{"id":588,"date":"2015-12-13T12:59:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-13T17:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/recluse.accad.ohio-state.edu\/ems\/?p=588"},"modified":"2015-12-13T15:35:48","modified_gmt":"2015-12-13T20:35:48","slug":"how-to-make-an-imaginary-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dems.asc.ohio-state.edu\/?p=588","title":{"rendered":"How To Make An Imaginary Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

An audience of six walk into a room. They crowd the door. Observing their attachment to remaining where they\u2019ve arrived, I am concerned the lights are set too dark, indicating they should remain where they are, safe by a wall, when my project will soon require the audience\u00a0to station themselves within\u00a0the Kinect sensor zone at the room\u2019s center.\u00a0I lift the lights in the space, both on them and into the Motion Lab. Alex introduces the concepts behind the course, and welcomes me to introduce myself and my project.<\/p>\n

In this prototype, I am interested in extracting my live self from the system so that I may see what interaction develops without verbal directives. I say as much, which means I say little, but worried they are still stuck by the entrance (that happens to host a table of donuts), I say something to the effect of “Come into the space. Get into the living room, and escape the party you think is happening by the kitchen.” Alex\u00a0says\u00a0a few more words about self-running systems\u2013perhaps he\u00a0is concerned\u00a0I have left them too undirected\u2013and I return to station myself behind the console. Our six audience members, now transformed into participants, walk into the space.<\/p>\n

\"Participants<\/a>

Participants approach the Action Zone.<\/p><\/div>\n

I designed\u00a0How to make an imaginary friend\u00a0<\/em>as a schema to compel audience members, now rendered participants,\u00a0to\u00a0respond interactively through touching each other. Having achieved a learned response to the system and gathered themselves in a large single group because of the cumulative audio and visual rewards, the system would independently switch\u00a0over to a live video feed as output, and their own audio dynamics as input, inspiring them to experiment with dynamic sound.<\/p>\n

System as\u00a0Descriptive Flow Chart<\/strong><\/p>\n

Front projection and Kinect are on, microphone and video camera are set on a podium, and Anna triggers Isadora to start scene.
\n> Audience enters MOLA<\/p>\n

\u201cEnter the action zone\u201d is projected on the upstage giant scrim
\n> Intrigued and reading a command, they walk through the space until \u201cEnter the action zone\u201d disappears, indicating they have entered.<\/p>\n

Further indication of being where there is opportunity for an event is the appearance of each individual\u2019s outline of their body projected on the blank scrim. Within the contours of their projected self appears that slice of a movie, unmasked within their body\u2019s appearance on the scrim when they are standing within the action zone.
\n> Inspired to see more of the movie, they realize that if they touch or overlap their bodies in space, they will be able to see more of the movie.<\/p>\n

\"DEMS<\/a><\/p>\n

In attempts at overlapping, they touch, and Isadora reads a defined bigger blob, and sets off a sound.
\n> Intrigued by this sound trigger, more people overlap or touch simultaneously, triggering more sounds.
\n> They sense that as the group grows, different sounds will come out, and they continue to connect more.<\/p>\n

Reaching the greatest size possible, the screen is suddenly triggered away from the projected appearance, and instead projects a live video feed.<\/p>\n

They exclaim audibly, and notice that the live feed video projection changes.
\n> The louder they are, the more it zooms into a projection of themselves.<\/p>\n

They come to a natural ending of seeing the next point of attention, and I\u00a0respond to any questions.<\/p>\n

Analysis of Prototype Experiment 12\/11\/15<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I worked over the last number of weeks I recognized that shaping\u00a0an experiential media system renders the designer a Director of Audience. I newly acknowledged once\u00a0the participants were in the MOLA and responding to my design, I had become\u00a0a Catalyzer of Decisions. And I had a social agenda.<\/p>\n

There is something about the simple phrase “I want people to touch each other nicely” that seems correct, but also sounds reductive\u2013and creepily problematic. I sought\u00a0to trigger people to move and even touch strangers without verbal or text direction. My system worked in this capacity. I achieved my main goal, but the cumulative triggers and experiences were limited by an all-MOLA sound system failure after the first few minutes. The triggered output of sound-as-reward-for-touch worked only for the first few minutes, and then the participants were left with a what-next sensibility sans sound. Without a working sound system, the only feedback was the further discovery of unmasking chunks of the film.<\/p>\n

\"Participant<\/a>

Participant experiments with body placement to determine triggers.<\/p><\/div>\n

Because of the absence of the availability of my further triggers, I got up and joined them. We talked as we moved, and that itself interested me\u2013they wanted to continue to experiment with their avatars on screen despite a lack of audio trigger and an likely a growing sense that they may\u00a0have run out of triggers. Should the masked movie been more engaging (this one was of a looped train rounding a station), they might have been further engaged even without the audio triggers. In developing this work, I had considered designing a system in which there was no audio output, but instead the movement of the participants would trigger changes in the film\u2013to fast forward, stop, alter the image. This might be a later project, and would be based in the Kinect patch and dimension data. Further questions arise: What does a human body do in response to their projected self? What is the poetic nature of space? How does the nature of looking at a screen affect the experience and action of touch?<\/p>\n

Plans for Following Iteration<\/strong><\/p>\n