The creative interface: connecting art and computer science | Cole Wiley | TEDxLSU
Summary
TLDRThe speaker, with a background in sculpture and computer science, shares their journey of blending these fields to create new media art and interactive installations. They discuss their first project, 'Riverless Walk,' which allowed exploration of the Chicago Riverwalk through various mediums, integrating traditional art forms with technology. The speaker's work in human-computer interaction and natural user interfaces led to a software job at a startup, Kenobi, developing an innovative app for real-time kinesthetic activity feedback. They encourage finding connections between unrelated interests, as these can lead to unexpected and rewarding outcomes.
Takeaways
- đš The speaker has a background in both sculpture and computer science, and found success by integrating these fields.
- đ€ Professors played a crucial role in encouraging the blending of computer science and art, leading to the creation of new media art and interactive installations.
- đ The speaker's first interactive piece, 'Allies', was a pivotal project that taught them more about creating a minimum viable product and software than any computer science class.
- đĄ A 'eureka moment' during a critique session led to the realization that the practices in software development, like the two-week agile development cycle, mirrored those in art.
- đŁ The speaker emphasizes that 'art' is a verb, representing the act of creating, rather than the static pieces found in galleries or museums.
- đ The project 'Riverless Walk' was an extensive installation that allowed exploration of the Chicago Riverwalk through interactive and traditional media.
- đŒïž The use of black and white photography in 'Riverless Walk' served as an accessible entry point for viewers to understand the subject matter before moving to more abstract elements.
- âïž 3D printed sculptures were created using a depth extruder algorithm that translated pixel brightness into 3D space, drawing from landscape painting techniques.
- đïž The interactive installation space in 'Riverless Walk' used a rotating projector to map physical movements to a virtual space, creating a dynamic experience.
- đ» The speaker's experience with interactive art and natural user interfaces led to a job opportunity at a startup, showcasing the practical applications of their artistic and technical skills.
- đ± The speaker encourages finding connections between seemingly unrelated aspects of one's life, as these intersections can lead to innovation and personal growth.
Q & A
What was the speaker's initial struggle before combining sculpture and computer science?
-The speaker initially struggled to make real strides in sculpture and computer science until they started mixing the two disciplines.
What did the speaker learn from creating their first interactive piece called 'Allies'?
-Creating 'Allies' taught the speaker more about creating a minimum viable product and software than any computer science class they had taken.
What does the speaker mean when they say 'art is a verb'?
-The speaker means that art is the act of creating, not the finished piece displayed in a gallery or museum.
How does the speaker relate the two-week cycles in software development to art?
-The speaker relates the two-week cycles in software development, known as agile development, to the bi-weekly critiques in art, suggesting both fields benefit from regular cycles of goal setting and evaluation.
What was the concept behind the speaker's installation 'Riverless Walk'?
-The concept of 'Riverless Walk' was to allow people to explore the architecture of the Chicago Riverwalk through three different mediums: an interactive installation, traditional media, and black and white photography.
How does the speaker use technology in their artwork?
-The speaker uses technology by creating 3D sculptures from photographs using a depth extruder algorithm and integrating interactive elements that respond to physical movement.
What is the significance of the depth extruder algorithm in the speaker's work?
-The depth extruder algorithm is significant as it transforms 2D photographs into 3D space based on pixel brightness, allowing the creation of sculptures and interactive installation elements.
How does the speaker's interactive installation 'Riverless Walk' translate physical actions into virtual interactions?
-In 'Riverless Walk', physical actions like walking and moving are mapped to virtual interactions, affecting the viewer's navigation through an abstract representation of a physical space.
What was the speaker's goal for the interactive portion of 'Riverless Walk'?
-The speaker's goal was to move viewers past instant gratification to a deeper engagement where they understand how their physical presence affects the artwork and can then focus on the content and interactions.
How did the speaker's experience with 'Riverless Walk' lead to their first software job?
-The speaker's experience with designing natural user interfaces in 'Riverless Walk' led to a job offer from a startup that needed a developer familiar with cutting-edge technology.
What was the concept of the web app developed by the company Kenobi?
-The web app developed by Kenobi allowed users to get real-time feedback for learning kinesthetic activities by overlaying their skeletal data with an instructor's, to correct posture and prevent bad muscle memory.
Outlines
đšđ» Blending Art and Technology
The speaker, who has studied both sculpture and computer science, shares their journey in merging these two fields. They discuss their first interactive art piece, 'Allies,' which was pivotal in their understanding of creating a minimum viable product and software. The speaker emphasizes the importance of the two-week development cycle, known as agile development in software, and how it parallels the critique cycles in art. They introduce the concept of 'Riverless Walk,' an interactive installation that explores the architecture of the Chicago Riverwalk through various media, including an interactive installation, traditional media, and black and white photography. The speaker also explains how they used a depth extruder algorithm to transform photographs into 3D sculptures, drawing a connection between landscape painting and modern technology.
đ Interactive Installations and Natural User Interfaces
The speaker delves into the technical aspects of their interactive installation, 'Riverless Walk,' describing the use of a laptop, projector, and Microsoft Kinect to create a virtual space that responds to physical movement. They discuss the importance of transitional media in art and how it helps viewers navigate between the physical and virtual worlds. The speaker also talks about their favorite part of the installation, where quick movements cause the digital representation of buildings to 'burst apart,' creating a unique visual effect. They share their experience of working at a startup called Kenobi, where they developed a web app for real-time feedback on kinesthetic activities. The app allowed users to compare their movements with an instructor's, overlaying skeletal data to correct posture and prevent bad muscle memory. Despite Kenobi's eventual shutdown, the speaker's experience led to opportunities in New Orleans, where they continued to blend art and technology.
đ The Synergy of Art and Technology
In the final paragraph, the speaker reflects on the synergy between art and technology, highlighting how their experiences in both fields have enriched their career. They discuss the impact of their work on the local tech and art scene in New Orleans and encourage the audience to find connections between seemingly unrelated aspects of their lives. The speaker suggests that such interdisciplinary exploration can lead to unexpected insights and opportunities, using their own journey as an example of how art and technology can complement and enhance each other. They conclude with a call to action, urging the audience to explore the intersections of their passions and interests.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄSculpture
đĄComputer Science
đĄNew Media Art
đĄInteractive Installations
đĄHuman-Computer Interaction (HCI)
đĄAgile Development
đĄ3D Printing
đĄDepth Extruder Algorithm
đĄNatural User Interface (NUI)
đĄChicago Riverwalk
đĄKinesthetic Learning
Highlights
The speaker has been studying sculpture and computer science for over a decade.
They started making strides by combining their skills in both fields.
Professors encouraged the integration of computer science into art.
The speaker's first interactive piece, 'Allies', taught them about creating a minimum viable product.
They discovered human-computer interaction and interface design through their art.
Art and software both work best on two-week cycles, known as agile development in software.
The speaker's sculpture professor pointed out the similarity between art critiques and agile development.
The piece 'Riverless Walk' allowed exploration of the Chicago Riverwalk through different mediums.
The installation used black and white photography to introduce viewers to the subject matter.
Small-scale sculptures made with a 3D printer represented a semi-traditional medium.
A depth extruder algorithm was used to convert 2D photographs into 3D space.
The interactive installation space used a rotating projector to map physical actions to virtual interactions.
The speaker embraced the analog artifact of the moving projector to enhance the piece.
The goal was to move beyond instant gratification to a deeper understanding of the interactions.
The speaker's work led to a job designing and developing natural user interfaces.
They worked at a startup called Kenobi, developing a web app for real-time feedback on kinesthetic activities.
The app overlaid the user's skeletal data with an instructor's to provide feedback.
The speaker encourages finding connections between seemingly unrelated aspects of life.
They believe such connections can lead to surprising and valuable results.
Transcripts
foreign
i've been studying both sculpture and
computer science for over a decade now
but i didn't start making real strides
and either until i started mixing them
together
thanks to a series of professors
encouraging me to use my skills in
computer science or art in the other
discipline
i got into making new media art and
interactive installations
my first interactive piece
allies
taught me more about creating a minimum
viable product and software
than any computer science class i had
taken
for the first time i felt like i was
onto something
something new and worth examining
i had stumbled onto my first taste
of human computer interaction and
designing interfaces
during a bi-weekly critique in my senior
project sculpture class here at lsu i
had a eureka moment connecting software
and art time out real quick hang on
when i say art
i do not mean a piece of art to me art
is a verb it is the act of creating
the thing that you see in a gallery or a
museum
that's not art that is a piece of art or
a work of art
okay
side note noted time in
i was so excited by my profound at least
to me revelation connecting software and
art i had to share with everyone in my
class right then
so i explained to everyone
that both software and art work best on
two week cycles in the software world
this is known as agile development
you set a list a goal set a list of
goals for the next two weeks this list
of goals is called a burn down chart
you then put your head down and go to
work crossing things off your chart as
you go
at the end of the two weeks you stop and
analyze how successful you were at
completing those goals
you then set new goals based upon this
knowledge
you just keep repeating this
until you're done or more likely your
company runs out of money
so everyone just stared at me with this
thoroughly unimpressed look
my sculpture professor responds of
course cole that's why we have bye week
critiques i know
but this thing that we do as artists
has been validated by a completely
different group of people
that actually have metrics for success
no one seemed to care very much so
eventually i gave up and we all got back
to talking art
all of you should care a lot
humor me at least for the next five
minutes since that's what i'm here to
talk about today
the connections between art
and software
so the piece i was working on during
senior project was called riverless walk
it's the largest and most involved
installation i've made to date
the concept of riverless walk was to
allow people to explore the beautiful
architecture of the chicago riverwalk
through three different mediums
namely
an interactive installation that allowed
you to explore a real place that was
supported by traditional media
the space the installation was going in
had a long walkway
followed by an entrance foyer that led
into the actual room itself
this physical transitional space
provided me a beautiful vehicle for the
transitions taking place in the media of
the piece
also thanks to the confidence provided
to me by the unique technology aspect i
was able to show a media that i don't
traditionally work in
black and white photography
by starting with black and white
photography the viewer is able to
understand
immediately the subject matter of the
installation
now they're primed and ready to make
more abstract connections
moving from photography
to small-scale sculpture we move both
further away from traditional art forms
and direct representation
these small-scale sculptures are a
semi-traditional media and that
small-scale sculpture has been around
for thousands of years
but
these have a uniqueness to them and that
they were created via a 3d printer
not a block of marble and a chisel
this is also where the technology starts
the way that i made these sculptures was
by feeding the photographs into a depth
extruder algorithm
that extruded the photographs into 3d
space
based on pixel brightness
this algorithm borrows from the
tradition of landscape painting
landscape painters paint objects in the
foreground
brighter and with more color and the
closer you get to the horizon the darker
or grayer they become
the evolution of two-point perspective
came about in the renaissance thanks to
artists who also studied mathematics
namely geometry
they observed principles in one subject
and applied them in another
the most advanced technology of their
day
was mathematics the most advanced
technology of my day was the computer
so after feeding my images into this
depth extruder algorithm i got out these
3d contour lines
i was then able to stitch these lines
together to make solid printable
sculptures
i then also
reused this same algorithm in the
interactive portion of the installation
to make up the blocks that make up the
buildings so now the viewer has a point
of departure from the physical world to
the virtual world
having moved from
traditional to
semi-traditional we're now ready for the
part where art really meets tech
walking into the active
installation space
you enter a three-quarter circular room
there's a large white concrete pole
right in the middle there's a radius of
about 20 feet
i mounted directly in front of this
white concrete pole
a laptop
projector and microsoft connect all in
this custom design platform
hung around you is an 80 foot long
canvas and a half circle
and as you walk around the projector
rotates to follow you
by
moving through a physical space
you're navigating a virtual space
that is an abstract representation of a
physical space do you now see why i felt
the need for transitional media
this whole piece dealt with transitions
in space
and imagery
walking down the chicago river walk some
of these buildings are over a quarter
mile apart
i needed a way to express these
transitions to the viewer
in the interactive portion of the
installation
every
physical action maps to a virtual
interaction
so as you can see
walk right the buildings go right
get further away
the buildings get further away
come back around
they come back around and then if you
move around really quickly
everything kind of bursts apart this was
my favorite part
i noticed whenever i was developing the
installation this
analog artifact from the way the moving
projector across the canvas made the
whole thing kind of shimmer
think lens flare here
so rather than try and deny this digital
the analog artifact i embraced it it
made it part of the piece so now the
quicker you move around the more the
sides of the blocks that make up the
building come apart from one another
i wanted people to
spend time with this piece to form a
relationship
and when they understand how their
physical presence
is affecting it then they can focus on
the content and the interactions taking
place
my goal with the interactive
portion was that they would move past
the instant gratification of oh i do
this it does that to i am doing this so
i can examine that
my
previous interactive piece
to riverless walk
building bridges out of buildings led to
my first software job
designing and developing natural user
interfaces
natural user interface is a term that
relates to designing interfaces that are
intuitive and natural rather than
predefined or metaphorical
the mouse and touch screen those are
examples of a graphical user interface
that have a predefined way of
interacting with them that the user must
learn
so
thanks to countless hours of coding 100
plus on this one piece and experience
with designing natural user interfaces i
got contacted by a startup out of new
orleans
that needed not just any developer but
someone that could write code for the
microsoft connect
and
apparently i was the only person in
south louisiana doing this at the time
artist right
so since i wasn't concerned with
getting my system admin chops up to
snuff or reviewing best practices for
back end application development i
landed an awesome job writing really
interesting code
so
what we're talking tech let's take a
closer look at this the company i
started working for was called kenobi
we were developing a web app that
allowed you to get real-time feedback
for learning any kind of kinesthetic
activity think yoga golf dance
whatever uses your body we got it
covered
our app
put your video beside the instructor's
video
but then furthermore it overlaid the
instructor's skeletal data on top of
your own skeletal data so that you could
see how off you were
relative to the instructor
this is huge
because if you're trying to teach
yourself something like yoga
if you're practicing the pose wrong
that can be worse than not practicing at
all it creates bad muscle memory which
is nearly impossible to overcome
so if you're observing this carefully
you've noticed i've used the past tense
throughout here
well yes kenobi went the way of many
startups and stopped
although it stopped it got me to new
orleans which has served as a wonderful
test kitchen for evolving both my art
and software together and separately
thanks to art feeding tech and tech
feeding art i've been approached by
people starting software companies that
need not just any developer
but someone who's familiar with cutting
edge and often buggy tech
new orleans has always been known for
food music and art there's currently a
large group of us that are working on
adding technology to that mixture and i
couldn't be happier to be contributing
my own special blend to the pot
but
i would like to finish my talk with a
request to y'all
find a way to connect the seemingly
unrelated aspects of your life
you will be amazed at the results
maybe you're a chef by day and a gear
head by night
i bet there's something to be learned by
taking your skillet into the garage one
night
i don't know what you'll learn
to be fair i don't know if you'll learn
anything at all
maybe some things connect better than
others and i just got really lucky with
software and art
but
i would be willing to wager it's not a
totally unique situation
look for the little things at first like
the two-week cycles i noticed connecting
art and software
once you can find one really solid
branch
everything else will start connecting
thanks
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