Inspiration 1 - Alexander Calder

I first came across Alexander Calder's work as a kid and had a faint recollection of his Cirque Calder peformance on India Television sometime in 80s. I didn't know who the artist was then but the performance held my attention and was interesting fun in a very crude way. I came across Calder again this summer during my trip to Paris at the Centre Pompidou.
Calder's sculptures in wire are brilliant and anything but ordinary but his kinetic sculptures are what I'm really drawn to. Made from a mix of wood, cloth and everyday materials, the sculptures are moved by systems of cranks and motors. Thus treating audiences to a live performance of moving toys. I love the fact that they aren't well finished and so I'd like to call them crude. Calder's work will (or at least I'll try to) be an influence and inspiration in the development of my project.

PHP GODS

We had a class in PHP in March by Vincent Bruijn. We were taught the basics in PHP and how to pull data off the internet and to use it as an ART Project. I worked my assignment around having Gods generated by using keywords and having a folder with images of body parts, i.e. - music, love, art, money, sex, war, hate and strength.


Depending on the number of hits a keyword generates a body part is substituted from its corresponding image folder and you have a different GOD character generated every few minutes. I will be posting the PHP on my website soon (I'm unfortunately still working on finishing my site). But for now these are the images of the various characters that were generated over a period of weeks through the code.

VERHIP Comic Strip Festival

Participation at the Verhip Een Strip Festival @ the Vera, Groningen on the 16th of May'09...

Eureka!! It works...

This is a very late update... but nonetheless. I'll try to be frequent with my updates!!

I finally got EyesWeb+MaxMSP+Animata to work. They all work beautifully.
EyesWeb analyses the video, estimates the body joints according to the silhouette video it captures. It then sends out OSCs to MaxMSP. Max then outputs theses OSCs in an X & Y axis depending on the movement it picks up. Animata picks these up from Max and then applies them to the rigged character. Thats a lot of PICKING & SENDING!!! but it works and we have real-time animation right there...

Open Day Poster...

A poster for the Instituut's open day on the 14th of March 2009.

Animata, Eyes Web & OSCs

I rigged the Art GOD in Animata, an open source real-time animation software, designed to create animations, interactive background projections for concerts, theatre and dance performances.

The software is very easy and has a simple interface. The only draw back are the clumsy layering system and the lack of an Undo command. So you not only have to plan out the order of your character's body parts (descending - ascending) to be rigged but you also have to have a clear mind so as not to make any mistakes. Or else you have to start all over again. The only solution is to save your work as you progress in sequential files.

I then intend to control the character via MaxMSP using a motion detection patch. But the problem is getting controlling OSC commands using a motion detection software.

I've tried out EyesWeb which detects motion and then generates Centroids corresponding to your joints. I now have to find a way to unpack the OSC data and route it through MaxMSP. Till then my Art GOD is UNCONTROLLABLE

Art God!! Rough Collage