Future Everything

Finally I will write a bit about Future Everything. I totally neglected to keep up on that project on this blog, so I will use this chance right now to just show what I can't otherwise. What inspired me, my experiments, that kind of thing.

The screenshot above is actually from the first time I ever opened Isadora and got to play around with the functions. I was amazed at the program and even more so that motion tracking was not only something that I could do, but that was actively encouraged, by Jaygo to be precise.
The brief for Future Everything talked about collecting information and I had always wanted to work with video, something that I have done now for both Future Everything and Make Your Mark, and I thought; why not collect information in real time and show it immediately?

The logical conclusion was motion tracking and when I mentioned it to Jaygo he was very enthusiastic about it and told me about Isadora and later on showed me the robes with the program, so to say. To be honest, I found and somewhat still think that the software is kind of confusing in its setup and I often had to struggle and experiment a lot to get the desired outcome I wanted.

Before I show some of that, though, I will link to a few videos that inspired me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKtB6iyXn80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzzMOw-uPPE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgplcfpMF78

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6rhvhCiZtc&index=3&list=PL4D309508F004F339

First I wanted to track peoples movement from above and also project onto them from that angle, but that would be coupled with a lot of planning; which room, is there a room suitable for this kind of project at NUA, fastening a beamer and a camera onto the ceiling of this mystical room, the ceiling would have to be pretty high for it to be effective though... and so on. Some of my first thoughts from before I had even approached anyone with the idea can be seen/read in the scan from my sketchbook above.

Isadora is a software that was designed for theater and it really shows. One of the things I actually don't like so much about it is, that it kind of assumes, that someone will be sitting next to it, pressing buttons and triggering the next stages of the projection. Which is logical in a theatre setting, but I want to do something that will work on its own and I'm not quite sure, if I even accomplished that.
I tried anyway.

Sometimes my efforts didn't get me anywhere at all and sometimes I was taking huge leaps in the right direction.
Here are some of my experiments that actually succeeded:

This is actually pretty ingenious, which I can write because it wasn't really my idea. I copied it from a guy's blog, who writes short tutorials on how to use Isadora properly.
The idea is to position the camera so that it faces a flat, white wall or simply a surface or environment that only has one colour. I use the Freeze tool while noone is in the picture. Then, when someone actually steps infront of the camera, Isadora will compare this new information with the freezed backround and voila: motion tracking! :)

Here I combined the Freeze tool with Chroma Key. The key is set to 'red' and when you enlarge the screenshot you can actually see the part it is tracking of me; my lips, the only red thing that was there at the moment.

These examples are for painting with the tracked colour. That effect can be reached by implementing Motion Blur. The only thing I never managed to figure out was how to make the trail from the colour tracking vanish slowly, as if it was a snake. I wanted to do that from the start, but - as I have to admit now - I never managed it and neither the online community, TROIKATRONIX, nor any other source helped me with that.

In the end I wanted to go with a more philosophical approach. It started out with me researching movement philosophy and coming across the action theory which states, that every motion is dictated by a desire. Intent -> Motion. That also means, that all motion would be the physical portrayal of intent, of beliefs and wishes.

However, I wanted to dig even deeper. What if I could visualize the imprint a person leaves on the world? Of course, it is just a small one, but the physical presence of a body does changes things in a room. My final outcome explores this thought. I wanted to make it so, that the picture that is portrayed of the person in front of the camera is sent delayed. This way the body of the person stays longer in one spot, even when the person in question moves somewhere else. One would then have the rare opportunity to have a glimpse of one's own presence. It is a reverse Donnie Darko-effect, a short view into the past.

I really regret that I didn't get the chance to set this whole thing up properly. I would have loved to play around with it and experiment with how people feel in the situation they would find themselves in when interacting with this installation. Well, I plan to do just that sometime during the next few weeks. It will be so much fun!

In conclusion of this project, I want to say that I am aware that this isn't as extensive as it could have been. The final outcome is certainly lacking in real-life testing and could maybe even use a bit of branding, a bit of advertising, so to say. While I certainly experimented a lot inside the Isadora software (the vast majority of these experimentations came out severely crooked and are therefore not displayed here - they simply didn't work), I didn't delve a lot into other paths I could have taken with this.