abstractmachine

I’ve been very busy the last two weeks, sorry for everyone I’ve yet to reply to. Basically, I’m in the middle of about a dozen different projects. Working on a dozen simultaneous projects is a little more than my usual half-dozen, and since no one really pays me well enough to just concentrate on one big project, adding to that the fact that most of the current projects are pro bono, well… everyone will just have to wait in line. sorry ;-)

The great news from all this activity, is that Stéphane showed up for our latest session Sunday afternoon with a working version of the Processing OpenCV library running on Windows. This was just in time for the two-week long rehearsals we started today, in order to finalize Wolf Ka’s latest dance piece. Since Wolf wanted to run everything off of a PC, it was a good excuse to give our OpenCV library a second real-world test run before unleashing it onto the wild. Especially since we have to have this piece ready by early April.

We found a few crazy things just in time, and will probably find a few more, but so far everything is running great, almost immediately, even better than I expected, and we were able by the beginning of the first afternoon to start working on the dance+algorithms, as opposed to plugging things in and banging on the machines. I’m thrilled as to how quickly you can get a full kick-ass tracking program up and working with an absolute minimum of code. Totally cool, that. It’s all in line with the attitude of offloading the ugliness — Processing-style — and just getting to work on the essentials; but not too much, making sure not to dumb things down.

We’ve also taken the opportunity of going through all the original OpenCV examples and documentation, compiling directly in C/C++ through GCC, just to understand how the library works at the most basic level. As it turns out, it’s not all that hard, but we’ve just started a new phase of this research, so we’re still only just getting started — which is pretty exciting for me because I’ve already begun to imagine million little crazy things I can do with this library. Anyway, things like face tracking are an absolute shoo-in for the first beta release (thanks Guillaume), as well as movie import (.avi), and some simple brightness/histogram magic for treating images — either before you analyze them, or just because you want a fast Photoshop style filter inside of Processing. We’re also working on object tracking, but I haven’t gotten around to Kalman predictive filters, as was suggested here in the comments, but I’ll get around to it — it’s just a question of figuring out how the various available examples approach the problem and making it a natural integration into Processing. A lot of Stéphane’s and my work have involved debating how to make the whole process very Processing-like, both simple & modular.

Oh, I should mention that the rehearsals with Wolf are taking place at the beautiful Pavillon Noir, the national dance center recently created by/for Angelin Preljocaj. If you’ve visited Aix-en-Provence recently, you should know what I’m talking about, it’s absolutely unavoidable. Since this time we are working with dancers, it nice to be in an actual dance studio, as opposed to some dingy basement at the Art School.

I should also mention that I have two great students with me, Stefan Schwabe who is currently on loan this year from the design school in Halle, and Fabien Artal, a veritable personnage of the Atelier over the last three years. I’ve been lucky these past few sessions to have a steady stream (but small enough to be manageable) of extremely competent students who transfered to the school with a very specific understanding of what it is we’re trying to accomplish, which is very important in my case, since the Atelier Hypermédia is not always the easiest thing to explain to an art student. It is actually thanks to this current push of students that we have been able to take on some of the more ambitious projects of the Atelier.

• Installation: 12:00
• Concept + Development: Douglas Edric Stanley

This is an installation that I built at the Villa Arson in 2001. Unfortunately, the Villa Arson’s huge (and very expensive) digital arts facility imploded due to some internal contemporary art fascists who were terrified of digital art. I think my residency was all they needed to push them over the edge ;-)

This installation was designed around the Fred Zinneman film “High Noon”. Using an algorithmic cinema software program, I “taught” the computer the film, and gave it pointers on where it could stretch the film out, compact it, make cuts, etc.

For the installation, a chair was set up in the middle of a room with a projected image of high noon on the wall facing it. On the chair, a small calculator-type interface allowed users to choose a new duration for the time. Times could range anywhere from 30 seconds to 24 hours. Once the time entered into the keypad, the film readapted itself to the remaining time.

• Installation/Projection: Cube–
• Workshop: Le cinéma et son programme
• Location: Villa Arson, Nice
• Date: 23-27 April, 2001

I have basically been researching two distinct areas during my residency at the Villa Arson : virtual machines and algorithmic cinema. In this workshop we explored various possibilities for “elastic cinema”, and I showed the participants my experiments in stretching Wile E. Coyote films to make adaptable time lengths and variable gags.

We decided to work off these experiments, only in an installation context. We also wanted to choose a film that would create a sense of confinement, and through our manipulations would provoke a negative impulse away from interactivity, a desire to do anything but interact with it. Interactivity would be a disrupting force for cinema and narrative.

After some debate we finally decided on using Vincenzo Natali’s film Cube. Originally, I proposed using Jaques Becker’s Le trou, but everyone else wanted something more “contemporary”. Oh, today’s youth…

After digitizing the film, we built a simple system using a reed switch mounted on a door and connected to a small I/O interface. The switch was strategically placed on the door leading into the projection of the film Cube. The program, too, was archi-simple : every time the switch was opened, the film would rewind back to frame 1. If no one opens the door, of course the film advances, until… eventually… someone has to leave. Thus opening the switch, and back to frame 1…

• Workshop: net_game
• Artist: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Location: Villa Arson, Nice
• Date: 18-22 December, 2000
• Video: Ontophage

This 4-day workshop was a follow-up to the netlego workshop, in that we recycled the floor-based form of projection. Students then learned the basics of programing, as well as issues that arise with image tracking. A video game was designed, in which various netpacmen could interact with a flashlight controlled Pacman. All ghosts were removed from the game, resulting in a game of cannibalism, hence the name “Ontophage”.

• Workshop: net_lego
• Artist: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Location: Villa Arson, Nice
• Date: 27 November - 1 December, 2000

The goal of this workshop was to introduce students to robotics using Lego Mindstorms. Once the basics of programing cars, trams, and various traditional objects were mastered, the goal then became the creation of an “environement” for these robots. A simple collective web-sketchpad was created, in which several users could draw together from a web-browser. This sketchpad was then projected onto the floor of the main building, where the robots were left to interact with the drawing, using their light sensors as their guide. A small webcam oversaw the activities, allowing users over the web to follow the results of their sketches.

• Machine: Notes
• Concept+Development: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Residency: Villa Arson, Nice

This is a prototype that was built during a residency at the Villa Arson. People come together underneath a video image. By stretching their bodies out, they grow and shrink rectangles which, in their intersections, generate musical notes. After several visually opulent “multimedia” installations, the idea was to return to a more basic computer image, reflecting the individual components that construct the “circuit” of the machine.

• Machine: Game
• Concept + Development: Douglas Edric Stanley

The Game Machine allows for the creation of fully-functioning video games using a drag and drop interface. This prototype was designed during a residency at the Villa Arson in 2000.

• Residency: ZKM
• Group: Esc. to Begin
• Collaborators: Bernd Diemer, Guillaume Stagnaro, Andreas Schiffler
• Date: April 1999
• Website: Esc. to begin

I have been hanging out at the ZKM this month, and working with the fellows at the Esc. to Begin group on open-source and experimental game platforms.