E.C.A.S.

Kimchi and Chips - SWAP PLACES


friday 25.11. && saturday 26.11.
(Seitenbühne West)

SWAP PLACES is a digital media installation, comprising three large mirrors, two projectors and two Kinect 3D cameras. SWAP PLACES couples 3D scanning with progressive projection techniques. A system dynamically scans the surfaces within a space, and re-projects calculated patterns of light back onto them. The real world therefore becomes augmented to reflect the computer’s imagination.
Visitors can step into this light field, and swap their own geometry with a digital image of themselves. By looking naturally at their own body, visitors see their skin, limbs and shape superimposed with an intricate pattern of light created by the machine in order to deceive and indicate. In this way, visitors swap the place that they are in with another space, and swap their known image of themselves with an imaginary reflection. Edges and surfaces fizz as the limitations of real and virtual interfere with each other. Visitors view and cause this battle of realities, and can discover specific new capabilities.
The project intends to evolve through experimentation and new ideas. It works towards a new interactive medium and an unfamiliar experience for festival attendees, inviting them to challenge perceptions of reality and digital enhancement, beyond that which can be offered by devices. In SWAP PLACES, the human body becomes a canvas, replaced by our ‘digital’ selves, as seen by the machine.
Once a human is recognised there are a number of different experiences, witnessed in large mirrors. We see ourselves as digital – pixellated, restricted, and enabled. Then we can interact with this digital projection, move, share light, rub our arm and watch as it transforms.
This is a unique experience, and one which perfectly exploits the environment of a festival.

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