Kinect (our technology lab)

Overview

Kinect is a research and development lab for open source technologies to be used in community and contemporary arts.

Our first lab was held in April 2008 as in-residence artists at the Casula Powerhouse in Western Sydney. CuriousWorks’ Online Director, Peter Cossey, led the lab, with elements of the team each working on different projects. Also in attendance were Shakthidharan, Elias Nohra, Aimee Falzon, Hugo Bowne-Anderson and Mark Havryliv.

Some of the results of our research included the creation of: a touch screen interface that triggers images, sounds and movies in real-time; simple circuits that can be embedded into everyday clothing items and can trigger audio or visuals on the basis of your movement; a DIY portable speaker system for $30 – allowing people to turn their backpack or mailbox, for example, into a speaker; a soft drink bottle that can graffiti in light; and a Texta that can mix and post-produce audio and visuals with gestural movements (for example – you move your hand up, and the music you are playing gets louder; you move it down, and the music gets quieter).

Each day, the artists involved in the lab recorded an informal video diary, discussing the day’s activities. Here’s a sample (they are extremely informal):

Find more videos like this on All Around You

View more of the video diary on All Around You.

All of these technologies will be shared in CuriousWorks’ All Around You labs and utilised in our own artistic projects. They will also be made available to the open-source community.

Since the first Kinect lab in April 2008, IR spray cans have been built and used by young people in Miller and Roebourne through the All Around You program; as well as being used by the general public at Underbelly Festival at CarriageWorks in Sydney and at Federation Square during the Melbourne Fringe Festival. The next Kinect lab will be held in 2010 at the CuriousWorks HQ in Surry Hills, Sydney. In 2008, Kinect is being funded and supported by many different organisations, including Australia Council for the Arts, Vodafone Foundation Australia, Arts NSW and Myer Foundation. Our key partner was Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.

Timeline

March 2008 – Scoping Workshop, UNSW
April 2008 – Lab: Casula Powerhouse, Western Sydney
May 1 2008 – Showing: Casula Powerhouse
May – Dec 2008: Liverpool All Around You Lab, Western
Sydney
July 13 & 14 2008 – Underbelly Arts Festival, Sydney
July & August 2008 – Roebourne All Around You Lab,
Western Australia
September & October 2008 – Melbourne Fringe Festival,
Federation Square, Melbourne

Peter

Project Outlines

IR Spray Can

The IR Spray Can is a visual arts project which seeks to re-imagine graffitti and aerosol art. This project uses recycled PET soft-drink containers to hold an Infra-Red LED circuit which acts as a virtual spray can. Combined with a custom computer drawing application and open-source Wii Remote software the IR Spray Can takes graffitti into a virtual space. Software controls the shape and consistency of the spray and light is transformed into virtual paint which is projected onto any surface via a data-projector. This project uses recycled materials and simple electronics to create the virtual spray can tool. The virtual spray can is cheap and simple to make.

Node Trigger

The Node Trigger is a live, multimedia triggering system designed to be interfaced with single click, handheld infra-red devices (rather than a keyboard and/or mouse). The interface operates through two screens: a trigger pad, made up of a variable number of small circles, or nodes; and an output window, on which all trigger multimedia appears or is heard through. The user can determine how many nodes are on the trigger pad and what relationship they have to each other. Each node can be assigned to a video or image file, as well as an audio file. The output screen is made up of 4 rows of 4 screens, so up to 16 nodes can be set to trigger 16 different pieces of multimedia at any one time. The Node Trigger has a special triggering system: when one node is activated, it sets off reverberations which, when they touch another node, activate that node’s as well. In this way, the user can design, live, an infinite number of node relationships that
organically trigger each other over time, and have this relationship mirrored in the way a set of 16 multimedia pieces are triggered and re-triggered. The entire system operates on single mouse clicks, so that an IR pointer device, such as a Texta case with a simple IR circuit inside and momentary switch on the side, could be used to play with the device without the need for a computer or keyboard. Effectively, with a generator, the Node Trigger could be projected onto any appropriate surface of the environment and interacted with through a small hand-held device, as if the node trigger pad was a touch screen surface.

Backpack DDR

Backpack DDR is a mobile triggering costume that translates a performer’s relationship with the ground into electronic messages on a computer. These messages can then be used to manipulate sound and computer based visualisations. At its most basic level the Backpack DDR system can trigger sounds when contact is made between the performer’s foot and the stage. This relationship can be made more dynamic by using software to analyse variables like the rhythm of the performers steps or the force of the foot hitting the stage. This opens the door for more than a simple triggering system, you could use the Backpack DDR to create a realtime simulated entity of the live performer which interacts with electronic and audio-visual elements of the performance.

Fly on the Wall

Fly on the Wall attempts to create computer interfaces from unexpected objects like soft-toys. The idea is to explore the possibilities of control systems which are not based around keyboards and mouses. This prototype uses a small hand-sewn plush-toy to control a video browser.

Sticky Speakers

Sticky Speakers are an experiment with localised, portable sound. A ’sound pad’ or simple speaker driver is matched up with an everyday, small battery-powered amplifier from Dick Smith. Plug this into an iPod or similar portable sound device and you have a very flexible, portable, localised sound solution. Distinct from PA systems which spread sound throughout any given space, sticky speakers could be put inside a backpack to provide sound as the wearer moves from place to place; inside an esky or handbag to increase in volume as the item is open; embedded into sculptures or paintings for cross-artform visual arts; or simply inside personalised cardboard boxes to create your own cheap speaker system. Whether in a performance or installation context (or both), this is a highly affordable solution for providing many points of localised sound on stage that are different to each other in space and time. The system is modular and may be complemented with other devices, such as Backpack DDR or IR Spray Can, to create a particular audiovisual or performance solution.

Shakthi

Lab

CuriousWorks was one of the first in-residence artists at the new Casula Powerhouse in Western Sydney. We spent 21 days living in an annex to the arts centre during April 2008, over which we developed a number of portable, accessible, affordable, open source technologies to be used in contemporary performance and community arts. We also documented each day in video and stills. The videos were two-minute interviews taken at the beginning and end of every day, many of which you can see on the map above.

We have a visual diary of the lab – here is Day 1, told in pictures:

Explore other days of the Kinect Lab through our Flickr photostream.

Showings and Exhibitions

Casula Powerhouse, April 2008
Underbelly Festival, July 2008

The residency at Casula ended with a formal, relaxed showing inside the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre to a group of interested multi-artform artists, arts workers, teachers, students and arts lovers, from both Eastern and Western Sydney. The presentation was repeated in a symposium context at CarriageWorks for the 2008 Underbelly Festival. This larger audience was mostly an independent arts practioners and arts lovers audience from inner-city and Eastern Sydney cirles. During the Underbelly lab, two new works were made. Hugo Bowne-Anderson developed techniques for particular sound frequencies to trigger visuals in particular ways; through voice alone one could move the position of a red square on a black matte; pass backwards or forwards through frames in a video; actually trigger a multimedia piece (say, when the voice hits a certain high pitch). The microphone receiving the audio signals was embedded in a toy duck, so visuals were affected by interacting, through sound, through a handheld soft toy – again, avoiding interfacing through a computer, keyboard and mouse. Aimee Falzon and Shakthidharan developed a cell-based animation made up of 16 squares called ‘Undergrwoth’. The work was made to be triggered and played with through the Node Trigger system. This technique was used again to develop the ‘Overflow’ work, commissioned by Federation Square for Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Find more videos like this on All Around You

Liverpool All Around You Lab, May-December 2008
Roebourne All Around You Lab, July 2008
Melbourne Fringe Festival, October 2008

Students at Miller Technology High School in Western Sydney built personalised IR spray cans and Sticky Speaker Systems. The technologies were developed in this process beyond the Casula Lab stage. The IR spray cans were developed to trigger a range of visuals, including images drawn by the students in workshops. They were also developed to trigger sounds created by the students that accompanied the spraying of the visuals. The Sticky Speaker Systems consisted of small, personalised carboard boxes that had a portable sound player and amp inside them. Audience could pick these speakers up and carry them around, listening to audio landscapes developed by the students. Both projects were part of an
installation at the local PCYC in November 2008 and are slated to be part of a student exhibition at Casula Powerhouse in 2009.

Similarly, young people from Roebourne, Western Australia (West Pilbara region) built their own IR spray cans and Sticky Speaker Systems. Wiimotes and other production elements were left behind with teachers at Roebourne High School so that they could continue using the devices as they wished. At the end of our stay at Roebourne, a community gathering was held out the back of the local youth centre. These devices were used and showcased at the beginning of the night.

Finally, on the opening night of Melbourne Fringe Festival, passers-by at Federation Square were able to use an IR Spray Can we’d set up to spray their own digital designs in Melbourne’s city centre.

Find more videos like this on All Around You