Canis Lupus
Canis Lupus is an interactive installation which enables generating an artificial image of a city where instead of people there are wolves walking in the streets.
This project referrers to the stereotypical way of thinking about East-Central Europe as a deep and wild province. Ideas and opinions resulting from it are visualized in this installation in a verbatim manner, which is to emphasize their absurdity. The assumption of this project was also to question if using the term “East-Central- Europe” is still eligible in the discussion about the contemporary world.
3D model by Czarek Kwasny [ver. 2009]
In the physical dimension the installation consists of two groups of objects. First, visible one is a staged monitoring post inside the building and three industrial cameras, located at the neighbouring square which is closed for the car traffic. Second, hidden one is a IR camera and computer infrastructure.
The image from IR camera is processed and analysed which results in the information about the amount and position direction of movement of people in monitored space (openTSPS). This data are used to control avatars in virtual 3D space (Unity 3D). Each moving object from monitored area has its individual, virtual representation.
The 3D space is reconstructed from photographs. Changes in time of the lightning conditions are reflected by simulation of the movement of the Sun in the sky. Natural appearance of wolves (models and textures) and their behaviour (animation) were possible thanks to the work of Eduweb in cooperation with the Minnesota Zoo. Fluent movement of avatars is based on specific implementation of Locomotion System. Collision has been resolved with the author's script.
The resulting image has the character of analogue CCTV (grey scale, big noise, and the other added imperfections). It partly hides its digital origins. Several different view perspectives adds some reliability to the situations. Images are displayed on screens in a place where they could actually hang, serving the building maintenance staff. The audience has a simultaneous eye contact with the real (monitored space) and the virtual image at monitors.
simulation and the source image [excerption, ver. 2009]
documentation [excerption, ver. 2010]
installation view, wro art center[wersja 2009]
Thanks to:
David T. Schaller http://www.eduweb.com/
James George http://www.jamesgeorge.org/
Brett Renfer http://lab.rockwellgroup.com/
Czarek Kwaśny http://www.czarekkwasny.com/
Zuza Pyda
Wolf models copyright 2008 Minnesota Zoo and Eduweb