Final Project Proposal

Thinking Process/ CONCEPT
When looking for inspiration on this project I turned inward this time. As a developing artist I feel now is the time I want my personal artistic voice to be developing more and in the end of this action, be heard. What is it I want to be said then and what will I choose to share in this moment?
Undoubtably the place where you live and are experiencing in now, as well as the past places, contribute to the foundation of a persons perspective. I currently am a student living in Toronto, coming from a place that seems so much further and different from here. The art piece concept I am addressing is then a reflection on one of the many reactions to this experience.

I have come to live in a place that feels foreign and unadaptable to me. When exposed long enough to that feeling, unknowingly you begin changing  and while unrecognizable to you, you are in fact adapting, but in a means of survival.  In a place that you made home but feel trapped in, in a place that transforms the lines and blurs them,  it becomes the place where the individual turns and is converted into the masses. It is easy to forget and easily forgotten how particularly different each person, your person, is when one can blend so well with another. However there is one place I am reminded of my individual (and am taken back at how surprised and different each glance can be), the mirror.

The current name for this project is ‘Uniquely Blurred,’ and is proposed as a projected  installation piece.
The user of the piece (the individual(s)) is meant to interact in an environment where their presence will be individually  and uniquely represented in a some visual aspect on the screen. That persons presence is logged for a period of time while others whom enter and interact with the space compile on top, again with their own individual design. This adresses the projects overall message and feeling by showing how each person is unique in their own way but as time progresses their pattern and that uniqueness becomes less and less dominant eventually engulfed in the mass of others.

There are many projects that revolve around a similar concept in this form (not the idea per say):

Daniel Rozins - Mechanical Mirrors
“Daniel Rozin is an artist, educator and developer, working in the area of interactive digital art. As an interactive artist Rozin creates installations and sculptures that have the unique ability to change and respond to the presence and point of view of the viewer. In many cases the viewer becomes the contents of the piece and in others the viewer is invited to take an active role in the creation of the piece. Even though computers are often used in Rozin’s work, they are seldom visible.”[http://www.smoothware.com/danny/newbio.html]

Myron Krueger
Myron Krueger is one of the original pioneers of virtual reality and interactive art. Beginning in 1969, Krueger developed the prototypes for what would eventually be called Virtual Reality.
[http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=328]

Camille Utterback – Text Rain
[http://www.camilleutterback.com/textrain.html]

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer-Under Scan
Under Scan is an interactive video art installation for public space. In the work, passers-by are detected by a computerized tracking system, which activates video-portraits projected within their shadow.
[http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/english/projects/underscan.htm]
Many of his other works revolve around peoples relations with one another; another example Body Movies.

Interest to Adapt/APPROACH
Right Now(November 19)

*This will be the final presentation of this project to be presented in class

(At This Particular Stage Of Planning) Equipment Needed:
Projector
Black Background
Screen
Video Camera
White Lighting
Computer
-Program: Processing

Processing/OpenCv/Jymron

*Processing sketch - The video capture is turned into pixel form, that differs in a accordance to brightness. The brighter locations are also given larger pixel size.

*Blob tracking
-Would like to cross between the two ideas.

Open CV
(Open Source Computer Vision) is a library of programming functions for real time computer vision.
Sources used in the understanding of:

Getting Started with Video Processing Via Opencv
Andy Best

(Looking For)

Changes:
-there is a subtract background function: eleminating the need for a background color
-size:the scale that I will finish with by December (tv screen/large monitor)

November 13

*Earlier rough sketch

In Myron Krueger’s video he speaks of how when producing their pieces of work, “people show a natural desire to identify with the image on the screen. The image is of them and they expect it to be able to do as much as the can in the physical world… It’s a real time phenomenon.”
It is this concept the piece I propose is to tap into as well. For some reason with any of the installations where the computer and self are in a real time setting, people inquire and play slightly longer than usual. There’s a connection and a desire in oneself -and if in an “art” setting I think the project would lure people to watch, ponder and participate with ease.

It is Daniel Rozins’s Mechanical Mirrors however that influence how I will approach the construction of the piece the most. The location of the camera, as well the use of video information to collect the desired data - people. While Rozin uses gray scale in his process, I am purposing to stay with color in hopes to show a greater variance amongst people and to create a more interesting visual. Rozin also talks about the video’s pixel intake which I too hope to tone down, perhaps even more greater than himself. Also the background color black used behind the participants should be noted. After playing with some visualizations, this method proves to be best when tracking individuals. The code I will most likely use calculates the brightness levels and having a black background(a neutral plain) will help with the separation due to its lack of color/brightness.

In Earlier Stages of Inquiry/Examples:
The following is a video of another way to use projections in regards to people on screen - notice the projector is behind the screen. This is thought to be an alternative idea knowing what equptment would be easily available (a low projection & limit wiring abilities) and hasnt been completely disregarded yet; although projection from the front of the screen is how the project is being set to eventually work.

Bellow was one of the images, when researching, as a way of showing difference in persons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8zKUuLdUy4&feature=related