{"id":8863,"date":"2014-07-16T19:32:48","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T09:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/?p=8863"},"modified":"2015-12-18T23:24:58","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T12:24:58","slug":"virtual-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/virtual-explosion\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtual Explosion!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Virtual<\/a>
Convergence, by Jackson Pollock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jackson<\/a>
Jackson Pollock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Second World War generated a big crisis in all aspects: economic, social, human values, etc., and artists were the first to react. Art needed a change and the \u201caction painting\u201d or \u201chappening\u201d was used to express the artist\u2019s feelings, starting from zero and literally attacking traditional painting that embodied conventional art. Jackson Pollock was the first artist who started taking distance from the painting and, without being conscious, art entered into a new era. Following his example, many other artists wanted to express themselves in a different way breaking with conventional art.
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\"Janine<\/a>
Janine Antoni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In such a way, new generation artists did not consider themselves as painters nor as sculptors, but rather they saw themselves as simple artists for whom any theme or material could be art. Happenings, performances and conceptualism finished with thinking painting as a representation and as an artistic object, granting a privilege to the process that happens on the back of an art work, the ideas that generate art and its performance aspects.<\/p>\n

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After going with my advanced students in the fall of 2012 to an exhibition of Pollock\u2019s legacy at Mir\u00f3\u2019s Foundation Museum in Barcelona<\/a>, called \u201cExplosion!\u201d, the students had the idea to use robots to make an ephemeral virtual painting were the robots\u2019 behavior is controlled by algorithms that create the art work. A Microsoft Kinect sensor allows a student to interact with his\/her own body on the same virtual painting, and different image recognition algorithms are used for the interaction between the students\u2019 body digital drawing and the one made by the robots. In addition, each robot is provided with an Android camera that allows the recognition of each other, and shows the public the same scene that each robot sees, but under its own perspective. A computer controls the dynamic generation of the painting and manages the robots\u2019 behavior when they see each other or when they reach the end of the field (or virtual painting).<\/p>\n

\"Robots\u2019<\/a>
Robots\u2019 structure with the attached Android phones and sensors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Kinect sensor and program<\/h3>\n
\"Microsoft<\/a>
Microsoft Kinect sensor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Kinect<\/a> sensor developed by Microsoft has a built in RGB camera, a depth sensor and a multi-array microphone, which provide full-body 3D motion capture, facial recognition and voice recognition capabilities. The students used the Kinect to make their bodies interact with the robots and with the virtual painting. To program the Kinect, initially they started with MIT\u2019s Scratch<\/a> using Stephen Howell\u2019s development<\/a>, but to be able to interact with the robots they had to switch to LabVIEW and adapt the University of Leeds Kinesthesia Toolkit<\/a> (developed for kinesthesia purposes, to help patients to recover the mobility of some parts of the body), do some research, and a little bit of reverse engineering.<\/p>\n

The following video shows a \u201cwork in progress\u201d presentation and performance that BOGATECH competition team students did on June 2013 at Ic\u00e0ria High School, Barcelona.<\/p>\n