It’s You is an interactive storefront-window projection that explores the mechanisms of public behaviors and the line between the real and constructed social actions.
The installation is a rear projection on large storefront window. Human figures crowd around something that they obscure from the pedestrian’s view. When the pedestrian stands behind them, as if to look over their shoulders, they step aside to allow him a view onto what they’re looking at. The pedestrian can now see part of the unfolding scene, and he obscures the view for the other pedestrians; he’s become part of the crowd.
When the pedestrian enters the interaction area in front of the window, the projected figures turn their heads glancing at him.
If the pedestrian stops, they will move aside, parting enough to allow him a view onto what they’re looking at.
After the pedestrian has been in the interaction area for a period of time, the projected figures will turn to face him as one of the figures points him out. This sudden gesture of recognition, confrontation or accusation directed at him startles and singles out the viewer. The other projected figures look at him, silently questioning, scrutinizing, judging. As the pedestrian moves, the projected people they track him with their gazes. The pedestrian realizes that he is the one on display, he became the spectacle. The projected figures are waiting for what he will do next. If he gestures of moves, the projected audience will applaud, whisper to each other or take pictures with their virtual cameras.
The viewer quickly realizes that the installation is interactive, and tries waving his hands or doing other gestures to ‘activate’ it. To this the projected figures react by clapping, applauding the performance and clarifying their role of audience.
Installation at CAM Raleigh for Born Digital:
Viewer’s movement and expressions are mimicked by an animal’s head which is overlaid on the viewer’s reflection. The resulting effect invites inquiry into issues of self-awareness, empathy and non-verbal communication.
A different animal appears every time a person walks in front of the mirror. The animals represent species from across the spectrum of domestication, from wild predators to domesticated species to animals who have evolved to coexist with human settlements, while remaining ‘wild’.
The animal mimics the viewer’s facial expressions, interspersing them with its own independent ones. One feels compelled to in turn enact those animal expressions, lip licking and snarling, fully inhabiting the role, following while being followed.
The images above show how the person looking in the mirror sees the animal image: as overlaid on their own reflection. For others, seeing this interaction from a different perspective, the animal head is offset, as in the video below. (The pictures were taken with the animal being offset for the viewer).
Made using
openTSPS(opentsps.com/)
openFrameworks (openframeworks.cc/)
Unity3d (unity3d.com/)
Blender3d (blender.org/)
Background
Audience exposes the dramatic mechanisms of spectatorship, public gatherings and how they effect individual actions. The viewer is acknowledged and becomes a part of the ad-hock audience, and then the object of its scrutiny. He or she is inadvertently caught up in the social dynamic of curiosity and spectatorship, and invited to examine its nature.
The projected characters eventually transfer the attention from themselves to the viewer, spotlighting him and moving the staging area from under their feet to the sidewalk, upending the subjective roles of spectators, performers and participants. The audience’s attention invites the viewer to fill in the situation with the specifics of their individual circumstance, prompts introspective inquisitiveness. One’s anonymity in public space is called into question. The installation uses surveillance technology, and provokes the same privacy questions that its wide spread use does. Are we being singled out by the system? Perhaps we have unwittingly prompted suspicions by the way we walk or dress? The intelligence of these systems is often opaque and prompts suspicion, distrust and self-survaillance. The installation also relates different viewers to one another.
The installation, while being a literal display, simultaneously takes part in the pedestrian’s reality, the characters responding to the social space they help to create. At the same time it remains a metaphor that relies on the suspension of disbelief, and leads the viewers to examine their relationship to their social and physical environment.
It’s You
It’s You is an interactive storefront-window projection that explores the mechanisms of public behaviors and the line between the real and constructed social actions.
The installation is a rear projection on large storefront window. Human figures crowd around something that they obscure from the pedestrian’s view. When the pedestrian stands behind them, as if to look over their shoulders, they step aside to allow him a view onto what they’re looking at. The pedestrian can now see part of the unfolding scene, and he obscures the view for the other pedestrians; he’s become part of the crowd.
When the pedestrian enters the interaction area in front of the window, the projected figures turn their heads glancing at him.
If the pedestrian stops, they will move aside, parting enough to allow him a view onto what they’re looking at.
After the pedestrian has been in the interaction area for a period of time, the projected figures will turn to face him as one of the figures points him out. This sudden gesture of recognition, confrontation or accusation directed at him startles and singles out the viewer. The other projected figures look at him, silently questioning, scrutinizing, judging. As the pedestrian moves, the projected people they track him with their gazes. The pedestrian realizes that he is the one on display, he became the spectacle. The projected figures are waiting for what he will do next. If he gestures of moves, the projected audience will applaud, whisper to each other or take pictures with their virtual cameras.
The viewer quickly realizes that the installation is interactive, and tries waving his hands or doing other gestures to ‘activate’ it. To this the projected figures react by clapping, applauding the performance and clarifying their role of audience.
Installation at CAM Raleigh for Born Digital:
Viewer’s movement and expressions are mimicked by an animal’s head which is overlaid on the viewer’s reflection. The resulting effect invites inquiry into issues of self-awareness, empathy and non-verbal communication.
A different animal appears every time a person walks in front of the mirror. The animals represent species from across the spectrum of domestication, from wild predators to domesticated species to animals who have evolved to coexist with human settlements, while remaining ‘wild’.
The animal mimics the viewer’s facial expressions, interspersing them with its own independent ones. One feels compelled to in turn enact those animal expressions, lip licking and snarling, fully inhabiting the role, following while being followed.
The images above show how the person looking in the mirror sees the animal image: as overlaid on their own reflection. For others, seeing this interaction from a different perspective, the animal head is offset, as in the video below. (The pictures were taken with the animal being offset for the viewer).
Made using
openTSPS(opentsps.com/)
openFrameworks (openframeworks.cc/)
Unity3d (unity3d.com/)
Blender3d (blender.org/)
Background
Audience exposes the dramatic mechanisms of spectatorship, public gatherings and how they effect individual actions. The viewer is acknowledged and becomes a part of the ad-hock audience, and then the object of its scrutiny. He or she is inadvertently caught up in the social dynamic of curiosity and spectatorship, and invited to examine its nature.
The projected characters eventually transfer the attention from themselves to the viewer, spotlighting him and moving the staging area from under their feet to the sidewalk, upending the subjective roles of spectators, performers and participants. The audience’s attention invites the viewer to fill in the situation with the specifics of their individual circumstance, prompts introspective inquisitiveness. One’s anonymity in public space is called into question. The installation uses surveillance technology, and provokes the same privacy questions that its wide spread use does. Are we being singled out by the system? Perhaps we have unwittingly prompted suspicions by the way we walk or dress? The intelligence of these systems is often opaque and prompts suspicion, distrust and self-survaillance. The installation also relates different viewers to one another.
The installation, while being a literal display, simultaneously takes part in the pedestrian’s reality, the characters responding to the social space they help to create. At the same time it remains a metaphor that relies on the suspension of disbelief, and leads the viewers to examine their relationship to their social and physical environment.