Scrying – Cycle 1

For my project, I decided to create crystal balls that, when interacted with, would result in audiovisual playback that embodied a certain affect. Each ball would represent a different affect, and would placed in different locations around the room. The act of “scrying” upon these affects using a crystal ball represents a rediscovery of, and a distinct distance from, the raw emotions of childhood. The crystal ball itself represents a suspension of rationality and a mystic lore that often feels so real to children.

In Cycle 1, I created a prototype crystal ball that could send data to trigger audiovisual playback in Isadora. I ended up recycling the idea I had used in Pressure Projects 2 and 3, using the brightness from a webcam to determine if a person was interacting with the crystal ball. The idea was that the webcam would be installed in the base of the crystal ball and look upward through the glass.

Though the scope of the project is larger, the brightness detection system I used in this project is actually simpler than the one I used in Pressure Projects 2 and 3. Rather than determine how close a person’s hand was to the lens, the webcam is tasked simply with determining if a person’s hand is there or not. If it is, the visuals and music are triggered.

For the visual, I processed a simple blue square through an explode actor. I slowly modulated the parameters of the explode actor with wave generator actors and processed the results through lots of motion blur and Gaussian blur. Color shifts occured as bits of the same color overlaid on top of each other. The result was extremely textural and a lot more interesting than the list of parts makes it sound: