Brief

Develop the installation Infected Area (2005) to fit our exhibition titled The Lake.

Description

A species of virtual bugs have crept from the nearby lake into the museum building. They have infested an old stairway that lead to the exhibition space, forcing the visitors to walk through their territory. When the visitors tramp too heavily the bugs retreat into a power socket box and come creeping out of a box at a different location.

Concept

Our physical and virtual space is in a merging phase. Today, screens in our homes and pockets serve as digital ponds for our virtual life. Much like the Darwinian evolution of sea creatures, virtual instances struggle in a competition to inhabit our physical space and engage in a full symbioses with us. As the border between physical and virtual begin to blur, the notion of software bugs will be comparable to that of house bugs – most people won't know how to fight them.

Infected Area introduces a playful setting for invoking thoughts on these subjects and others regarding the future of augmented reality.

Credits

The project was kindly supported by The Danish Art Counsil's Committee for Visual Arts (se curriculum section for logo).

Tech

The stairway area was measured up and replicated as a virtual 3D model. A script unwraps the model to a flat (UV map) surface on which simulated 3D bugs are virtually filmed orthographically from above. The film is wrapped back onto the original model and is virtually filmed (again) from three angles, matching the exact positions of three video projectors in the physical space. In this way the simulation is constrained to the stairway area. Two knock sensors (piezo microphones) sends activity information from the floor to the simulation in realtime. The bug models and animation are procedurally generated. The Project was realised in Unity and Modo.

Thanks

Daniel Øhrgaard, for helping me setting up and calibrating the projectors.
Leona Sui-Ling Fang , for helping with soldering circuits and making me smile.