BSc 2006 / Farbtöne / Elective Interactive Media Installations
'The user interacts with the screen and leaves behind traces of colour.'
During my 5th term I chose the fascinating elective 'Interactive Media Installations' where we discussed interactive media art and it's theory. Additionally we got to work with the graphical programming environment Max/MSP.
The final project of this course was to plan and realize an interactive installation. This would be permanently exhibited at the entrance hall of the university's new building for digital media. To allow the installation the hall was equipped with a flatscreen and camera.
During our brainstorming sessions, I along four other students based our ideas on the RGB colour model.
Eventually we decided to visualize traces of colour that blend with each other according to the participant's movements. A colour-trace is created whenever a person steps into the camera's focus and is controlled by the direction and speed of its user. The traces are reminiscent of bow waves, the colour in the center is more intense, moving slowly outwards until it fades away.
The system assigns every new person a colour (RGB), meaning that new traces blend with old ones trough additive mixture of colours.
Development
After deciding on the conceptual design the installation was developed using Max/MSP and Processing.