chris o’shea – “out of bounds”

Chris O’Shea’s ‘Out of Bounds’ installation allows people to see through walls. The experience is made convincing by the artist giving visitors an infrared torch in which to project onto the walls and interact with the work. This works by the software tracking the position of the IR emitter via an overhead security camera, and the whole thing is coded to make the impact realistic.

The software is coded in Open CV (an open-source computer vision library from Intel, in C++) and OpenFrameworks (a lightweight multimedia C++ framework for artists)

                  

Chris O’Shea stated:

‘There is a childlike quality about wanting the ability to see through walls with x-ray vision like a superhero character. I want to encourage visitors to bore through the walls of the museum and engage in a ‘behind the scenes’ experience with an x-ray torch. This playful interaction encourages childlike curiosity in young and old alike, and opens up a portal into the Museum’s forbidden spaces.  Shine the torch at the wall to reveal the secrets hidden beneath. Pay an anonymous visit to the staff office, collection’s store, workshop, roof hatch or plant room.’

I like this idea, it involves the audience and creates an experience for which the viewer can take away from the gallery and savour.  Everyone at some point must has wished that they had some form of superhero power! (I know I have, I keep asking my girlfriend for ‘The Force’ for Christmas, but so far she hasn’t come through) This is a playful and fun installation, what a day that would be when (even though only virtually) you had the ability to see through walls! 

 

“protude flow” – sachiko kodama + minako takeno

“Protrude, Flow” creates an illusion of sharply tapering mountain peaks; bizarre forms and flowing particle streams give rise to the impression that these shapes were no longer subject to gravity. 



At the basis of this illusion are magnetofluids and sound and image sequences. The black-looking liquid of the magnetofluid changes its form when it interacts with the sounds produced by visitors to the exhibit. A ceiling-mounted microphone records these sounds and a computer transforms them into electromagnetic tension, which regulates the strength of the installation’s magnetic field.

Every change in the magnetofluid is manifested synchronously with variations in the ambient soundscape, and is recorded by a digital video camera that projects the images onto a screen. 

The magnetofluid consists of fine ferromagnetic particles suspended in a liquid such as water or oil; it retains its powerful magnetism even in a fluid state. Three-dimensional organic patterns of great complexity can be produced with this substance.

There is something about Asian art that always seems to have a finesse and beauty that mose Western artists have trouble in achieving.  An innovative installation that although not specifically relevant to my own project, it does give an idea of the different ways in which new technology and the fundamentals of physical science can be combined and displayed to make something new, fresh and interesting. 

 

 

  

Pablo Valbuena – Augmented sculpture…..

I felt the need to research artists that have used innovative methods in projections and interaction. 

More to just get a feel for how his new technology has been utilised and applied in the number of different ways.  I hope for this research to inspire me in ways as to how I may be able to use this technology.

                     

Pablo Valbuena’s work here is a 3 dimensional sculpture that uses projection to change these otherwise inanimate objects into something beautiful.  The cubes that sit almost camouflaged against their backdrop come alive when the projections of colour and light are added to their surfaces, transforming them into a sculpture that at times does not look of this earth.

 

to flash or not to flash(!)

I’ve been doing a few experiments with flash and real time video.  I have been following tutorials on the net and copying and pasting the code to get results.  So far I have managed to import video and use my webcam on my laptop to act as a motion sensor.  

The experiment I ran was to see if I could add an effect (in this case adding a negative effect to the video) and see if I could trigger this effect using my webcam as a motion sensor.  

The way this worked was by the webcam looking for differentiations in colour, when the colour dropped below a specific ratio the effect was applied.  As I said the code was bastardised from a number of websites (as I have no knowledge of coding…….yet!) so the technicalities of this process are a little beyond my understanding, all I know is that it worked……..kind of….

I found the motion sensor to respond quite slowly to my actions (over a second or so) and the program seemed to have more trouble as the video looped multiple times, until it crashed…..not very promising.

Although this was only a rough test and it could be rectified by refining the coding it has made me think that in the short space of time I have to pull this off, and before I spend a great deal of time trying to understand and fix a problem that may not be able to be satisfactorily fixed, it may be beneficial for me to investigate alternative methods of displaying and also programming my project before I get in to deep with this approach…