Tracing Moments Jen Seevinck Leonardo, Volume 43, Number 3, June 2010, pp. 312-313 (Article) Published by The MIT Press For additional information about this article Access Provided by University of Technology, Sydney at 01/25/11 1:53AM GMT http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/len/summary/v043/43.3.seevinck.html http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/len/summary/v043/43.3.seevinck.html 312 LEONARDO, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 312–313, 2010 ©2010 ISAST T r A n S A c T Io n S TRACING MOMENTS Jen Seevinck, Creativity and Cognition Studios, FIT & Eng, University of Technology Sydney, Haymarket Sydney, 2000 Australia. E-mail: jenseevinck@smArtnoise.net Submitted: 12.11.2009 Abstract The interactive art system +-now captures moments in the past and present for dreamy, reflective play. It is composed of sand, imagery and interaction. This paper traces the creative process from initial land- scape studies to museum installation in 2008. Key design concepts discussed include the origin and use of sand and emergence. Key words: Emergence, interactive art, practice, perception, ambiguity, sand, Tangible User Interface, Augmented Reality. Description of Art System Plus minus now (+-now) is an interactive art system that was installed at Beta_space at the Sydney Powerhouse Museum in 2008 [1]. The work uses sand as an interface to interact with two images. One image is monochromatic and projected on a wall screen while the other is colourful and projected directly onto fine, white sand. The sand surface can be described as a tangible user inter- face [2] while the use of real-time, vir- tual imagery on the sand further defines the work as augmented reality [3]. Ges- tures in the sand result in imagery pro- jected on the sand and the rear-projected screen (Fig. 1.) The imagery behaves like visual echoes, mimicking the shape, direction and speed of a gesture in the sand with repeated renderings. On the wall screen these monochromatic layers add up in opacity to create areas of in- creased brightness that can be interpreted as new shapes. The imagery also per- sists, enabling interaction with a history of one’s gestures. Tracing the Creative Development +-now is inspired by a natural landscape with a pond. I initially conducted a site analysis to study the character of this place. This included land and water fea- tures as well as less tangible aspects. I interpreted the place to have a dreamy, reflective quality and this ‘poetic’ analy- sis of my experience led to two key con- cepts. They are: (1) a lost, reflective type of interaction at the water’s edge; and (2) an ambiguity of imagery seen on and through the water. The remainder of the paper explains how these concepts inform the design of +-now. Lost Interaction As I reflected on my impressions of the site I found them to resonate with Martin Heidegger’s concept of ‘dasein’. The quietly reflective and slightly dreamy experience was generalized to a way of ‘being in the world’ similar to ‘being in love’ and different from the type of be- ing such as ‘being in a vessel’ like a room or a car [4]. I interpreted this as describing highly involved interaction, perhaps to the point of ‘losing oneself’ in what one is doing. This kind of ‘deep involvement’ became one of my design objectives. Sand Sand was among several natural artifacts collected from the site. It was used for the interface because it was a rich re- minder of that place and because of its affordances: sand is familiar to people, they understand how it behaves and know what they can do with it. It sup- ports natural, intuitive interaction. I rea- soned that these qualities would support a participant ‘losing themselves’ in the w , ed w rticipant can leave detailed traces of their interaction and themselves behind. ork. Its associations of the beach also encourage a sense of play. Sand is a continuous medium. Ges- tures are sampled as a whole, including direction, speed and a range of other details usually excluded from discrete inputs such as button pushing. In +-now sand records traces of events past, like footprints on the beach. This aspect of the interface has been tightly integrat ith the imagery which also ‘persists’, or retains a memory of events past. The use of sand supports a highly in- volved interaction because the material is intuitive and a pa Fig. 1. +-now, installation, .75 x .9 x 1.2m high pedestal interface with rear projection screen behind, 2008. (© Jen Seevinck) Transactions 313 T r A n S A c T Io n S Perceptual Ambiguities While visiting the landscape I found that the reflective experience was accompa- nied by a ‘softening’ or blurring of my visual focus. When I shifted my focus I could construct (imagine) new objects. This was particularly noticeable at the water’s edge. For example, reflections and shadows on the water surface com- bined seamlessly with floating leaves and silt on the base of the pond (Fig. 2). In Fig. 3 I explored the eye’s changing focus as attention shifts between differ- ent objects, to combine views of these objects and construct new images or objects. In this way ambiguity is leading to the perception of something new. Emergent Shapes More recently I experienced another slightly different, ‘perceptual ambigu- ity’. I found that in the afternoon light the aerial roots of a Bald Cypress swamp tree protruding through the water’s sur- face can combine with their shadows to manifest diamond shapes (Fig. 4). These diamonds are similar to the triangle in Fig. 5 because both are instances of emergent shapes. Emergence occurs when a new form or concept appears that was not directly implied by the context from which it arose [5, 6]. New shapes can also emerge during interaction with the art system +-now. Persistence of the imagery (its ‘echo’) means that the images of several gestures can overlap. Since the imagery is trans- parent, overlapping areas accumulate opacity and have greater brightness. The brighter areas can be perceived as emer- gent shapes (Fig. 6). Seevinck and Ed- monds [7] describe this method of constructing emergence in detail. Site analysis of the water landscape revealed an active process of perception. Changing focus affords the construction of new imagery, including reflections on the water’s surface and underwater views; and the emergence of new shapes. The ability to perceive emergent shapes in +-now is facilitated through layering gestures. Like seeing figures in the clouds, it is hoped to support a reflective, dreamy experience. Summary The paper traces the creative evolution of the interactive art system +-now from poetic site analysis, through extracted concepts, to the design installed at Beta_space in 2008. I have aimed to build a system which is capable of sup- porting an involved and lost type of participant experience. Emergent im- agery and a tangible, intuitive and im- pressionable interface originate from landscape studies to support this objec- tive. The resultant aesthetic ‘whole’ lets a participant leave traces of themselves in both material and image. These traces of past actions accumulate to create new images, encouraging the participant to dream and reflect in the ‘now’. Fig. 2. A photograph from the site com- bines water surface (e.g. reflections) and sub-surface imagery (e.g. leaf litter) to form a single composition. (© Jen Seevinck) Fig. 4. Diamond shapes emerge in nature. (© Jen Seevinck) References 1. Seevinck, J., +-now. 2008, Beta_space, Sydney Powerhouse Museum: Sydney. Interactive installa- tion. 2. Ishii, H., Ullmer, B. Tangible bits: towards seam- less interfaces between people, bits and atoms. Proc. SIGCHI Human Factors. 1997. Atlanta, Georgia, United States: ACM Press pp. 234-241. 3. Azuma, R.T., A survey of augmented reality. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, Vol. 6. No. 4 (1997), pp. 355-385. 4. Heidegger, M., Being and Time. 1978 Blackwell Publishing. 5. Edmonds, E.A., Candy, L., Jones, R., Soufi, B., Support for Collaborative Design: Agents and Emergence. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 37. No. 7 (1994), pp. 41-47. 6. Gero, J.S., Creativity, Emergence and Evolution in Design. Knowledge Based Systems, Vol. 9. No. 7 (1996), pp. 435-448. Fig. 5. A triangle shape emerges from 2 overlapping squares. (© Jen Seevinck) 7. Seevinck, J., Edmonds, E., Emergence and the art system ‘plus minus now’. Design Studies, Vol. 29. No. 6, Interaction Design Special Issue (2008), pp. 541-555. Fig. 3. The ambiguity of images on and through the water. (© Jen Seevinck) Fig. 6. +-now, installation, 2008. Rectangular shapes emerge in frame 4 from overlap- ping gestures. (© Jen Seevinck)