Dreams do come true. I’m a cartoon voiced by a dude. With some alpha blending, we learned to mask a picture onto our faces.
Photobooth
A patch for a photobooth which creates different noises based on the positioning of your head. Different noises reflect the direction you are in. If there is no noise, your head is in the center and a photo will be saved.
Final Pitch : Silva
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1frtXpjY1i05X6zo3aGuzdQuXcrzTmr-6Pe6tIYOIByc/edit?usp=sharing
Silva (working title) – Project Description
Silva (working title)
Silva is a performance exhibition piece which combines water, dance, music, and tracking technology. With original music composed by a local artist, three dancers explore the depths of desire, power, and betrayal. Silva emphasizes on the consequences and fragility that neglect and ignorance cause in the thirst of innovation. Staged within the boundaries of two rings of water, the dancers are tracked by computer vision technology and their movements trigger lighting effects which help carry the narrative.
Inspiration for this piece is drawn from other artists and creators like: Pina Bausch, Chunky Moves, and Alexander Ekman. Pina Bausch’s arrangement of Rite of Spring challenged and redefined contemporary ballet with “hot, dark, and terrifying” (The Guardian) movements on a stage completely covered with dirt. Chunky Moves’ Mortal Engine explores the incorporation of projection mapping and computer vision techniques in dance performance to help carry expression throughout their piece. And Alexander Ekman’s Cacti is a reflection of in-your-face mockery of art and society through the choreography and use of props, music, and lighting. All three pieces have the ability to transform a space into more than just a stage, but rather a set to where performance and outer ingenuity meet.
This project aims to challenge what performance is by implementing computer vision in a non-traditional space. The combination of the performing arts and computational arts is a primary focus to most of my work. I believe that applying new media techniques to more mainstream and common media recreates experiences by making them multidimensional. This installation takes on dance and storytelling by adding generative art to the original to enhance the raw performance.
Casting
Dancer 1 — Terra
Dancer 2 — Genus
Dancer 3 — Vanus
Plot
Act I
Terra is engulfed by loneliness and seeks companionship in the figures around her. The figures entertain her until she realizes that they are only shadows of herself and she finds herself alone again in the dark. As her hope begins to fade, she notices her own reflection in the water and works to create a companion from her image. She pulls out Genus from the water. Excited by her creation, Terra teaches and shows Genus how to breathe, move, and gain consciousness.
Act II
As Genus discovers more about herself and the world around her, she becomes mesmerized with her own reflection. She begins to stray away from Terra and discovers her own ability to create. As Genus’ distractions grow, her relationship with Terra weakens and Terra’s excitement begins to fade. Genus learns to create from her own reflection in the water and pulls out Vanus. Genus tries to mimic what Terra had done for her but is unable to teach Vanus how to move on her own.
Act III
Only able to mimic Genus’ movements, Genus is disappointed and turns to Terra for help. Unwillingly, Terra looks at Vanus and begins to show her how to move. As Vanus begins to waken into her own consciousness, Genus fills with excitement and joins Terra in the teachings until taking over completely. Terra looks over with delight but begins to fade in neglect. She reaches out to Genus but Genus, distracted by Vanus, is unreachable. As Terra fades, Vanus also begins to fade in the arms of Genus. Not knowing what is happening, Genus turns to Terra one last time right before both Terra and Vanus’ fade completely and sink back into the water.
Temporary Gantt Chart below:
Project Ideas
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0LALAw3SW1nSEtJSEVrYV9CeG8
Future World
Visiting the exhibition, Future World: Where Art Meets Science, introduced me to a new perspective of what new media installations can be. Back home, most of the installations and exhibits that I have been exposed to are very conceptual and the meaning behind each piece quite personal to the artist. Works are often created to be as “original” or novel as possible and therefore the theme of an exhibit is often very broad in order to cater to each individual work. It is refreshing to see an entire new media exhibition created by a single team (teamLab), with one theme interconnecting every single project.
With that being said, I have to admit that I was not very intrigued when I heard it that the theme would be about the Earth and the environment. It seemed like an overused theme that lacked much creativity. So, I was very pleasantly surprised when I walked into the show and experienced the first two artworks (100 Years Sea and Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together). They were both atmospheric pieces which engulfed the users in projected rooms without being to “in your face” about the environmental message they were trying to convey. I was immediately engaged and excited to see what else there was.
Throughout the exhibit there were many pieces designed for children to play and draw. I especially liked Media Block Chair (image above), which seemed so simple but was so enjoyable to interact with. It essentially was just a bunch of blocks that could sense each other and changed colours depending on how they were positioned. However, it was beautifully done and subtle enough for children and adults to play with carefully and observe as well.
Other pieces which drew my interest, included: Sketch Town, Crystal Universe (image above) and Universe of Water Particles (image below). All to which where very different but also impressed me do to their large scale.
Ultimately though, my favourite piece was Story of the Time When Gods were Still Everywhere (images below). It was an interactive piece which gamified a narrative of creation in a way that incorporated symbols with literal images. Watching children interactive with this piece was fascinating. They didn’t seem to know what the message of the piece was but they all knew that by touching the wall, something would happen and it became a learning process as they discovered the different functions each symbol had. To me, this piece, although probably not the most technically challenging, had the most profound concept and best execution.
Overall, Future World was a very exciting exhibition. It was really fun to engage in such well thought out and technical works. And if this post was too long and boring, here’s of photo of me getting stuck in a children’s tunnel.
Mirror + Salsa Dog
As an intro to Max 7, we made a darkening mirror and a face tracker that affects video playback.
For the Mirror, the program tracks your face with cv and based on the size of the face detected, the opacity increases or decreases.
Here’s a clip of the Mirror.
For the face tracker, the same facetracker is used but instead of the size values being used, the X values are. Based on where the face is detected side to side, the frame playback of the video is displayed making it seem like the dog is dancing to your movement.
Here’s a clip of Salsa Dog.
Lighting Up the City
Ever since arriving in Singapore, I’ve noticed the great attention there is on lighting up the city at night. Almost every landmark is marked by an array of LEDs. And, of course, there is the mighty light show every night at the Marina Bay. Taking notice of how much this impacts the community of the nation, it’s hard to not think of a very plausible project that can incorporate the illumination of the city with the open source data drawn from Smart Nation’s technology.
For example, when Pokemon Go was the craze, Torontoians would scatter all around the major landmarks to catch Pokemon and battle. The famous CN Tower was a major battling gym right at the center of the city and it was rumoured that the lights on the tower changed based on which team was occupying the gym. Whether or not this was true or not, it doesn’t really matter, but I would like to take this idea and apply it to a Smart Nation project.
It would be an interesting addition to the city night life if the lights of the city would be programmed to represent certain data. The financial district could have stock market data displayed on the buildings. The transit system could be marked as congested or normal. The forecast could be easily traced. And the light show could become an interactive and interchanging experience based on the data individuals could feed to the system. Not much would need to be built, but the technology already available could be manipulated with the data from Smart Nation.
Smart Nation / The Circle?
Smart Nation is a nationwide movement that focuses on the advancement of technology and innovation in Singapore to further the development of infrastructure and community. They are focusing on transportation, home & environment, business productivity, health and enabled ageing, and public sector services. They aim to connect everyone at all times. This can allow more innovation to progress with the amount of information that will be available to the public.
Although this concept seems to very fascinating and beneficial for the technical advances of the nation, it seems to be replicating concepts from those of a science fiction story. I came across a new trailer for an upcoming film called The Circle which depicts a reality where technology and information is limitless for public use. Although this is a fictional narrative and is an extreme of this concept of open source technology, it strikes some issues that can come of movements.
The film is a criticism of modern technology, but it does not reflect the goals and vision of Smart Nation. However, I found the correlation between the film and this movement very prominent.
Additional Research for Week 2
Matt Pearson is an artist who focuses on sound based generative art.
Pearson’s Prisms and Augmatic Disport both explore interface patterns developed with audio. He uses algorithms to allow the computer to generate animations that can pace and change based on its own interpretation of audio tracks. With Prisms, he states that his work “was creating the system and then curating its output or, to put it another way, I just wrote a computer algorithm, and the computer did it all.” The concepts behind both these pieces are primarily the audio which is what I am to do with my own work. The technicality of the algorithms are complex and difficult to breakdown. However, in my own work I would like to work with live musicians and run an algorithm which interprets the audio inputs and outputs them as generative visuals to add to the atmosphere of the venue of a live performance.