Window into a World

Portfolio assignment 1
Visual Design

The first assignment for Visual Design is to build an installation that used projection mapping and was to be inspired by the phrase 'Window into another World'. My idea is that another world doesn't necessarily have to be another (fictional) universe or dimension. Someone else point of view in life can for some, truly be a completely different world. I wanted to include some interaction with the audience, this is something that I really enjoy myself when going to an expo or museum so I wanted to incorporate that.

As for the content in the window, I wanted to show different working environments. At first I wanted to show working environments specifically at home or externally in a library and such, as a protest to traditional office culture; Showing that it is just as well possible for most people to work without clocking in to the office. We've seen this during covid, but lots of companies are shifting back to all in-person anyway. This idea, however, did not really translate as well as I expected; This will be explained later-on.

The surface I wanted to project on was either going to be the cabinet or the drawer unit that are present in room HL15-2.070, this would allow the audience to open and close the 'window' at will. Either would work with the content of the window since both would be present in a working or office environment. I experimented with both ideas. The drawers were technically much more difficult, the provided projectors are not allowed to project straight down and projecting at an angle would cause the audience to block the light when in front of the drawers; Therefore I went with the cabinet instead.

Proof of concept

The first technical challenge was to build the program to do the camera recognition required to only show the projected image between the doors of the cabinet. In a project during my major we used ArUco Markers to be able to detect positions of various things. The paper markers are recognised by a Python program which returns the center coordinates. The program determines the space between the door markers and the center marker, then it calculates how much of the projection should be blocked and sends this to MadMapper through OSC. The result can be seen in the video on the right.

Prototype setup (16-9-2024)

The first demo proved that the entire project still needed quite a bit of work, technically as well as conceptually. For the first demo I wasn't able to find or make any footage yet so the presentation was just some stills I found online from the point of view (POV), looking to another's eyes, I wanted to use later. While this was a fun demo, it also limited the amount of feedback I was able to collect about the concept it self and it excluded all sound.

Technically the camera really struggled to find the smaller 30 mm markers when the lights went off so I had to replace them with the bigger 50 mm ones; While this is not that much of an issue for a project in the first weeks like this, optimising this somehow would be preferable since the markers are quite noticeable as they are right now. However, this will likely require specialised equipment like infra-red lights and cameras and this is not something I will be able to do for this project.

Conceptually, the work also had some weak points. First of all, the images I chose weren't clear enough to convey the message I wanted; Additionally, when I did record some footage outside, working in a library, cafe, outside, etc. I noticed that the images were simply not that interesting to look at. More importantly, my hatred for office culture is about as widespread as you can imagine. People just thought it was a clip show rather than showing alternative workspaces and people had different opinions on wether or not the image in the 'window' was a better or worse place to be. (Some people enjoy working at McDonalds, other people enjoy working in an offce) I am not really sure if I will be able to fix this because you cannot account for everyones opinion. However, the idea still works in a way as it shows another world, another workplace and the people can choose between the office and the other place.

Semi-final setup (25-9-2024)

The semi-final setup was somewhat hectic since we were not in the room we were supposed to be, there was a lot of improvising to be done and it was not ideal but it worked well enough. Special thanks to the teachers for doing everything they could to make it work for all of us. The projector could not be positioned right in front of the cabinet, therefore the projection mapping became more complicated than expected. The 'doors' in the projection would have to be morphed rather than only shifted like in the previous setups. This made the projection did clip into the doors of the cabinet, which was not ideal but Good Enough™

Content wise I changed a couple of aspects of the installation. I replaced the clips with POV shots from actual workspaces and included the sound of those. When the cabinet is closed there is a busy office soundtrack playing that is intentionally quite loud and obnoxious to create contrast between the events. When the cabinet is opened, it shows a random POV work clip from a fixed set of a glass bottle factory worker, a bus driver, a McDonalds worker, an audio engineer and someone working in a library.

I got a lot of feedback this run since the installation worked a lot better compared to last weeks setup. The clips were a lot more interesting and the message was clearer. People were particularly interested in the factory clip. If the people didn't like the clip they would close and open the cabinet again to get another so it showed what people thought of the environment shown.

Reflection

While I was quite happy with the final product, in a future installation I would like to improve the installation in various ways. Naturally the technical problems should be solved for a future setup, have the projector straight in front of the cabinet and have speakers instead of headphones. Camera vision was quite okay this time and people didn't seem bothered by the ArUco markers. Technically I would like to fill the entire cabinet with video instead of just the top to create a bit more immersion, though this would require refilming all of the clips in portrait. The video's should be in a sequence instead of randomised like they are right now so people don't get doubles and it is clearer when they have seen all of them. Lastly I would like to include some more props around the cabinet to add more context the the installation.

Attributions

• Library clip - Filmed by me at Bibliotheek Lek en IJsel Leerdam
• Bicycle clip - Filmed by me
• Glass bottle factory clip - Filmed by my dad at O-I Manufacturing Leerdam
• McDonalds clip - Uploaded to YouTube by Stephen Patula
• Office sound effects - Uploaded to YouTube by SoundLikeTube
• Audio Engineer clip - Uploaded to YouTube by Chris Hammill Audio
• Bus Driver clip - Uploaded to YouTube by 360 VLG