CLAUSTRA - Interactive Video Installation
"CLAUSTRA" is an interactive video installation, created as part of a college group assignment. The team consisted of four people including me, Zhuoyi Chen, Saskia Ludlow Cederblad and Priscila Yangi.
The brief for this project gave us alot of freedom to go in pretty much any direction we wanted. We chose to create a video installation in the style of something you would see in a gallery. We chose this because it seemed interesting to everyone in the group, provide lots of opportunity for experimentation and mixed media, and seemed like it would be a good challenge.
I was responsible for the creation of visuals, particularly an interactive projection frame, ideation and planning. For the most part, responsibilities were spread evenly through the group.
My main role was the creation of visuals and figuring out how to display them in an installation environment, but I also helped with creating the process book, creating the website, posters etc, and vice versa for everyone else in the group.
Tools
- Touchdesigner - live video creation
- Illustrator - poster design
- Fabrication - metal interaction frame
Skills
- Graphic Design - poster and website
- User Experience - laying out exhbition and interaction design
- Problem Solving - reassembling installation and guiding visitors
- Teamwork - splitting workloads and keeping communication
The main tool I used was a piece of software called Touchdesigner. This is a really powerful and fun piece of software and perfect for what we needed. It allows the creation of live and interactive visuals through connecting different types of nodes.
The part I am most proud of is the the interactive frame. I made a frame from right angled steel and stretched spandex over the front. Behind it was a projector and an Xbox Kinect for sensing depth, connected to a laptop running Touchdesigner. This made it so viewers could press into the fabric making the projection change.
We were also picked to go to Cyprus University of Technology to display the installation as part of a BIP Erasmus. This provided us alot of challenges, having to recreate the installation in another country without any of our materials, but it was a great problem solving experience and allowed us to exhibit the installation to all in, over 100 people.
Visit the promo site here.
Download the process book here for a detailed walkthrough of our process.