I will develop some kind of a game that uses people’s positions in their webcams through Zoom to control a collective environment. They move their body and they are able to control something about the environment. This will involve finding a way to capture the video feeds from Zoom and sending that data to openFrameworks, then running some sort of face/pose detection on many different videos at once. Then they can control some aspect of the game environment on my screen, which I share with them.
Category: AprilPlan
End of semester plan
I will be continuing to create anthropomorphic squirrel videos. I have spent the past few weeks shooting, working with Topaz video enhance AI, learning color correction and grading and trying to get DAIN to work. I think the most recent shots have lost the elements of uncanny that some of the earlier shots had and have been leaning too far into constructed sets that teeter into the “cute” category. Going forward I’m focusing on finding the balance between the uncanny, whimsical, and children’s book tone.
Side projects – I have a large amount of footage that my great grandma filmed, mundane and exciting shots from her day to day. Starting off i’m working with the footage with video enhancement to see what that changes, how it affects the image. I do not have a specific goal in mind, but am treating this as a beginning for a project archive of family, place, and time.
One key elements for my projects is getting the DAIN program to function. I have had a lot of difficulty with this, but am continuing to troubleshoot.
End of Semester Plan
For the rest of the semester I’ll be working on a system in my living room, using projection, streaming Ip cams and the Kinect. Given the lack of ability to travel and venture out to public places I thought to bring the places to me by creating something akin to the camera obscura effect, difference being rather than a projection of my immediate outside surroundings it can be anywhere in the world. Using the Kinect to track my motions and TouchDesigner, my hope is to use my body as a way to navigate space and create portals to other streaming locations from the trails of my own local movement. 
April Plan
I plan on refining and finishing the Slime Language piece I proposed earlier in the the semester (below I reposted the explantation of the project). I have already conducted the research I needed to but I have not found the proper execution for it yet. I will try to complete some offerings but I am struggling to find time to do them, due to required work in other classes.
I do want to make more work before the semester ends and I have an idea for a project dealing with medicine/remedies, but I don’t know if it entirely fits the scope of the assignment/class. I may tentatively begin working on that as well, yet I am not sure if I will complete it.
Slime Language:
A speaking system using a cross of the English alphabet, sign language, a Ouija board, tattoos, and gang signs.
Slime Language is a system that uses the phalanx sections of the fingers (proximal, middle, and distal) to plot the English alphabet on the hand. By pivoting and pointing with the thumb, words and sentences can be formed to create silent and performative communication between individuals. The placement of the letters is determined by its frequency in the language and accessibility on the hand.
April Plan
As per our earlier discussions, I plan to make a project (a short 360 video) using the data I’ve already collected of my grandparents and their home (360 photos, old family photographs, and audio recordings). Though I could see this project featuring multiple rooms in the house, I will only focus on one room for the end of this semester. If I expand the project later, this room could be a single installment or “episode”. I guess you could call this a final project, but I’m not sure how final/polished it will be. I’m mostly using it as an exercise in editing for documentary.
I also intend to complete offerings as much as I can, and go back to do some of the older ones I missed (they seem fun, but this has been a busy week for me).
End of Semester Plan
As of April 8th, my plan is to utilize course hours to exploring alternative avenues of personal expression, movement and imagination. I’ve yet to discover how this could potentially manifest as a final project, but I’m dedicating my time to using these thoughts as a lens to explore short offerings in hopes a final project inspiration will be revealed. As a dancer who has been suddenly halted, I do want to use course hours to reinvent my relationship with locomotion and try ground myself again.
End of the Year Plan – Olivia
For the rest of the year I’m planning on working on a final project. For this final project I have two ideas I’m deciding between.
- I am planning on conducting interviews with bands (specifically those who had cancelled tours or just released albums) and broadcast these interviews both on the radio and online. For this class, I am thinking about creating a visual accompaniment to the interview possibly using photogrammetry or some other moving music-video-esc visual to be played while listening to the interview. Since the first project is contingent on whether or not I get interviews with these people, I have a second idea for a project
- I am planning on creating a slenderman-esc horror video game where I use photogrammetry to capture locations near me that are eerily empty (high school parking lot, train parking lot/outside station, church parking lot, downtown shopping area streets/parking lot). The player of the game walks and explores these locations and has to avoid other people.
April plan: Reflect together while social distancing
https://bodypix-covid-grief.glitch.me
That discomfort you’re feeling is grief. In an article that shares the same name, David Kessler talks about how naming our experience as grief begins to give us tools to talk about it. After we acknowledge the presence of grief, the next, and most critical step, is processing it.
But it’s hard to take a moment and take stock of how we’re feeling, and even more difficult to share feeling with others beyond text, video, and our own limited networks. Taking a leaf from Nina’s book, I’m hoping to create a lens for observation that opens up space for participation.
I want to create a lens on our own grief (and other pandemic feelings) as a way to begin to process them. By using browser-based body-detection, I’m hoping to open up the possibilities for observing how our bodies are doing in light of this (traumatic) new way of life, and sharing that experience (in a safe + meaningful way) .
My plan for the rest of the semester is to work on a capture system in Ml5 for processing and recording our experience pandemic through physically “performing” (in front of their webcam) how we are feeling.
Our likeness from the webcam footage is abstracted into a silhouette. By focusing on the silhouette of a body as the capture, the tool helps us focus on the shapes our bodies create, and not our specific appearance. Further, when we look at other’s responses, we can more viscerally “feel” their presence.
By developing this project for the browser, I’m hoping to open up access to as many participants as possible for participation.
These silhouettes will be aggregated and displayed back for people to appreciate everyone’s, possibly feel some solidarity.
Tools: ML5.js (bodyPix), webcam