Installation art and alternate forms of interaction

Knock on wood presents Romeo and Juliet
Large audience interaction

This 3D recreation of Romeo and Juliet starring digital marionettes allowed for audience interaction in the form of clapping and booing. The goal was to recreate the audience experience of Shakespeare's day where the actors would play off of the opinions they received from the audience.

There were two levels of technology behind the theater audience's experience. The first was to heighten the immersion into the space. Three projections are used to surround the audience with the action of the piece, in front of the audience is a projected traditional stage, on the right and left of the audience there are also projections of the right and left wings respectively. The wings deepen the story by showing the audience what happens with the characters not on the main stage as the play progresses.

The second level of technology is the inclusion of microphones placed throughout the audience. These microphones record the audience at key points during the performance. The audio information is relayed to a computer which calculates if there is more clapping or booing by analyzing the volume of various frequencies and effects the visuals the audience perceives next.

Alison
Stratified Cooperative Storytelling in Dissociative Identity Disorders: A Dynamic Installation

The Alison installation is a system that makes use of the viewer's physical movement through a space. The interactive component will be the viewer's ability to choose what they want to see by moving between four distinct displays. Each of the displays will provide views of parallel paths of the same story. The system will then modify these story paths based on a record of which of the displays the viewer has previously visited. In this way the interaction through the choice of which screen to view will drive two forms of interactive storytelling. Primarily, it is a parallel storytelling method but the modifications that effect the various parallel paths add a second layer of multilinear story structure. The multilinear aspect will ensure that no two experiences within the space will ever be the same even if two viewers see the same parallel paths.

The visuals tell the story of a child with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Each of the four displays is associated to and house an individual alters of that character. As the viewer moves from alter to alter various aspects of the alters' environments and appearances are influenced by the viewer's choices.

The major technology layer behind the creation of this piece is the use of a mysql database to store all the information on where the viewer chooses to spend their time and how they move about the space. These numeric values are used to dynamically adjust imagery based on what they represent as far as which alters the viewer is visiting most frequently, for how long and in what order.

Wiizards
Gestural inputs as a game mechanic

Wiizards explores the use of 3D accelerometer data as a control mechanism for a zero sum game. The game allows two players to create symbols by drawing them in the air with wii-motes. Each player's symbols string together to create more complex spell combinations. The order of the symbols controls the eventual output of the combination.

The gesture recognition is based on past attempts to create the same gesture. Testing was preformed to show that 90% accuracy could be obtained after an individual player attempted a gesture seven times. This meant that the system would need to be trained along with the player, in a practice mode, before the player could play against other people. In this practice mode the player would be presented with the symbols they needed to replicate and the system would associate the gesture they performed with the gesture that was presented to them during the practice. These associations are then used during competitive play to determine which gesture the player is performing.

The published paper on Wiizards can be found at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1328202.1328241&coll=&dl=ACM

Shesah
Eye tracking as a form of non-invasive control

Shesah was a test animation that I created to compare purposeful direct control with subconscious or non-invasive control. My goal was to have the means to add the functionality of interactivity without taking away from the viewing experience of a cinema piece. When a user has to interact consciously with a story the connection with the story is weakened. The idea is that if the users are controlling the animation without consciously performing a task it will be more enjoyable as a movie because the user will not lose the suspension of disbelief as easily as they would if they had to stop watching to interact with the animation.

The piece called for a central animation that will be affected by the choices made by the viewer as to what other imagery they choose to look at. Four distinct sections of imagery surround the central animation, as the user looks at them the central animation changes to match the particular piece of imagery they choose to view.

Wonderland
Motion tracking

A development test for the future Alison project, this installation project based on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland series allowed the user to interact with a number of characters from the series by simply approaching them. The technology behind the piece was a digital camera which provided motion tracking of the user. When the camera detected that the user was in front of one of the monitor's housing a character that character would speak to the user choosing what to say depending on who else the user had visited in this way.


	Installation art and alternate forms of interaction Knock on wood presents Romeo and Juliet Large audience interaction This 3D recreation of Romeo and Juliet starring digital marionettes allowed for audience interaction in the form of clapping and booing. The goal was to recreate the audience experience of Shakespeare's day where the actors would play off of the opinions they received from the audience. There were two levels of technology behind the theater audience's experience. The first was to heighten the immersion into the space. Three projections are used to surround the audience with the action of the piece, in front of the audience is a projected traditional stage, on the right and left of the audience there are also projections of the right and left wings respectively. The wings deepen the story by showing the audience what happens with the characters not on the main stage as the play progresses. The second level of technology is the inclusion of microphones placed throughout the audience. These microphones record the audience at key points during the performance. The audio information is relayed to a computer which calculates if there is more clapping or booing by analyzing the volume of various frequencies and effects the visuals the audience perceives next. Alison Stratified Cooperative Storytelling in Dissociative Identity Disorders: A Dynamic Installation The Alison installation is a system that makes use of the viewer's physical movement through a space. The interactive component will be the viewer's ability to choose what they want to see by moving between four distinct displays. Each of the displays will provide views of parallel paths of the same story. The system will then modify these story paths based on a record of which of the displays the viewer has previously visited. In this way the interaction through the choice of which screen to view will drive two forms of interactive storytelling. Primarily, it is a parallel storytelling method but the modifications that effect the various parallel paths add a second layer of multilinear story structure. The multilinear aspect will ensure that no two experiences within the space will ever be the same even if two viewers see the same parallel paths. The visuals tell the story of a child with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Each of the four displays is associated to and house an individual alters of that character. As the viewer moves from alter to alter various aspects of the alters' environments and appearances are influenced by the viewer's choices. The major technology layer behind the creation of this piece is the use of a mysql database to store all the information on where the viewer chooses to spend their time and how they move about the space. These numeric values are used to dynamically adjust imagery based on what they represent as far as which alters the viewer is visiting most frequently, for how long and in what order. Wiizards Gestural inputs as a game mechanic Wiizards explores the use of 3D accelerometer data as a control mechanism for a zero sum game. The game allows two players to create symbols by drawing them in the air with wii-motes. Each player's symbols string together to create more complex spell combinations. The order of the symbols controls the eventual output of the combination. The gesture recognition is based on past attempts to create the same gesture. Testing was preformed to show that 90% accuracy could be obtained after an individual player attempted a gesture seven times. This meant that the system would need to be trained along with the player, in a practice mode, before the player could play against other people. In this practice mode the player would be presented with the symbols they needed to replicate and the system would associate the gesture they performed with the gesture that was presented to them during the practice. These associations are then used during competitive play to determine which gesture the player is performing. The published paper on Wiizards can be found at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1328202.1328241&coll=&dl=ACM Shesah Eye tracking as a form of non-invasive control Shesah was a test animation that I created to compare purposeful direct control with subconscious or non-invasive control. My goal was to have the means to add the functionality of interactivity without taking away from the viewing experience of a cinema piece. When a user has to interact consciously with a story the connection with the story is weakened. The idea is that if the users are controlling the animation without consciously performing a task it will be more enjoyable as a movie because the user will not lose the suspension of disbelief as easily as they would if they had to stop watching to interact with the animation. The piece called for a central animation that will be affected by the choices made by the viewer as to what other imagery they choose to look at. Four distinct sections of imagery surround the central animation, as the user looks at them the central animation changes to match the particular piece of imagery they choose to view. Wonderland Motion tracking A development test for the future Alison project, this installation project based on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland series allowed the user to interact with a number of characters from the series by simply approaching them. The technology behind the piece was a digital camera which provided motion tracking of the user. When the camera detected that the user was in front of one of the monitor's housing a character that character would speak to the user choosing what to say depending on who else the user had visited in this way.