Data Flow is now up and running at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT), Liverpool, as part of the Type Motion exhibiton which opens tomorrow evening (13/11/14) and doesn’t stop until 08/02/15. Just as I threw the switch to demonstrate the installed work to FACT people, after some time spent tweaking, 50+ students turned up directly in front of the screens and immediately started jumping around and taking pictures. That was a good start! Here’s a short screen capture of the piece being put through its paces by a combination of FACT staff and passers-by.

Luminescence was installed at firstsite for 3 days in April. Due to the crescendo of effort required to pull the project together followed soon after by Easter holidays and the beginning of a new term, it has take me a little while to get round to writing up my thoughts and observations.

Not long after I wrote the last post discussing my previous show Electricus, I finally got hold of a Kinect sensor. Having worked exclusively with webcam video input for the last year or more, it was a good time to cross the line into the world of the depth image and positional information. I’m particularly happy that I really ‘maxed out’ the webcam and learned so much from operating within the constraints of rgb video over an extended period before coming in from the cold. The way I see it there are two main directions to go with the (version 1) Kinect – skeleton tracking which provides fine control for a restricted number of participants or exploitation of the depth image which just gives z information in a grainy black and white low-res feed. The first approach sounds way more groovy right? But the second approach is to my mind essentially more open in the sense that it can be used to set up multi-participant interactivity with the minimum of calibration or initialisation. I really like the idea of an ‘uninvigilated’ interactive space as opposed to the invigilated version in which perhaps only 2 are allowed to approach the sensor at a time. But of course, it’s all a matter of fitness for purpose and I’m sure I’ll be maxing out the skeleton tracking functionality before long!

So what of the depth image? For a start, using a threshold-type filter it is simple to set up an active zone in front of the sensor thereby knocking out the background or any other unwanted objects. For Luminescence, I developed functionality that locates objects/people and draws lines around them in an approximation of their silhouette. Because the lines are drawn using a cluster of points located on the edge of a person/object’s shape, it is straight forward enough to calculate the average position of a cluster which roughly equates to the centre of a drawn shape. Once more than one shape occurs, the piece joins them together dramatically. So an individual might dwell at the edge of the active zone and experiment by putting only parts of the body (eg hands, face) into the active zone and seeing how these all connect up. A group of participants might just jump around in front of the screen and watch how the connections between their respective body shapes light the screen up.
Visitor response was very positive. I was in the installation space or close by for the duration of the event at firstsite which gave me ample opportunity to observe, chat with and generally appreciate participant interaction with the piece.

Electricus is dead, long live Electricus! Well not dead, just put to bed for now while I start to work on my next show ‘Luminescence’ to be exhibited at firstsite in April.

Putting on a show at Ipswich Town Hall was certainly a memorable experience. Although Gallery 3 feels slightly off the beaten track, it’s such a hugely impressive room with enormous sash windows, ornate plasterwork not to mention several large 19th Century maritime-themed oil paintings hanging high, that one cannot help but feel slightly in awe. Luckily the 4 metre wide, 3 metre high back projection screen I had installed across one corner of the room was big enough to hold its own within the space.

The exhibition opened to a queue of people thanks to Sarah Jacques of University Campus Suffolk who brought her Fine Art undergraduates along to have  a look and ‘show some energy’.  I gave an impromptu presentation which was fun 😉  Saturday was the busiest day thanks to a great feature by Wayne Savage which appeared in the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star newspapers on the previous day.

This was the first time I had worked with back rather than overhead projection and it really does make things much easier in terms of positioning, providing that the necessary space behind the screen is available. In general, the show was a definite success with lots of minor production lessons learned and quite a few in-depth conversations with visitors, which was really informative.

I’ve been working with outlines and sparks now for some time and will probably now take a slightly different route foward. I hope to post samples of some of the ideas I’m working on for Luminescence over the coming weeks.

Electricus, Jamie Gledhill 2014

Electricus is now up and running at Ipswich Town Hall Gallery 3. Audience response  has so far been very positive. Here are a few stills of visitors interacting with the piece.

As part of the ‘Lights in the Dark’ exhibition at Slack Space Colchester I exhibited ‘Spark Shower’, a development of an individual element of my 2013 masters project ‘Mirrornoise’. It was a positive experience not least being the first time I have exhibited an interactive work in Colchester where I am based. Slack Space is a very supportive organisation despite the meagre resources they have to hand and I commend them for giving artists such as myself an opportunity to show new work.

I tried something a little different from previous shows with the sound design cycling through a series of rhythmic sequences interspersed with periods of rest, all superimposed upon responsive sound elements such as spark noises. Each time a new rhythmic sequence began, a visual change occurred such as change of spark colour. Although pretty simple at heart, the transformative apect of this approach seemed to work.

Here is a excerpt of video shot of the screen during the private view.