We have just emerged from six days in a black box at the Kinetica Art Fair, nurturing Surface, the first project on the Ocean of Light 3D LED grid. It was an intense period, with apparently some 10,000 people passing through in three days.
Surface is a responsive virtual eco-system that occupies physical space. It uses a room-sized 3D grid of individually addressable points of light to simulate movement in physical space. The space is dominated by a surface – the boundary between two fluid virtual materials. The materials are affected by sound – nearby noises create waves that ripple across the surface. The surface is, however, unstable: the turbulence caused by noise also triggers luminous blasts. Abstract insect-like autonomous agents, aware of their surroundings, also navigate and negotiate the environment and the surface. The result is a series of interconnected spaces and environments, overlapping physical and virtual spaces that coexist and are aware of each other.
For us, it was also an intense learning experience. The first outing for the Ocean of Light, a hardware project supported by the Technology Strategy Board, was a litmus test for whether this kind of 3D visuals work on the uninitiated – whether people “get it”. It seems that they do – responses were very positive. We’ve also had a lot of ideas – our own and suggested by others – about future directions and options.
We are off to London to set up Ocean Of light for the Kinetica Art fair. We have been developing this project for over a year and playing with this type of media (individually controlled LEDs in space) for over a couple of years.
So where does Ocean of Light come from? Through an experimental and playful approach to creating interactive digital installations, we often found ourselves exploring where real and virtual space coexist. We had explored this through multiuser activity and shared experience of audio and visual virtual space (altzero, ghosts), then entering physical space, perceptually through stereoscopy and physically with wearable proximity sensors (come closer) also using stereoscopic cameras to analyze physical movement to navigate virtual space (driftnet,freq2).
Each project led to their own discoveries but until we started working with LEDs in space it seemed like we were making experiences and environments that a user peers into through some kind of portal, or the screen space. Working with the Nova grid (Stealth, Discontinuum) certainly took a leap out of screen space and into the real world in a more determined way. However the close proximity of the LEDs still created a screen like situation as the viewer would be forced to view the work from an external proximity.
The Ocean of Light Grid is part of the evolution of this development process, Designed on the back of all this investigation and experimentation by squidsoup Ocean of Light should enable audio/visual environments to be experienced from within.
Surface is the first artwork to be exhibited using the Ocean of Light hardware. It uses minimal visuals and sound to evoke the essence of character and movement. Autonomous entities engage in a playful dance, negotiating the material properties of a fluid surface. (Posted by Gareth)
We have been working on a new project, Ocean of Light, that seeks out the immersive and affective possibilities of light-based visualisations in three physical dimensions – a recurring theme in our work. The aim this time is that the piece is large enough to be considered an environment rather than an object – a room filled with countless points of light, each one contributing to a dynamic space that surrounds and envelops you.
The hardware uses re-configured video-wall technology to create a walk-through 3D grid of LEDs. The first piece to be shown on the grid (to be premiered at KINETICA Art Fair, February 5-7 2010), combines abstract volumetric visuals with spatialised sound, to suggest an ecosystem of audiovisual entities that inhabit physical space. Visible and audible as they encircle and fly around the room, they dance with each other and together create what is both a fully three dimensional audiovisual environment and a musical composition.
The work continues several themes in our work. We started exploring spatialised musical composition in 1999 with Altzero. The compositions became dynamic and agent-based in Driftnet/Fly like a bird. Visualisation in 3D has been used in several projects, using a range of techniques from classic red/cyan glasses to view real time anaglyphic projections (Come Closer, Driftnet, and a version of Ghosts), experiments with autostereoscopy, projection onto 3D objects, and most recently moving our work into physical 3D space. See also The Stealth Project and Discontinuum (projects using visualisation techniques in three physical dimensions using NOVA, a 3D LED grid built by ETHZ).
We had an enjoyable and interesting time at Enghien-les-Bains for the Bains Numeriques festival, where we showed three versions of Ghosts, and new piece Discontinuum. Many thanks to Emmanuel, Celine and all at body>data>space.
Discontinuum was part re-developed in situ, as the piece was positioned inside the church of St Joseph, and we felt it needed to reflect on and respond to the space more. Live footage from a hidden webcam was mixed with static imagery taken from the stained glass windows in the church; the brilliant colours of the stained glass becoming reproduced within the NOVA cube. More documentation soon…
In addition to the usual festival goers, we had a lot of interest from the church-going community – rare access to a completely different audience, whose responses were surprisingly positive (at least once the fact that the piece was a reflection on the place was understood).
Discontinuum has become an evocation of place as well as an exploration of the visual possibilities of extruding live imagery through space and across time. ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)/horao GmbH (who designed and built the NOVA) are planning to show a version of Discontinuum in Zurich; evoking another place (or idea) will be an interesting development for the project.
Ghosts worked well inside the Mediatheque George Sand, using a tryptich of plasma screens to good effect, the three screens in various states of legibility, and reacting immediately and simultaneously to text input.
On other fronts, preparations are underway for ISEA 2009. The exhibition starts on 7th August at Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast, and runs through to the end of the ISEA conference on 30th August. The Stealth project should be running throughout.
Also looks like we’ll be showing Glowing Pathfinder Bugs at the onedotzero festival (South Bank, London) in September – if you have a design week subscription see this from the mouth of the man himself
We tried crossing two beams of light inside a block of aerogel, thinking it might somehow produce a brighter point in 3D space. It doesn’t. However, some beguiling effects can be obtained, in 2D and in 3D, using two projections onto a block of aerogel.
Perhaps reminiscent of dappled sunlight and silhouettes of passing strangers, this is actually two projections of Outtake – a version of Ghosts from 2003 – from different angles onto a small block of aerogel.
Also – rendering of the Mac dock into 3 dimensions
A 3D visual deconstruction of time and space. Work in progress.
A camera feed is passed through physical space over time, creating imagery that contains fragments from a range of times simultaneously. Unlike a 2D image taken over a long duration – which would essentially be a blur – the time is ordered in the third dimension, as if time was flowing in a particular direction.
Seen from ahead, the image is superimposed on itself, similar to its 2D counterpart, but from other angles, the flow of time through space can clearly be seen. And from behind, time slowly fades away into the distance.
The project builds on ideas first implemented in squidsoup’s Freq2 – www.squidsoup.org/freq2
Discontinuum is a Squidsoup project, in collaboration with ETHZ and horao GmbH.
