Ideas for the Project

For the past few weeks, my team has been doing research and trying to finalize what kind of project we want to create for the DIGM 540 course this winter. Those of us who gathered in this team want to create an interactive art exhibit that will have elements of touch sensors, rear projection, and adaptive music.

Currently, our idea is to have a performer in the middle of the stage who will be wearing touch sensors. As exhibit attendees come to the stage to touch and pose the performer, the pressure and location of their touch will trigger different effects and colors in the projection screen, as well as different moods of music. This idea came to be inspired by the artist Marina Abramovic's Rhythm 0 piece. We have not finalized what will actually be on screen, but I'm personally leaning toward abstract art with many elements of colors, particles, lines of varying thicknesses, etc. 

I've found this exhibit by Adrien M & Claire B that has a lot of visual elements reacting to dancers on the stage and I think it's a good inspiration for our project: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/11/movement-of-air-dance/

(Adrien M & Claire B, The Movement of Air)

While there are a lot of stages on campus, I think the mocap studio in URBN Center would be a perfect exhibit space for our project. The size of the room is enough for our smaller-scale project and there is already a 12x13 ft projection screen with 2 laser projectors. I already have experience in setting up the projection space in the studio and we can even add additional lights to set up the exhibit in a certain mood.

(Projection screen in mocap studio packed away by the side wall.)

I would also love to be able to use motion capture in this project since I love trying out different use cases for the technology we have available on campus. If we do our final exhibit in the studio, the mocap system will be ready for us to use in the space. However, since the specific details of our project are not set yet, I'm not sure if motion capture will be useful for us. This week's task for me is to go into the studio and test out what we can do with motion capture for our exhibit and whether it's the preferred method for the project!

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