I started my undergraduate career knowing I was interested in technology but without focus. My coursework in Computer Science and Computer Engineering started me down a path towards digital projects but I was not feeling inspired until I saw what is possible when digital technology is applied to interactive installations. Once I saw what other people were doing to create compelling visuals and experiences I realized I, too wanted to explore multimedia technology as art.
This page serves as a collection of links and information to catalog various projects I have seen or worked on that have influenced my current work.
Vertigo Dance Floor
The Vertigo Dance Floor is an animated LED dance floor that I worked on during my undergraduate time at Washington University in Saint Louis. It was inspired by a floor built by students at MIT called the Disco Dance Floor.
It consists of 512 6″ square pixels built into an array that is portable and can be walked and jumped on. Each pixel has a Red, Green and Blue LED in it that can be dimmed to nearly any color. When all pixels are animated it lights up the room with pulsating colors.The floor is built as four 4×8 foot panels for a total size of 8×16 feet.
I started working on the project my Sophomore year when we first built it, acting as project manager. Along the way I learned a lot about both project management and the more technical aspects. In later years I managed the booking and transportation of the floor to events as well as writing new software for it to enable new animations.
After the floor was built we took it to numerous events around Saint Louis including museum open houses, dance parties and fundraisers.
http://washufloor.blogspot.com
http://www.scotttorborg.com/disco-dance-floor/
Video Projection
I am interested in novel ways to use projected video and especially to tie it into cameras and other sensors to make it reactive.
Chunky Move’s Mortal Engine:
A dance performance by Chunky Move with camera tracking, projected video and lasers. I really like it because of their use of projected ‘black’. The stage looks like it is lit exclusively by the projector in many cases so dancers can hide in dark parts of the video for extra effect. The organic forms of the dancers and the video are very compelling.
I/O Brush
This project from the MIT Media Lab consists of a ‘paint brush’ with a camera in it that samples the environment. The user can then draw pictures using these samples on a screen. This is compelling because it uses sampled video in addition to static images. The video demonstrates sampling a blinking eye and incorporating it into the painted collage.
http://web.media.mit.edu/~kimiko/iobrush/
L.A.S.E.R. Tag
Light graffiti involves marking up buildings with projected imagery instead of paint. Some projects consist solely of static imagery projected to make a statement, while others let users interactively create the graffiti. The L.A.S.E.R. Tag project took this to a grand scale by letting people draw graffiti on the side of a large building by using a very bright projector. The drawing tool was a high-powered green laser that was visible at large distances by a camera which tracked the users strokes to generate the imagery. The imagery is especially interesting because they used effects to make it look like actual paint — complete with paint drips.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/urban_data/