TLDR: I’m interested in illustrating surveillance and facial collection in real time as a visual experience allowing viewers to interact with the captured collection of faces, from viewers that came before them.

Inspiration

Concept

The idea of taking something fun that makes people want to “stick” their head into some contraption, and then completely doing a 180 that illustrates the subtle ways of surveillance is interesting.

Possible Process?

Golan recommended Touch Designer for this particular project, but I’m debating about the possibility of Open Processing and/or Python in VSCode.

Reverse Projection Sculpture could be the Initial Capture!

Nica & I talked about projecting the individual’s face on a sculpture infront of them in real time. If I was able to create a cardboard box with the black fabric on the inside/outside, and when the individual stuck their face inside, they see the reverse projection of their face onto the frosted mask. The individual sticking their head inside is the “opt in” and the video would most likely capture their shock and confusion as they try and make out who it is. The mask is of a specific size, so no matter who sticks their face in, they will look different – especially if I apply a face filter on. I know if I stuck my face and saw a reverse projection, my mouth would be dropped open and I’d say “woah that’s crazy” and likely not recognize myself at first, I’d also then try and see it replicate my mouth movements. That video of me trying to put together my reflection and process what I see in the box, would be projected onto the grid, and would be the continuous video seen of me.

In terms of ethics, I’ll ask people I know to stick their head in. If I show this at open studio, I can write that the faces will be deleted after the performance, or I could ask for signatures of individuals willing to let me “keep their face” for art purposes. Lots to think of here…

Recording faces in real time will be annoying, so I need to be able to build a rig that does the following:

1. How to capture the video (Reverse Projected Sculpture)
  1. I think Golan’s open processing holds a lot of promise, esp OpenCV!!
  2. FaceWork – https://openprocessing.org/sketch/2219047
  3. Alternate possibilities include more hardcore facial imaging:
    1. Google Image Segmenter – Extract specific regions of image you want
      1. https://ai.google.dev/edge/mediapipe/solutions/vision/image_segmenter
    2. Google Face Landmark Detection Guide
      1. https://ai.google.dev/edge/mediapipe/solutions/vision/face_landmarker
2. Crop video?
  1. If everything’s set at a specific camera and the rig consistently captures each individual using Tony Oursler’s method, it could be okay!
3. Develop rules – does the video capture for 5 seconds, when does it start? After 1s of detection? When does it end? Can I make it automatic? Or do I need to be there like I’m a fair grounds person.
4. Save the video to a folder on the desktop
5. Develop another set of code that reads the most recent video featured on the desktop
6. Adds the most recent video to a projection grid of faces
  1. I would love to randomize faces, but I’m not sure that’s realistic in this timeframe.

Golan recommended Touch Designer and after much researching, I can add videos in real time using two options (thank you to this anonymous person):

“You could use the Folder DAT to monitor the files in the network and load them into individual Movie File In TOPs are you want to show them. In this case you wouldn’t be using the ‘Sequence of Images’ mode in the Movie File In TOP whereby it’s pointing at a directory.

Another option is to use the ‘Specify Index’ mode of the Movie File In TOP instead of ‘Sequential’, which allows you to set the index manually. This way when you reload the node it won’t start from the beginning again.” https://forum.derivative.ca/t/realtime-update-folders-contents/7744

Ideas for capturing the video consistently:

Tony Oursler’s method of facial capturing

Isla gave an interesting idea for making it fun for people to stick their heads in, almost like at a fair. Drastic contrast for the idea of capturing people’s faces.

Quick Mockup of Possible Rig Process