As part of Piksel’s collaboration with the BALTAN Laboratories in Eindhoven, we put out an open call in the summer for proposals from artists who were specifically interested in working with the tracking and mapping technology Open Computer Vision. We received a number of high quality proposals through this call and in the end, Piksel and BALTAN selected the project Flick Flock by Wendy Ann Mansilla and Jordi Puig. Wendy Ann and Jordi participated in the OpenCV workshop that was held at BALTAN in September and are now back in the labs for a 4 week residency. The results of their work will be presented at the Piksel09 exhibition at Gallery 3,14 from November 20 2009 to January 10 2010.
Flick Flock
Flick Flock defines the meaning of the body and its linkage to the continuous transformation of the urban place and the way it can construct and deconstruct society. It is reflecting the interconnections of bodies and space, reshaping each other to form such an unbound relationship. Using stereoscopic and ambisonic 3D technology, Flick Flock recreates the digital urban space we are living in to allow us to immersively experience the role of the physical body as a vehicle of expression and knowledge.
Interacting with Flick Flock:
As soon as the body starts to move in the space, changes in the urban place take place. There are different potential changes that may take place (one at a time or simultaneously): (1) User is moving freely (i.e. the position of the hands and head are continuously moving in space wider apart from each other or in a certain direction) triggers the camera movement/panning and the lighting or changes of scene in the virtual environment (2) Within the flickering bubbles displayed in the sky, video captures of previous interactions from different people or the current user him/herself are displayed. These video captures try to play as much similar or opposed movement as possible from the pool of captured video. (3) The panning of the sound is also influenced by the movement of the body (e.g. movement to the left triggers a sound on the left speaker).
Technology:
Flick Flock will be displayed in full 3D with ambisonic sound and ideally requires the following:
– Stereoscopic (3D) glasses
– at least 7 speakers
– Soundcard that can accomodate at least 7 speakers.
– Projector
– Projection Wall (3.5m x 2m)
– High processing computer with at least dual core intel 2.5 GHZ, Nvidia series 8 card, more than 2 GB ram, 10GB remaining HD space.
– Firewire camera
– IR Light
Software:
– Blender
– Puredata
– OpenCV
– C++
Biographies
Wendy Ann Mansilla (http://www.q2s.ntnu.no/~wendyann) received her M.Sc. in Digital Media at ISNM (International School of New Media) at the University of Luebeck, Germany. In 2005, her master’s thesis on acousmetre in virtual environments was presented at the Europrix Toptalent Award, Vienna. She also participated in various conferences and workshops, gave presentations and published several scientific and research papers on digital media, virtual reality, video games, acousmetric cinema, among others. In 2007, she worked at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in the domain of mixed-reality environments. Along with her academic work, she conducts lectures on new media technologies and augmented reality, and produces and exhibits various interactive media and artworks. She is currently a Ph.D candidate with the Center of Quantifiable Quality of Service at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
Jordi Puig studied Electronic Art at Escola Superior de Disseny (ESDi) where he participated in the production of a number of artistic projects: an interactive installation for public spaces called IDADES; a network art and information visualization project called Nodemail; and interactive audiovisual robot in Connected Memories. He also produced and collaborated on various projects developed at Media Lab Madrid such as “MASK”, “Palimpsesto”, “Delicate Boundaries”, and “Casas Tristes”. Aside from developing art productions, he lectured at ESDi on audio visual installations, computer vision, and fusing interactivity in art and technology. He co-founded a creative advertising company called Cuatic, specialized in the development of physical interaction where he acted as a director of new media technologies for two years. Most of the projects that he developed at Cuatic won considerable awards at digital media and advertising festivals. He also worked at Ars Electronica Futurelab as a Creative Engineer. Aside from visual art, he is also interested in sound projects, for example he recently participated in a theatrical production called Verion. He is currently working as a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).