Brass Art: A house within a house within a house within a house

Performances from Brass Art (Lewis, Mojsiewicz, Pettican), captured at the Freud Museum, London, using Kinect laser scanning and Processing, reveal an intimate response to spaces and technologies. ‘A house within a house within a house within a house’ links historical and cultural representations of the double, the unconscious and the uncanny to this artistic practice. The new moving-image and sonic works form part of a larger project to inhabit the writing rooms of influential authors, entitled ‘Shadow Worlds | Writers’ Rooms’

MetaSpace II: Object and full-body tracking for interaction and navigation in social VR

MetaSpace II (MS2) is a social Virtual Reality (VR) system where multiple users can not only see and hear but also interact with each other, grasp and manipulate objects, walk around in space, and get tactile feedback. MS2 allows walking in physical space by tracking each user's skeleton in real-time and allows users to feel by employing passive haptics i.e., when users touch or manipulate an object in the virtual world, they simultaneously also touch or manipulate a corresponding object in the physical world. To enable these elements in VR, MS2 creates a correspondence in spatial layout and object placement by building the virtual world on top of a 3D scan of the real world. Through the association between the real and virtual world, users are able to walk freely while wearing a head-mounted device, avoid obstacles like walls and furniture, and interact with people and objects. Most current virtual reality (VR) environments are designed for a single user experience where interactions with virtual objects are mediated by hand-held input devices or hand gestures. Additionally, users are only shown a representation of their hands in VR floating in front of the camera as seen from a first person perspective. We believe, representing each user as a full-body avatar that is controlled by natural movements of the person in the real world (see Figure 1d), can greatly enhance believability and a user's sense immersion in VR.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Video: http://living.media.mit.edu/projects/metaspace-ii

LivePhantom: Retrieving Virtual World Light Data to Real Environments.

To achieve realistic Augmented Reality (AR), shadows play an important role in creating a 3D impression of a scene. Casting virtual shadows on real and virtual objects is one of the topics of research being conducted in this area. In this paper, we propose a new method for creating complex AR indoor scenes using real time depth detection to exert virtual shadows on virtual and real environments. A Kinect camera was used to produce a depth map for the physical scene mixing into a single real-time transparent tacit surface. Once this is created, the camera's position can be tracked from the reconstructed 3D scene. Real objects are represented by virtual object phantoms in the AR scene enabling users holding a webcam and a standard Kinect camera to capture and reconstruct environments simultaneously. The tracking capability of the algorithm is shown and the findings are assessed drawing upon qualitative and quantitative methods making comparisons with previous AR phantom generation applications. The results demonstrate the robustness of the technique for realistic indoor rendering in AR systems

The Shadow Mirror

The shadow mirror project is an interactive art installation which mimics user motions and displays them in the form of a a puppet\u27s shadow. In order to accomplish the shadow effect, a motion capture solution is needed alongside a puppet with a controllable motion system and lighting effects. This piece is open to a wide range of audiences both age-wide and culture-wide, allowing us to achieve our goal of bringing forth a universal bond and introducing a new way of interaction through the blending of technology and art

User Experience Design for Presence-Aware Spaces and Technologies

User experience design is a diverse field of study that is constantly changing as unique technologies and modes of interaction are developed. Metaphors are a critical aspect of UX design, serving to acclimate users to new technologies by comparing them to existing objects and ideas. As newer technologies become increasingly distant from real-world objects, developers are quick to look to existing technology for metaphors. This results in a lack of experience-unique metaphors that would create a more immersive experience. This thesis focused on identifying potential real-world metaphors through the use of emerging technologies in an interactive art installation. Based on observations and participant responses, it was clear that the installation was successful at establishing an engaging user experience. However, findings exposed that this experience was facilitated not by metaphor, but by stimulation more along the lines of mimicry. Though different than the initial objective, this discovery was profound due to the implications it holds for developing presence-aware technologies and spaces in the future

DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING THE EDUCATIONAL GAME “INDONESIAN TRIBES” FOR THE KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS

This study is aimed at describing the educational game “The Indonesian Tribes” as multimedia application in the learning activities for the students in kindergarten. This multimedia application is de- signed to facilitate the students in order to improve their knowledge of tribes and cultures in Indonesia such as the traditional clothes, houses, dances in Indonesia, and the gamelan musical instruments. This application is equipped with a Kinect sensor technology to de- tect the external trigger such as speech and gesture recognition that will further encourage the liveliness; children are play while learning. It is in line with the characteristics of the kindergarten students who love to play and learn in their own imagination. The game is also completed with audio-visual animations in various contents, and interactive nature in terms of  playing and learning activities with a simple description and instruction of the English language. The use of interactive contents in this application enables them to have some senses owned better and more effective, such as the senses of sight, hearing, and motorist functions. Also for teachers, it can increase the teaching creativity and create a good atmosphere of learning. In other words, this educational game can enrich the way children understand the essence of learning through playing

An Analysis of How Interactive Technology Supports the Appreciation of Traditional Chinese Puppetry: A Review of Case Studies

From the perspective of safeguarding Chinese Cultural Heritage, this paper discusses how to enhance the appreciation of traditional Chinese puppetry through the support of interactive technology. The author analyses extensive, yet current case studies, based on the findings described in the interactive systems for puppetry performances and interactive technology for puppetry appreciation. The author summarises four aspects of how to enhance the appreciation of, and engagement with, traditional Chinese puppetry: (1) maintaining originality is necessary for the design phase; (2) it is crucial to explore how to use interactive technology in order to design a way for adults to appreciate this form of art; (3) it is also necessary to determine ways to support adult audiences in grasping the cultural significance and folk customs of traditional Chinese puppetry; and (4) the study’s further main research goals are to investigate ways to use emotional expressions, digital storytelling and other methods in conjunction with interactive technology to help multi-cultural users comprehend traditional Chinese puppetry

Let's Resonate! How to Elicit Improvisation and Letting Go in Interactive Digital Art

Participatory art allows for the spectator to be a participant or a viewer able to engage actively with interactive art. Real-time technologies offer new ways to create participative artworks. We hereby investigate how to engage participation through movement in interactive digital art, and what this engagement can awaken, focusing on the ways to elicit improvisation and letting go. We analyze two Virtual Reality installations, ''InterACTE'' and ''Eve, dance is an unplaceable place,'' involving body movement, dance, creativity and the presence of an observing audience. We evaluate the premises, the setup, and the feedback of the spectators in the two installations. We propose a model following three different perspectives of resonance: 1. Inter Resonance between Spectator and Artwork, which involves curiosity, imitation, playfulness and improvisation. 2. Inner Resonance of Spectator him/herself, where embodiment and creativity contribute to the sense of being present and letting go. 3. Collective Resonance between Spectator/Artwork and Audience, which is stimulated by curiosity, and triggers motor contagion, engagement and gathering. The two analyzed examples seek to awaken open-minded communicative possibilities through the use of interactive digital artworks. Moreover, the need to recognize and develop the idea of resonance becomes increasingly important in this time of urgency to communicate, understand and support collectivity

A method for image-based shadow interaction with virtual objects

AbstractA lot of researchers have been investigating interactive portable projection systems such as a mini-projector. In addition, in exhibition halls and museums, there is a trend toward using interactive projection systems to make viewing more exciting and impressive. They can also be applied in the field of art, for example, in creating shadow plays. The key idea of the interactive portable projection systems is to recognize the user׳s gesture in real-time. In this paper, a vision-based shadow gesture recognition method is proposed for interactive projection systems. The gesture recognition method is based on the screen image obtained by a single web camera. The method separates only the shadow area by combining the binary image with an input image using a learning algorithm that isolates the background from the input image. The region of interest is recognized with labeling the shadow of separated regions, and then hand shadows are isolated using the defect, convex hull, and moment of each region. To distinguish hand gestures, Hu׳s invariant moment method is used. An optical flow algorithm is used for tracking the fingertip. Using this method, a few interactive applications are developed, which are presented in this paper