prosthetic knowledge

Tokyo City Symphony

Contribute an arrangement of virtual projection mapping onto a 3D scaled city.

Try it out here

Angles Mirror by Daniel Rozin

Interactive installation using a triangular method of representation with a motorized array:

The “Angles Mirror” rejects the idea of building a picture based on relative lightness and darkness. Instead, it explores a system of linear rotation that indicates the direction of an object’s contour. A wall-mounted sculpture, the “Angles Mirror” is a sharp triangular block of steel, dotted with yellow indicator arms that pivot. Based on the isometric grid, its structure favors the patterns and angles found in an equilateral triangle. The arms, which do not have the ability to change brightness or luminosity, use input from a camera and reconstruct the view with areas of varying angles. The negative space surrounding a viewer is translated into horizontal lines on the picture plane. Rather than creating a photorealistic image, the three-dimensional movement of a figure is represented, visualizing optical flow as viewer’s proximity to the sculpture changes. A nuanced contour results, as the viewer shifts back and forth, altering how the structure of space is perceived. Similar to “Fan Mirror”, in the “Angles Mirror”, the sequence of movement across the picture plane is directed in part by its audience. When the viewer walks away from the work, or chooses to view the sculpture from a distance, a series of predefined images and transitions cover the object’s surface.

There are more examples of Daniel’s interactive and alternative ‘mirrors’ at the Bitform Gallery’s Vimeo page here

PC Interfacing a GameBoy Camera 

A project to connect a Gameboy camera feed for interactive projects, via Instructables:

Here’s another past project of mine from a couple of years ago. At that time I was looking for a low-res camera for simple robotics image processing, and all I had experience with was PIC (12, 16, and 18) microcontrollers. So I didn’t really get to work on the images real time (not enough RAM or speed, and I could not find any suitable SRAM around at that time). I think I’ll revisit this project later on using my new TI Stellaris Board.

The system consists of a GameBoy Camera (Mitsubishi M64282FP Image Sensor with hardware image processing), an ADC0820 high-speed ADC to convert analog pixel values to digital (the sensor outputs pixels as 2.0V p-p analog values), a LM385-2V5 2.5V micropower voltage reference IC, a PIC18F4660 for processing the digital values to send them later on to a PC via the serial port (or USB with a RS-232 - USB converter).

The PC part of the project is a program (uses OpenGL to display the received image, the height of the pixels change according to brightness to have a fake 3D effect) written on Borland C++  Builder. I also still have the simple test programs written in Processing (brightness tracking, etc.). All will be attached.

A very technical account of how it was all put together can be found here

Infinite Type Trooper 

Interactive installation displays animated type from a vintage keyboard - video embedded below:

Infinite Type Trooper from lettersaremyfriends on Vimeo.

From Letters Are My Friends in Berlin comes an installation that enables you to experience their animated and generated Buchstabengewitter Typeface with a haptic tactile interface - an old Rheinmetall Typewriter from the 1920s. We used the Arduino based USB Typewriter Kit by Jack Zylkin to convert this machine into an USB keyboard and give it a long deserved upgrade after almost a century. The keys are send to a PC that is running the Buchstabengewitter vvvv-patch that animates the glyphs. We gonna use it as a realtime comment tool for talks and events.

Link

Glow Threads 

Interactive UV light responsive t-shirts which are commercially available:

Glow Thread shirts are the first interactive glow in the dark t-shirts. You are able to to draw and create custom designs using our UV keychain light and UV Laser. Our UV keychain light is included with every purchase which allows you to draw on our shirts by touching the UV light to the shirt and write whatever you want. Using the UV laser you can draw on the shirt from up to 40ft away. Unlike other Glow Thread “imitators” where you are limited to a silk screened rectangle to draw on, our Glow Thread shirts are fully customizable and you are able to draw on every piece of the t-shirt. This means there is NO silk screened area and you are able to draw on the front, back, sides and even the sleeves.

You can find out more and order one from Glow Threads here

HD Microscopic Zoomable Photo Of Weathered Euro Coin 

An interactive photo at New Scientist lets you intimately examine the wear and scratches of an average coin - by Sumit Paul-Choudhury:

The euro has taken a bit of a battering of late - and not just in the financial markets. As you can see for yourself above, the surface of a 1-cent coin, while smooth to the naked eye, is pitted and scarred when viewed through a powerful microscope.

To create this image, artist Martin John Callanan, a fellow at University College London based in the Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art, worked with Ken Mingard, Petra Mildeova and Eric Bennett at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory in London. The team used an optical microscope to create images of the lowest-denomination coins used in Australia, Burma, Swaziland and Chile, as well as the transnational euro. They took standard coins that had been in circulation and left the microscope to make 4000 tiny exposures overnight. It then took three days of processing to stitch these images together to create each final, 400-million-pixel version …

The coin images are part of an ongoing series called The Fundamental Units in which Callanan explores “the atoms that shape the global economy”. Ultimately, the series will encompass all 166 of the world’s active currencies that use coins. The first five are on display as 1.2-by-1.2-metre prints, along with more of Callanan’s works, at the Galleria Horrach Moyà in Mallorca, Spain, until 17 January 2013.

You can explore the interactive photo over at New Scientist here

Pinokio

An interactive animatronic lamp by Shanshan Zhou, Adam Ben-Dror, Joss Doggett - video embedded below:

Pinokio from Adam Ben-Dror on Vimeo.

Created …with Processing, Arduino, and OpenCV.

Pinokio is an exploration into the expressive and behavioural potentials of robotic computing. Customized computer code and electronic circuit design imbues Lamp with the ability to be aware of its environment, especially people, and to expresses a dynamic range of behaviour. As it negotiates its world, we the human audience can see that Lamp shares many traits possessed by animals, generating a range of emotional sympathies. In the end we may ask: Is Pinokio only a lamp? – a useful machine? Perhaps we should put the book aside and meet a new friend.

Rhizome: Prosthetic Knowledge Picks - Kinect Genealogy - A Brief History of Gestural Interfaces 

To commemorate the upcoming second anniversary of the release of Microsoft’s Kinect, a device which changed interactive art, I take a look at other examples of creative gestural interfaces from the 1960’s to the 1990’s, plus more.

You can see the entire piece at Rhizome 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

BeautiPi 

Interesting demo of real-time visual performance project set in a detailed generated natural scene:

This is a demonstration that prototypes some of the ideas behind Beautypi.

Showcase:
* Visuals: rendered in real-time, all the content is procedurally generated.
* Reaction: music
* Interaction: midi controller and multiple smartphone clients.

Music, “Winter’s Light”, by JosSs
Beautypi : Pol Jeremias & Inigo Quilez

There is not much more information about the project at present, but you can check out the project’s website 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.

Anarchy Dance Theatre 

Taiwanese dance group perform in specially designed interactive projected space created by UltraCombo to great effect - video below:

The collaboration project between Anarchy Dance Theatre and Ultra Combos focused on building up a new viewer centered performance venue. In this space all movements including the dancers’ and audience’s can be detected and interact with each other through visual effect. The audience is not merely watching the show but actively participating in it.

More about the group and their project can be found here

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