deathstar automata
POSTED IN portfolio, video installation 14.01.2010
These ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.
- Jorge Luis Borges
Deathstar Automata is inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, who in particular writes in one of his parables, “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins,” about the human instinct to categorize our world, however arbitrary. As a modular, parametric video interface, Deathstar incorporates a camera tracking system synced to a firefly LCD projector to project video into a series of custom-built tessellated structures. It is a prototype for a larger-scaled video projection light fixture that in one sense, harnesses the video feed as its light source. The content is an ongoing virtual cabinet of wonders with all of its mysterious and unearthly qualities, which together in kaleidoscopic fashion, reshapes our reality into the possibility of other worlds.
This current iteration is dependent on the number of objects used as well as the object’s specific placement in the overall configuration so that as users place a pod onto the surface, the camera will track the object’s rotation and location in space and direct the video projector accordingly. Moreover, rotating the object will move the video forwards or backwards thus enabling the user to control the visuals through a more intuitive interface. And lastly, the virtual objects will multiply depending on the number of objects that the camera sees, thus two objects placed on the surface will create a mirrored effect while subsequent objects can create a kaleidoscopic one. Currently Deathstar Automata was prototyped using a camera tracking library called Trackmate, an open source project started by the Tangible Media Group in the MIT Media Lab.
