This work has been produced as I was contracted by The collective in Hong Kong (2019)
It does not represent my artistic practice but the one of the studio that employed me.
Link to the project page.
The full project has been conceived & created by Andy Stokes and Frederic Bussiere @ The Collective
I worked on the interactive development of the installation only.
I handled the kinect data that I mapped to DMX winches holding the wings with TouchDesigner.
I have also developped a GUI and an OSC control pannel on a phone to be able to force the albatros to take specific shapes
Ultimatly I filtered the Kinect data through a machine learning patch in VVVV to prevent "unhealthy poses" for the albatros (if one user would position it's body in poses that would hurt the joints of the albatros)
It does not represent my artistic practice but the one of the studio that employed me.
Link to the project page.
The full project has been conceived & created by Andy Stokes and Frederic Bussiere @ The Collective
I worked on the interactive development of the installation only.
I handled the kinect data that I mapped to DMX winches holding the wings with TouchDesigner.
I have also developped a GUI and an OSC control pannel on a phone to be able to force the albatros to take specific shapes
Ultimatly I filtered the Kinect data through a machine learning patch in VVVV to prevent "unhealthy poses" for the albatros (if one user would position it's body in poses that would hurt the joints of the albatros)
Excerpt form The Collective's website:
Description
Conceived & created by Andy Stokes and Frederic Bussiere, The Kinetic Albatross is an interactive, kinetic art installation, mimicking a flying albatross with the aim to raise awareness about marine plastic pollution. It was designed and produced by The Collective, a multidisciplinary creative agency based in Hong Kong, which is strongly involved in environmental issues.
About
Albatross are one of the well-known species who are direct victims of marine plastic pollution. One alarming study found that 98% of chicks contained pieces of plastic in their stomach, which as a result caused 40% of those to die from starvation.
Our 6m wide living sculpture mimics the shape of an endangered albatross flying elegantly in the sky and serves as a symbol of many other species currently under huge threat from plastic pollution. The bird is beautiful, yet full of wounds caused by pollution.
The installation is fully interactive, allowing audience to give life to the piece by mimicking the flying gestures of the bird. The process of giving audience the control of this endangered albatross aims to raise the awareness and responsibility of the user.
Interactivity
The sculpture is controlled by kinetic winches. Using a custom created workflow the motion capture setup is the bridge between the kinetic albatross and the human user. It captures the user’s motion and in real-time directly controls the Albatross. As soon as a user steps in front of the booth, the interactivity starts (all automated thanks to some creative coding and machine learning!). In idle mode the Albatross will gracefully fly alone.