Ah, computer vision. In retrospect I should have put the Kyle McDonald work I mentioned in my previous looking outwards here. No matter – just an excuse to go out and dig up more work.
Please Smile by Hye Yeon Nam is a fairly simple installation piece. To be honest, the tech side of it doesn’t seem that complex. It can detect the presence of humans and if they are smiling or not, so not exactly the most thrilling set of interactions. What I do like is the use of the skeletal hands, which seem to point accusingly at you as their default reaction to your presence. It’s like they are punishing you for failing to be more welcoming to them.
Link: http://www.hynam.org/HY/ple.html
Dancing to the Sound of Shadows comes to us from the design group Sembler in collaboration with the Feral Theatre. The project takes the movements from the latter collaborator’s shadow puppet production of The Sound Catcher and uses them to generate real-time music that reflected the live performance. The music itself is inspired by native Indonesian music. It’s a real treat.
Link: http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/dancing-to-the-sound-of-shadows
Lastly is another work from our homeboy James George, in collaboration with Karolina Sobecka. It’s pretty amazing, I think. A dog is projected into a storefront window and reacts aggresively, defensively, indifferently, or affectionately based on the viewer’s gestures. Unlike the previous skeleton hand piece, I think here the choice of the dog as the central figure encourages more sustained interest and engagement with the piece. It was done using Unity3d in communication with openFrameworks.