prosthetic knowledge

DUO

A low cost open-Source DIY 3D motion sensor to become another alternative to the Kinect:

The DUO is the world’s first and only DIY 3D sensing solution. 

The DUO comes in many forms: with open hardware plans, molded cases, kits and fully assembled devices. All paired with an open source Driver, SDK and examples. Resulting in a professional grade solution for 3D sensing using stereo vision.

The best part is it’s extremely easy to use, just plug it in, download the software and you can start playing within minutes. If you can wave in the air you can use a DUO.

More Here

Clouds 

A Kickstarter funding project to create an interactive documentary of contemporary computer artists:

Over the last year we have captured interviews with over 30 new media artists, curators, designers, and critics, using a new 3D cinema format called RGBD. CLOUDS presents a generative portrait of this digital arts community in a videogame-like environment. The artists inhabit a shared space with their code-based creations, allowing you to follow your curiosity through a network of stories. What does it feel like to think with code? How can emerging technologies enable us to actualize our dreams? How has online sharing transformed the way artists collaborate?

More about this interesting project can be found at it’s Kickstarter page here

MERGE by Jake Stollery 

A series of works combining digital printing, paint, photography and Kinect 3D scanning to create pieces focused on our technical future:

A 5 piece narrative forecasting the future, a time of the Singularity. The next stage in human evolution - merging with technology, discarding our physical, organic form & existing purely as a digital self.

Using projection, 3D scanning (via Microsoft Kinect) , photography, acrylic paint and digital printing, the series uses sequential artworks to illustrate its narrative. Beginning with the birth of the singularity, humanity’s desire to exist with it, the capturing of our minds, bodies then culminating in the discarding of our primitive, restrictive, organic self.

More Here

IRIS by HYBE - Light Conditions 

The makers of this interactive installation / LCD Canvas got in contact again to demonstrate their work in different light conditions, and also reveal a bit more about the hardware used in it:

Expandable Matrix of Transmissive Monochrome LCD (90x90mm), Custom designed Arduino compatible controller board, DMX512, SPI, Kinect /

IRIS is a unique media canvas with matrix of conventional information display technology - a monochrome LCD. Through the phased opening and closing of circular-segmented black Liquid Crystal, IRIS can create various patterns and control the amount (size) of passing lights. IRIS is an interactive medium for visual simplicity which uses the passage of ambient light, not emission of light itself.

It is a selected and supported work by Da Vinci Idea Program(2012) at Seoul Art Space_Geumcheon, KOREA

Volumetric Slitscan Experiments by Memo Akten

The slitscan technique is a well-explored method in photography and video, but this is the first time I have seen it using a Kinect camera feed, where depth plays an additional factor. Two short videos are embedded below, and they are made more fun by the music (dancing to Nina Simone’s “My Baby Just Cares For Me”):

WIP Volumetric Slitscan test 2 from Memo Akten on Vimeo.

WIP Volumetric Slitscan test 1 from Memo Akten on Vimeo.

Rhizome: Prosthetic Knowledge Picks: nOdalisque 

From the archive, a brief look at a classic Fine Art archetype in today’s world, from glitchy machinima, 3D animation, Kinect pornography, and the concept of the “opsieme” with the aid of eye-tracking.

Read the whole piece at Rhizome here

IRIS by HYBE - Gangnam Style 

Last week, I made a post about a fantastic installation called IRIS, a grid of transparent LCDs which mirrors visitors actions in creative patterns. It was very popular, appeared on the Tumblr Radar, and went viral. I sent an email to the team behind this about how popular it was, and they were really happy about it …

… Then, I receive an email from one of the developers this week:

I’m Han, creator of IRIS on your blog.

I’ve just uploaded addendum on IRIS for fun - actually by many requests. I hope you to enjoy it.

If you know the song in video, you will love it.

And here it is, a brief additional demonstration to the original, and probably the best combination of modern interactive art installation and K-Pop you will see today.

IRIS by HYBE 

Interactive installation is grid of transparent LCDs which display halftone and circular patterns whose display can emulate it’s viewers. A week ago, I covered a New Media exhibition in Seoul called ‘The Da Vinci Ideas Exhibition’ and was intrigued by this piece, hoping there would be a video of it. Well, the brilliant Creative Applications discovered it, which you can watch in the embed below:

Created by Korena collective HYBE, IRIS is a media canvas with matrix of conventional information display technology, that is a monochrome LCD.Through the phased opening and closing of circular black liquid crystal, IRIS can create various patterns and control the amount (size) of passing lights.

More Info and images can be found at Creative Applications here

Love Is All by Alejandro Gómez-Arias

The first example of porn created with the Kinect camera and RGBDToolkit.

It’s five minutes long, music as audio, and due to the Kinect aesthetics, isn’t fully explicit with detail.

Obvious, but NSFW:

Love is all from Alejandro Gómez-Arias / MEME on Vimeo.

Jon Lindsay - Oceans More 

The inevitable Kinect-powered RGBDToolkit Indie-Pop music video!

Jon Lindsay - Oceans More from Jon Lindsay on Vimeo.

Have to say though, even though the music isn’t my cup of tea, it doesn’t feel the tech really adds anything - it’s a gimmick in tiresome band-based music video cliches. Maybe someone here, though, will appreciate it more than me …

Thanks to V5MT for the heads up

Kinect@Home 

Cloud 3D modelling service allows you to create 3D object files with video taken with a Kinect camera - watch the video embedded below:

Kinect@Home is a place where you can help robotics and computer vision researchers around the world and get 3D models of your room, office or whatever you want in return, right in your browser!

Kinect@Home aims to use your powers to make robots more awesome than ever. Robotics and computer vision researchers need vast amount of images from everyday environments such as homes and offices to improve their algorithms.

As well as being able to help science, you can download the 3D object file to do whatever you want with it. As a bonus, you can also embed your 3D capture on webpages, like below:

You can find the project’s website here

Fearful Symmetry by Ruairi Glynn 

‘Alien Art’ installation currently at Tate Modern - a glowing tetrahedron curious of the visitors. It is actually a computer-controlled puppet on a robotic arm, using Kinect sensors to detect people. BBC News has a short video (embedded below) about the piece, and is also a great ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at how a modern computer art installation is put together:

Artist Ruairi Glynn has premiered a unique piece of installation art at Tate Modern in London, using a technique he calls “mechanical puppetry”.

His “delta robot”, normally found on factory production lines, has been redesigned to work as a piece of interactive, performance art.

Fitted on a 21-metre rail, it travels the length of the Tate Modern’s new basement Tanks space, which opened at the end of July.

Part automated, it measures people’s movements with Microsoft Kinect cameras, as found on the Xbox games console. When visitors come into its vicinity, the robot responds with a set of pre-programmed reactions, from playful movements, to dramatic withdrawal.

More at BBC News here

AppropriatingNewTechnologies - Course Notes 

Some great reading material if you are looking for some background in contemporary tech / media art. Put together by Kyle McDonald, it covers areas such as facial recognition, the Kinect, Glitch and 3D scanning. While not all of it maybe relevant to the regular reader, there are plenty of links of examples to works and some contextual information.

A seven week course, the final week includes examples of works completed by course attendees.

The full list can be found here.

Vaudeville 

DIY Japanese full-size mecha robot project controllable by smartphone and Kinect. Via Plastic Pals: 

Suidobashi Heavy Industry (an impressive name for what is in reality a small group of dedicated giant robot afficionados), is in the process of building the first 3.8 meter (12 ft 5 inch) tall, 4,500 kg (4.9 ton) single-occupant mecha.  The ambitious group is made up of Kogoro Kurata (production), Wataru Yoshizaki (control circuitry), and Yusuke Kitani.  They’ve opted for V-SIDO software to handle the mecha’s master-slave controls (developed by Asura Engineering), and plan to have the mecha, named Vaudeville, fully operational by the end of this year.

According to the official website:

Vaudeville has the AE “V-Sido”, the control system of the computer technology is watched by all world with interest. Not only operating by boarding the pilot’s seat, but also enabling you to control and interact Vaudeville with Kinect*. Moreover, without taking a professional training such as a combat plane, people can operate it easily. Furthermore, you can control Vaudeville via the mobile 3G Internet access.

Here is a video of the machine demonstrating it’s controls:

The project is not complete, but you can find more information at the official website here