In May 2013 I participated in an interactive arts workshop as part of the Toolkit Festival in Venice, Italy. The workshop was facilitated by Allessandro Masserdotti from dotdotdot.
Toolkit Festival 2013 Workshop Timelapse
Over the three day workshop we developed two artworks to an early stage. Our theme was water.
For the first artwork we filmed local Venetians talking about what the word water meant to them. These clips were then projected so that the people in them appeared to be life size. A cheap USB webcam was used to detect movement in certain areas via Trautner technique. As people stood in front of the respective clip it would come to life and speak to them.
For the second artwork a small game was created. Words from the interviews that people associated with water were hidden onscreen. Rain would fall from above and if it hit the letters they would disappear. A leap motion controller was used to detect hand movments. The objective was for players to use their fingers as umbrellas – stopping the rain drops to reveal the letters. If a word could be kept entirely revealed for 5 seconds it would change to the next word.
Both artworks were created using vvvv. vvvv is free for non-commercial use if you want to give it a try.
Special thanks to Toolkit Festival and dotdotdot.