Head is an Experimenta commissioned work with the following Milestone deadlines:

Milestone 1 Late Feburary 09
Prototype 1 unit working with Arduino to Processing to Wave shield and switchable multi-colourd
LED
Prototype sound device
Prototype tracking device
Prototype serial IO comms
Prototype application
Prototype complete process – tracker to application

 

Milestone 2 Late May 09
3 Completed working units

Milestone 3 Mid July

 

Format

Interactive Installation including
Projected image
5 x mobile interactive sound and tracking devices
- Arduino
- wave shield
- headphones
- selectable multi-coloured led light - super bright
- processing application
Processing artwork
Sound
5 x Character profiles with backgrounds and 5 conversations

Background

Heard commission artists to create interactive works which will tour the country and maybe international.  The exhibition will be early 7 Feb 2008 with installation from 30 jan to 7 Feb. 

Milestones for the work are: Late Feb Phase 1, Late May Phase 2, Mid July Phase 3.

 

EXPERIMENTOPIA Exhibition Theme

In the rapidly shifting context of the beginning of the 21st Century - amidst personal, technological, economic, environmental, and political change – there are many different ways to move, directions to take, and personal choices to make. Located in the heart of this setting, Experimentopia asks: what matters to you?

Looking closely at your surroundings, both local and global, what would you fight for? What would you fight to prevent? What are you willing to put yourself on the line to protect or create? What is that world, neighbourhood, landscape, or object? And how does it look, sound, and feel?

 

Proposal Artwork: “Heard”

1. Avatar based virtual world where visitors move around a gallery space and communicate with other visitors on the screen and through their headphones.
2. The visitors have a choice of avatars such as a punk, a nerd, a bikie, etc..

And when they approach other avatars they begin to communicate. Each avatar has a background or profile, which is revealed as a micro-narrative to the other avatar through speech bubbles on the screen and audio in the headphones.
(Maybe? – the more you socialize with other avatars in the space the bigger you become)

 

The idea

The work will simulate a space where 5 characters may interact with one another through conversation.  Using tracking technology of colored light and a video camera the users select a character and move around a space both physically and virtually on screen.  When they approach another avatar on screen and in the space they begin to converse.  When they leave they will stop conversing.

Technology

5 x Apple iPod touches
5 x headphones
5 x LED light units
1 x camera
Flash/Papervision 3D Application graphics and logic
C Tracking tool ARToolkit
Cocoa wireless comunication application

Things to consider

Ambient light - led lights and projector must be seen so it should be dim ambient
Distracting colours and shapes - there should be no distracting colours for the camera to pickup.
Sound when not in conversation
Camera positioning - center of the room with a wide angle lens or above screen looking forward.
Tracking 5 colours at once with jmron camera tracking library for processing, if unable to what alterntives? flash or max/msp?
BlueTooth strength and max range.
LED light visibility range

 

 

Please send all feedback here

website :: RTEK