Interactive installation. Displaying responsive artificial life.

The Meditating Morus is an interactive exhibit, displaying imaginary creatures, who respond to being looked at by humans.
The project was my master’s thesis project at NYU ITP .
A continuing research from 2009 project ‘Axolotl’, ‘The Meditating Morus’ is an exploration of ways to present life-like behavior and motion, of animated organisms. Derived by the question of what makes us see an object as alive, and how can we reflect on the perception of life through this experience. I was curious to see what kind of response can be invoked in human observers of such experience. The exhibit is a physical installation, presenting the creatures in a three dimensional space, resembling a nature museum diorama.

I developed the project using Processing and open Frameworks in conjunction. Using algorithmic design and motion allows for convincing, real-time and ever changing nature of motion and behaviors, as well as interaction, among the creatures themselves, and also toward human visitors who observe them. The creatures may respond in different ways, according to traits that they posses, such as curiosity, playfulness, anxiety etc. The experience encourages quiet observation. The creatures are attracted to, and change their behavior when human face is quietly looking at them. The Morus was displayed at a group exhibition, Geekdown 2010 in 92yTribeca gallery. It was interesting to see the different responses from visitors, especially kids who often thought that the creatures are real.

More details on project page The Meditating Morus

The Meditating Morus on display at Geekdown show at 92YTribeca Gallery.

Informational lightbox

The creatures

The installation

Large scale animated experience for the IAC video wall.

Momentary is an animated experiment inspired by the Zen principle of impermanence and its expression in traditional Japanese ink painting. Placed in the digital context of the IAC video wall, contrasting and connecting with nature in a transient composition.

This project was a continuation of a long time curiosity that I have about the meeting of animation and japanese painting. Creating a spatial and personal experience, when displayed on the huge canvas of the IAC video wall.

The visual direction drawn from classical painters as well as contemporary imagery,  combines algorithmic elements created in processing, alongside elements that were animated in After-Effects, mainly particles systems that simulate the behavior of ink and brush on rice paper. I collaborated with Elizabeth Fuller for this fusion, and she contributed some interesting landscape elements, that were generated using Processing. The animated nature of the piece is of  transient compositions, writing onto the paper/screen and vanish right after to make place for new compositions. This allowed for many different perspectives and points of view to be presented in space and in time. And made the point that everything is transient and momentary in our world. For this project, I composed the sound-track, alongside working on the animation, which made it an integrated audio visual work flow.

Produced as part of ‘Big Screens’ at NYU’s ITP.
Momentary on display at the IAC building (mockup)

excerpts from the animation. click on images to view the gallery

Experience being inside a tornado. Interactive street-scape ad, promoting Discovery’s show, Storm Chasers.

Large interactive screen, installed in two location at the heart on New-York city, gave pedestrian a taste of what it would be like to get caught in a massive tornado storm in the city. Standing in front of the big screen, seeing a reflection of yourself in an NYC environment, the application displayed the scenery under a tornado attack, with flying debris and a huge tornado funnel that engulf the whole screen.

The installation integrated cinematic special effects, composed in real time by an augmented reality application. It had site specific calibration to the architectural environment, Alongside  motion tracking and background subtraction. This allowed the tornado to be composed on screen in relation to perspective depth. The computer also controlled two industrial grade blowers. As the tornado approached the blowers escalated in speed, pulsating left to right to create a whirling wind feeling.
This project was an interesting opportunity to create animated visual effects, into the context of a real time interactive experience. Achieving modularity by creating multiple layers of animated objects, and integrating them as live elements into the augmented reality code.
At the end of the storm, users were presented with the option to get a link to their photo, inside the tornado, via text message. Many opted to get the photos and uploaded them to facebook in large numbers. It was a great to see  many users getting creative and playful with the tornado, posing multiple times with friends, and even babies, acting as if almost blown by the wind.

Produced by Inwindow Outdoor
Storm Chasers site test

Interactive installation — displaying suspicious artificial creature

Axolotl was conceived and developed as an academic project at ITP program of NYU, in collaboration with Filippo Vanucci. The name ‘Axolotl’ was inspired by a short story by Julio Cortazar, about a man who develops a deep emotional obsession to passive creatures he observes in an aquarium. Axolotl is an interactive installation based on a life-like algorithmic animation of a creature, responding to the presence of observers. The project is an exploration of the possibilities to portray life, through motion and form, and is aiming at getting people to reflect on the way that we perceive life, and look at what kind of emotional response can be evoked to the perception of a life-form, knowing that it is artificial. The creature of Axolotl is projected on an aquarium, an object that is associated with looking at animals, be it fish or other animals and serves the purpose of the piece.

The choice to design an under water creature allowed for more freedom of motion in all dimensions and the ability to come-up with an abstract shape that can still be perceived as a living being.
The whole process for the animation and interaction of Axolotl was done using theProcessing environment. This was a a major change from creating linear animations using commercial software. Using code allows to create ever changing and responsive animation, running in real time. I could also achieve motion that is to complex to create using keyframes. The animation code was implemented using calculations of physical forces like gravity and inertia. That allowed for the creature to move in an organic smooth motion, and also had the tentacles respond to spatial motion in 3 dimension.

Publications: Axolotl was featured on ‘Make’ magazine.  Presented at the ITP show, spring ’09, and at Media Lounge Festival on summer ’09.

More details can be found on the project page Axolotl

Make magazine article

An experiment with sound generating device, fitting as a hand-held gizmo, and constantly generating two sqaure waves. This device was made as an academic project, in collaboration with Yasser Ansari and Daniel Arce. We wanted to build a motion-controlled hand-held synthesizer. The end result was a little unstable, but gave a fun playful tactile and sonic experience. Future development can make it a performance tool, utilizing the motion sensing feature for dance or theater.

A flourishing interactive experience at the Brooklyn botanic Garden

Design proposal and prototype. Flora is a kiosk located in the main hall of the Steinhardt Conservatory at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The interactive environment is an introduction to the 4 main pavilions of the Conservatory; a digital representation of what you will experience as you walk through each area. Made in collaboration with Elie Zananiri.

Flora is a tabletop touch screen that is divided into 4 zones for each of the pavilions. It is shaped like a rounded square, with each edge facing the direction of the pavilion it represents. As you drag your finger in each zone, you trigger a particle-based growth animation representative of the type of flora that is found in each area: Sandstorms and cactii for the Desert Pavilion, thick deep-green vines for the Tropical Pavilion, ferns and wild flowers for the Warm Temperate Pavilion, and finally, lily pads and schools of fish for the Aquatic House.

When you place your finger on an empty space on the screen, you give birth to a plant. The longer you hold your finger down, the longer it will grow and the longer it will live. If you drag your finger along the screen, the plant will grow following your path. When you let go, the plant slowly starts dying, but you can help it live longer by touching it and dragging some more to nurture its growth.

The animated film Rango tells the story of a chameleon with acting skills. To promote the film we created an experience that allowed people to disappear and blend into their environment, just like a chameleon. Users had to stand still while watching themselves on a large screen, the less you move, the more you blend in and disappear. As users disappeared they simultaneously appeared in a cartoon image of themselves posing alongside Rango. The screen also displayed an augmented-reality element — an animated shadow of a hawk casted on the ground, flying around and looking for prey. The hawk was attracted to users in motion, until they stood still and disappeared . At the end of the experience, users could send a text message to get their cartoon photo with Rango, to their phone. From there there was a one click upload to facebook feature. The easy integration resulted in over 75% of the users uploading their photos to facebook.

Produced by Inwindow Outdoor.
A test run of the Rango application. Watch the kid on 00:26, looking for augmented reality element in the real world.

The Inwindow Outdoor completion video

These Characters are part of a design proposal, for an integrated multi-platform game. The visual development consisted of modular background elements and landscapes, and character design. Simple, yet personified characters, that dwell in the game’s world.