Check it out at: http://comicable.com/
“The Never-Ending Break-Up Make-Up Storytelling Comic Book Generator” (or NEGBUMCSBG as we like to call it ) arose from an interest in storytelling, comics, and the desire to create a shared space that not only allowed participants to create stories but also allowed individuals to locate and connect similar stories, or other similarly minded storytellers. Read the rest of this entry »
The computer revolution has made it easy for people with little to no technical training to use a computer for such everyday tasks as typing a letter, saving files, or recording data. But what about more imaginative purposes such as starting your car, opening a door, or tracking the contents of your refrigerator? “Physical Computing” will not only change the way you use your computer, it will change the way you think about your computer-how you view its capabilities, how you interact with it, and how you put it to work for you. It’s time to bridge the gap between the physical and the virtual-time to use more than just your fingers to interact with your computer. Step outside of the confines of the basic computer and into the broader world of computing. Get it.
Trading Glances allows people to trade glances separated in time. The installation consists of a screen displaying faces streaming by as if the viewer were passing people in the street.
As the viewer watches the other person’s face, the system records their face and precise eye movements. Later their face is added to this stream of faces in the installation and on the project web site. People can go to the site to see who glanced at them and replay exactly how another person’s gaze travels across their face. Ones’ eye movements can betray very private preferences and yet they are usually publicly viewable. This project tries to invade the privacy of the person doing the surveillance.
This is a chat environment that allows fans to congregate around their favorite part of the Xena television show. This interface differes from movie SpaceTime Chat because the clip is broken down into segments which are depicted by the bars of the bar chart. The height of the bar maps to the number of comments for that segment. Comments are distributed synchnonously to other people logged on concurrently and also stored for future users. The software works for all types of streaming media. Special moderators can log on and edit chat. Chat is automatically censored for profanity. There is also a sniffer which detects the appropriate version of this clip to play for the user’s connection speed. I worked with Sharleen Smith, Yaron Ben-Zvi at Oxygen.
Project Description: This was an experiment to bring the video tracking and video recognition that is very popular at ITP into the realm of very small and inexpensive microcontrollers. It is a continuation of a project that made use of a PIC microcontroller and a Quickcam. With the introduction of very cheap CMOS cameras and very fast SX microcontrollers, this tool could have greater speed and resolution. At the same time a group at CMU developed a commercial kit which uses the same components (better engineering).
Technical Notes: I wrote the software in C for a SX Chip and build the circuitry to connect to a CMOS camera from Omnivision.
Project Description: This was a project to propose a building design for a new Arts and Technology home for the Eyebeam Atelier by Diller and Scofidio Architects.
This was a collaboration with Deane Simpson at the diller+scofidio.
Technical Notes: I designed the system for encorporating DVD video into the 1″ thick poster.
Project Description: This project is a continuation of a three previous Mirrorplay projects that experiment with mirrors that selectively capture a reflection.�This iteration still keys out the background but switches between different criteria for digitizing the foreground, stomping, heads, skin, and suddeness.
STOMPING MODE
In the stomping mode, for ground in image is added permanently to the background when the user stomps their foot. This allows a use to compose a collage by placing themselves or holding things in front of the mirror and then stomping when everything is in the right position.
SUDDENESS MODE
In suddeness mode the mirror records the foreground when it suddenly changes. If a person stands perfectly still they will disappear but if they then jump suddenly their image will be recorded. The result of this is a collection of images of people making a sudden transition from a meditative state to a frantic state.
HEAD MODE
In the heads mode, if one person is standing in front of the mirror the software removes their head and floats it around the screen bouncing off the walls.
If two or more people stand in front of the mirror, the software takes the head from one person and places it on the shoulders of the next person.
Typicially people are amused by this and the software keeps a collection of smiling faces and displays them when no one is standing in front of the mirror.
In the skin mode mirror reflects skin. The software blends new skin on old skin until the mirror is covered with various flesh tones and hints of features. This was too disgusting so I dropped it.
The mirror is mounted in the back on a hinge. To switch between “HEAD”, “STOMP” and “SUDDENESS” modes the user deflects the mirror slightly by turning it on that hinge.
Technical Notes: This was written as a Java application using QuickTime for video digitizing.
A Series of experiments in combining television and internet technologies.
1) Roaming Close Up
This is a client for viewing streaming video. First a high resolution still image of the studio background is displayed. A small rectangle of full motion streaming video of a zoomed in shot from the studio camera is then superimposed on the wide shot. The rectangle of video moves around on the client’s machine depending on what the camera in the studio is aimed at. Another version had the video leave a trail so that the background would always be updated by the video passing over it.
2) Video Cursor
This is a software system for broadcasting video commentary about very precise part of web pages. This software allows one person to stream an image of themsleves talking in a small window that floats above the web pages of a large audience. The software allows the speaker to move this small video window to a particular area of the web page and have it move to over that same part of the web page of everyone in the audience. It is a little bit like a video cursor.
3) Real Person, Virtual Background
Computers for the Rest of You
Project Description: Merpy.com is a children’s Website which features the animated, musical, and interactive stories of several characters by Marianne Petit.� This project set out to build life-size puppets of the Web characters.� The user would face the puppet theater and through manipulating a traditional pop-up advance the story.
Technical Notes: I worked with Marianne to create the life-size motorized puppets.� I built a microcontroller to control them and wrote an authoring tool in Macromedia Director/Lingo for creating sequences of animations for the puppets.
