‘Exhibiting the Exhibition’ was a practice project at one of my MA classes in Gothenburg University, HDK.
We were asked to set up an exhibition with the concept of ‘Exhibiting an Exhibition’

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My aim was to create a system that which would demonstrate the use of visitors themselves to pool a visual archive while enabling a way for the exhibition to exhibit itself on a further scale, IF, it were to move around the galleries, cities or even countries by displaying the visual output such as ‘.. previous on our exhibition’. To achieve this, I have decided to use the perks of interaction design and new media. Therefore I tried to create an installation design which would enable all the visitors to take intuative approach simply by using their bodies freely without forcing them to use any kind of interface.

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The system I have created is using motion tracking technology via infrared and depth, enabling me to map-out human skeletal moves and facial recognition with an advanced camera. -Kinect Sensor developed by Microsoft- Using a series of background coding for tracing and physics of colorized particles And for the display/installation within the exhibition hall, I have used a PC/Mac to feed the application and a Projector to display the output on a surface.

Afterwards, by using various libraries found for open source Processing application, I have used free-floating particles that moves around the projected screen. Just as an simple screen saver, but when a human body interacts within the range of the camera, particles that have been floating around are immediately traced, triggering the particles to be prisoned within the body shape of the visitor on the screen flowing through their contours. This technique enables us to create impressive live-action body painting/drawing using our body by moving or jumping around.

Meanwhile, the camera is recording the person in interaction without them knowing. Taking colored snapshots of the participant as they move around, and simultaniously linking them with a snapshot of their current image on the screen, creating a archive of photograph + processed image relation. A printable output or a digital archive would be created for the exhibition.

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Photo Credit : Tore Erel

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