Week 2 Treehouse

Week 2 Treehouse

Projections images and spaces.

We started the session with a simple webcam programme Kinovea that is used for sports training.
It can delay the output of a webcam by up to 30seconds.
I attached 2 webcams and delayed them by 1 second and 2 seconds. So when you moved the cameras echoed your movements. We played with this effect, only a few people really got the concept at first, i meant to project the image on a bigger screen so we could play with bigger phyiscal movement but i decided to move on as focus was drifting.I think because we started with faces and hands that it put some people off as not everyone likes to see their face on a screen especially in a group situation.
The other effect you can create with this is if you create visual feedback by pointing the camera at the projected imaged. With the delay you get a strange infinite echo of your movements. But this was hard to set up in the space.

We then played with an ohp and permanent pens. They are quite old school but i love the hands on feel of ohp, you can draw and then bend, flap and distort your image. A few people tried this out, i then used small mirrors to catch the projected image and bend it onto the ceiling or somewhere else.
People seemed very intrigued with this, they like the control and the quality of the distorted image, it was difficult to see where to hold the mirror but with a more focused beam this could be alot more accesible and playful.
(I would like to make some ohp images to use with the projector, maybe geodesic patterns and overlapping circle shapes that we could spin and turn on the projector to make interesting effects. I think people maybe more into manipulating images rather than drawing, but i dont know the group so well.)

We then constructed a large 4 foot cube altogether and put on it a white cover.
I had looping animations that the group could click and choose and we projected them with a digital projector onto the cube, we turn the ohp onto the far side too.
Suprisingly the group were really into getting into the cube, some people find those sort of spaces too intense but the group really took to it. There was a real sense of that it was their space, there were just me and 3 others inside, and they were really animated and happy, they stayed in for 10 minutes alteast.
We then played with the microphone and the delays again. And we projected one of the young peoples image onto the cube while they sang. They really seemed to enjoy this.
We also had a very large visitor from another classroom who had to come into the class and get into the cube!! This was a great sign!!
Some people find small spaces with projection in overwhelming as the senses are full of movement, but the group seemed to really enjoy all the images especially as they made them or they were in control of them.