game more fun too.

Graphics done by Christina.

Project 3: Interactive Storytelling – Proposal

Group members: Clemens, Peiwen, Sabrina, Syam

Research

We looked into the causes of social anxiety and decided to concentrate on the more popular cause which is self-consciousness.

Asking our peers who had suffered from social anxiety before, we also come across some situations which they found highly stressful, such as:

Eating outside
Being in crowds
public speaking
entering a conversation
being alone among strangers

They also shared some of the thoughts that they perceive while having social anxiety

Feeling demotivated for fear of being rejected
Feeling of always being judged
distracting oneself with hobbies
prefers isolation to avoid interaction

Reference: https://socialanxietyinstitute.org/top-10-list-feelings-social-anxiety-causes

Concept

Social Anxiety is more prevalent in youths today than before. It can manifest in any form, an insidious thought or self-doubt that triggers overthinking. Our project aims to depict the life of a single person affected by the afflictions of social anxiety and what it takes to overcome it.

This project will revolve around an individual, named Chen May B. We will show what she experiences, what she sees and what goes on in her mind when she goes through her daily routine of school and in public. We have picked out a few places that we found out affects the most for people with social anxiety:

When entering a bus
When looking for a seat in the canteen/cafeteria
When walking through the crowded corridors

We will try to show what she looks at in her point of view and also try to make viewers hear what goes on in her mind when she goes through these situations.

Once we have the daily lives and established for the viewer to experience, we will then show how May B. will overcome her social anxiety. Everything from then onwards will slowly fade away to change for the better to show how May B. is getting better and on the road to overcoming it.

Execution

The way we plan to execute our project is by having 3 separate screens. These screens will be around the viewer – one in front, one on the left and one on the right. Each of these screens will be showing what happens in the daily life of May B.:

The left screen will show her experience when entering the bus
The middle screen will show what she experiences when on the looking for a seat in the canteen
The right screen will show her experience of walking through a crowded corridor

These screens will take turns to play in this order:

Bus (Left screen) → Canteen (Middle screen) → Corridor (Right screen)

And it will happen 3 times, showcasing 3 different days that she goes through and experience. As the timeline will occur at overlapping timings, there will come a point in time whereby the three screens will be playing together, thus creating a chaotic scene. experiences and will actually show the peak of discomfort.

The screens all go black and only the middle screen will show a scene. This scene will be a continuation of the last scene played and will show the moment of how May B. takes the first steps to overcome her social anxiety.

The extended scene will show a friend coming to keep her company and quail her anxiety.