Friday, June 19, 2009

June 17

Today began with show and tell of our final projects just as an opportunity to give and receive feedback to the works in progress. Everyone in the group is working in different areas and the projects are quite unique. Below is a short clip from Sissel Romme Christensen's project. The cutout projection surfaces and how she integrated the media into them was very imaginative. The images in this clip are being triggered by sound.



I discovered (again) that I am trying to do too much, so I am cutting back my project even more. We had a great group discussion on why less is more and the consideration that is needed to design an appropriate system for the aesthetics of the piece you are creating. It was a very refreshing discussion and gave me lots to consider.



In the afternoon we learned about tracking through contrast, color and infrared. Isadora has an actor called Eyes that allows you to specify one attribute (the lightest object or the red object) and follow it within the frame of the camera. Once you have established the threshold and locked on to that object, you can assign the coordinates of what you are tracking to another actor in Isadora to have them “follow.” There are limitations to the tracking such as the lightness must remain consistent because the system will pick up a lighter contrast object if it is brought into the space at the same time.

Infrared tracking is more complicated, requiring you to illuminate the back surface with infrared light and have a camera that can pick up infrared, but the specificity of the tracking is more detailed and does not rely on visible light so you can track a performer in a black-out allowing for some exciting possibilities to explore in setting stage composition.

Wednesday night I had dinner with Skip and Ellen Reiss. Skip is one of the leaders in Arts Management in the US. We met back when I was the Artistic Director of Island Center on St. Croix. Ship has been a tremendous resource for both my students and myself over the years. It was wonderful to catch up with him and his beautiful wife while enjoying my first “home cooked meal” since arriving in the city.

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