From HIT Lab NZ
Monday, April 23, 2007
An exhibit at Lower Hutt's New Dowse art gallery blends artistic vision with "augmented reality" technology from the HIT Lab NZ based at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch.
Four people at a time enter artists Angela Main and Caroline McCaw's Animalia (remix) exhibit, putting on "dress- up hats" with markers that let cameras track their movement. Images of each person's body are displayed on a screen, which shows their heads replaced with those of one of four creatures – a rat, a dragonfly, an octopus and a goat.
Main says the four players progress through different levels "a little bit like a video game", moving their animals by moving themselves to uncover hidden sound files. In some levels they must bring themselves together to "exchange body parts" and create chimeras.
The final level, Nirvana, changes the masks to spheres with no bodies. The audience must move the discs to points on the screen to trigger music clips.
"People can actually move in a much more natural way. They're able to be more spontaneous," Ms Main says. "It's hard to be spontaneous if you're just sitting there looking at a screen."
Main says the exhibit is a metaphor for evolution, cultural change and the creative process. "The audience are performers. They're part of the artwork."
The HIT Lab NZ director Mark Billinghurst says Animalia (remix) is based on tracking software the company has built and refined over the past four years.
There is an online version of the exhibit at www.animaliaremix.com.
The HIT Lab, which develops interfaces that let people interact with technology, is also working with authors and other artists to produce augmented reality art.
"We've got a long tradition of collaborating with artists," Dr Billinghurst said. "It lets us engage with the public in new ways."
The lab helped with another exhibit at the New Dowse – a sound-sensitive shirt that lights up, by Marilyn Lim.
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4035742a14297.html
