My last project of the semester was a response to the concept of gesture. This is my second-ever installation-ish piece, and it was well-received. When someone moves in front of the camera, the motion is detected and represented on-screen as the spinning of hundreds of tiny discs. Faster motion makes the discs spin faster and change color more rapidly. The effect is even more interesting when using a projector to cover a whole wall with the spinning discs.

From watching people interact with this piece, I learned that everybody loves to see their actions interpreted and expressed in an alternate form. Although I find this project visually interesting, I was concerned about the fact that it doesn’t communicate any explicit information. That turned out not to be a problem from the user’s perspective, as everyone I’ve shown it to immediately starts waving their hands around, jumping up and down, and making all sorts of strange motions, becoming entranced by the patterns that “they” are creating on the screen.

After a couple minutes, though, the colors become such a hodgepodge that they cease to exhibit interesting patterns. So, following one of the great pieces of feedback I received, I added a timer that resets the grid once a minute. That reset encourages further experimentation and allows people to “take turns.” Users seem to get more invested in their motive experimentations when they can claim full ownership of the visual result, as transient as it is.

Watch a video here: