Albert Hwang

I just came back from a trip to Guadalajara where Matt and I built what I believe to be the world’s largest volumetric display in history.

As of right now, I don’t have much documentation (clean good photos, videos); those come later.  I hope the images below give a good enough idea:

To give a better sense of scale, below is an image of the project early in the construction process (only about 10% strung):

It’s big.

The structure itself is 40′ tall, and 30′ wide and deep.  The volume of the structure itself is 36,000 cubic feet (about the same internal volume of a 747).  The volume of the rendering size is roughly half that.  Still, much bigger than any other volumetric display I’ve ever heard of.

But this post isn’t about the build process or the technical specs or the frustrations or fears.

I just wanted to write this post to express how happy I am right now.

In 2006 I developed a little idea that people seemed to love — the idea of projecting light onto strings.  I made some prototypes, published some stuff on youtube, and got some attention from random internet people.  That’s about as far as I was initially planning to push this idea.

At the time, I knew that, at least in principle, the idea could scale to fill up an entire theater.  When I had those ideas, I never really imagined that one day that would actually happen.

In some ways, this last installation was a dream come true.  A huge team of some really talented people rallied together to get this installation up and running.  While there were plenty of frustrations and set-backs, everybody’s heart was in the right place, and everybody just placed their faith in my and Matt’s vision.  A lot of the hired help probably had no idea what was happening while they were helping out, but they were really great, and when things got rolling, we were pushed through a whole ton of work really quickly.

And as soon as Matt and I and our whole team started reaching maximum velocity with work, one by one, other artists popped up and started setting up their projects.  I was so neck-deep in Lumarca work that I didn’t really have time to engage with other people’s work or process until just before opening, really.  As soon as I finished the Lumarca work, I looked around at the other work and realized that the whole theater had turned into a digital garden with so many interesting projects.  Only then did I realize that this was going to be a damn fine show and that we all had something to be really proud of.

The most touching moment was when the doors opened and people started flooding in from the streets of Guadalajara.  I was told that 1500 people came to the opening — a number that far outdid anybody’s expectations.  I got the sense that the whole city had been patiently waiting for something like this — as if the city let out a sigh of relief — as if all the closeted media arts geeks of Guadalajara came out of hiding at the same time and realized that there was definitely space for them here in this town.

I am so grateful that I was given the chance to share my work with so many eager minds and bright faces.  I’m really proud of my work and on the potential impact that I’ve had.  I think everybody at the festival (artists, administration, crew, security, volunteers) should be proud of the entire festival.  I really don’t think I’m fantasizing when I say that we’ve helped reshape the cultural landscape of Guadalajara.

Lastly, I wanted to share few things I’m thankful for:

• That Matt Parker guy
• Everybody’s faith that this would all work out in the end
• Marco’s family for extending the invitation out to Tapalpa
• Every last staffer at MOD, but especially:
  • Margarita Sierra
  • Marco Antonio Castro
  • Juan Carlos Robertson
  • Janet, Sandra, Susana, Augustine
  • Octavio, Oscar, and the whole crew
• Everybody at Larva, especially:
  • Alejandra
  • The people behind Cafe Bonito & El Menu Del Dia (Yum!)
  • Security
• The crew
  • Arturo
  • “Mi Hijo” Christian 2 y sus amigos (Especialmente Christian 1, Michael, Giovanni)
  • The students from CAAV (especially Jorge, Argel)
  • Horacio
• My 3 years of Spanish I took in high school
• And those skype calls with Morgan

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ofxPortalCam is an addon for openFrameworks that allows you to use your monitor as if it were a window through which you could see 3d content.  In other words, it transforms your monitor into a digital diorama using the Kinect for head tracking.

Here’s the project in a nutshell:

1) The Big Idea

A computer (that is hooked up to both the Kinect and the screen) gives the viewer an image based on these three different things:

1. where the viewer’s head is located
2. where the screen is located
3. the shape of the digital scene

With this information the computer knows what image to present to give the viewer the illusion that the screen is a portal into a 3d space.

2) The main problem: Monitor space and Kinect space

So, in isolation, I have all three criteria.  The Kinect gives me the user’s head, openFrameworks defines where the screen is located, and the code I use to build my openFrameworks app defines the shape of the scene.

But there’s one big problem.  The Kinect is defining everything according to one perspective, and openFrameworks is telling me everything in another perspective.  In other words, the location of my head according to the Kinect doesn’t correlate to the location of my head in screen space.  So we need to do some calibration so that we can translate back and forth between the two types of space.

3) The solution: The Human Body

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If you want to watch (and not read):

If you want to read the cliffnotes (and not watch):

I’ve got an Excel spreadsheet that graphs my progress on my goals.  A lot of the design is inspired by my experience playing video games.

With video games, rewards are clear.  This is because success and failure are clear.  Additionally, games give you consistent feedback to affirm or discourage behavior.  One of the simplest forms of feedback is the visual feedback known as a “bar” or “meter” (like “health bar” or “experience meter”).

Clear rewards makes life better : )

I applied this sort of reward system in my life by creating some goals and visualizing my progress with this excel sheet.

Goals-Template.xlsx

*Note — it’s only tested to be compatible with Microsoft Excel. I’m quite certain it doesn’t work with the google docs spreadsheet reader. Some features work with Open Office, and some don’t.

This spreadsheet tells me how far along on my goal I’ve come.  It also tells me how far along my goal I should be according to a pace set by my start and end dates.

Download, share, innovate.  But if you innovate, send me back a copy!

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Spatial Computing 3 has finally arrived!

First and foremost — thanks goes out to every single person who helped out.

Second, if you’re unfamiliar with the project and want some context, read more about it here.

As you should be able to tell from the title of the video, SC3 is about using the Spatial Computing paradigm as a way to reinvent the home theater system.

While the video does feature a bunch of interesting ideas, the crux of the video is the ability to scale what you’re watching with a simple gesture. This gives the user the ability to watch the content at any size, whether that be in front of them or in the space around their body. It also is a nice way to transition and travel about in a digital environment with the use of a few simple gestures.

I’m glad I decided to spend the majority of this video talking about this concept because it’s deceivingly complicated. When I set out to do this video, I wasn’t sure if the “aquarium” idea would actually look convincing. I was surprised to find that it ended up working so well.

The most exciting moments of working on the project were when I would try out a new effect and it ended up working. Heh, what a relief. The times that I specifically remember was when I was working on the glowy intersection effect (whenever a 3d model intersected with the physical wall of the room). Took a lot of trial and error but I’m pretty happy about those little effects — they really add to the visual story that there are two competing 3d environments that need to somehow synthesize.

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Well, I guess, more accurately, I should say that I’m going to be speaking on a panel at SXSW this year.  The topic of conversation will be “Detached Messages: Immersive and Spatial Systems“.

I’ll be speaking alongside Adam Pruden, a smart dude w/ a background in architecture, who’s involved with the Fly Fire project, which is a design for a volumetric display made of LEDs attached to mini-helicopters:

Here’s a brainstorm of some of the things I am considering talking about:

• Lumarca
• Spatial Computing
• Dancing and some of the physical frameworks developed around spatial media
• The craft behind the magic of making things levitate and why this is relevant to spatial media
• Why the “digital” is thought of as visually 2d, and how this expectation plays out

In any case, if you wanna hear about it all, come on through and watch me blab for an hour!

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Credit, Amber Case: http://www.flickr.com/photos/caseorganic/

Okay, so my business card blew up on the internet last night.  It climbed all the way to number 1 on Reddit, in fact!  Here’s what I have to say in my defense to common critiques.

1) “Information Artist” is obnoxious and pretentious.

The first thing to clear up is that this is not a term like “code ninja” or “person who is actually just a front end dev who thinks he’s an artist.” I hate those people as much as you do. No, I probably hate them more.

This card is for my art career. This doesn’t mean the card is NOT obnoxious (art careers themselves are, by my definition, obnoxious), but it helps explain what’s going on here.

I do a lot of art work. I have a residency at an art and technology center. I exhibit my work around the world (*in fact, I’m exhibiting in NYC in a couple weeks!).   I give talks at conferences.  This is a serious title I give myself.

I will say that I have a difficult time pinning down exactly what it is I do, and “3d Information Artist” is the clearest way I’ve figured out how to do it. This is something I’m still working on.

As this card is for my new media art life, I need to cast a wide net. The tech art world is peppered with people who have never plugged in their own computer to people who code in assembly. While this is green-on-white console design makes me squeal with glee (as this redditor kindly mocked up below), I am not my intended audience. Museum curators, social media folk, internet art people… these are who I want to make a good impression on.

2) Well I’d never hire this guy!

I don’t give this card out to people who are looking for employees. I give it to people who have connections to arts foundations and organizations. If someone gave me this card and wanted to build my website, I’d also not hire this guy.

3) Saving XML as .txt file will make your computer blow up.

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I just recently became an honorary resident of Eyebeam!

Eyebeam is a new media art center in Chelsea. They do some really really incredible work, and it’s been a blast getting to know the people over there. There’s some really incredible work going on, and it’s amazing to see it first hand.

I also hope to help out and to share some of my work and perspective w/ these fine folk. Dance classes? : )

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Went to Mexico for Modfest:

And Matt Parker and I made this:

Lumarca team setting up in Guadalajara from marco castro on Vimeo.

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A few weeks ago Daniel Cooper of Ball State University invited me to take part in a study he was conducting on the topic of Augmented Reality. He emailed over a list of very smart questions.

Instead of writing out a response, I figured I’d post a video of my response. Here it is – me rambling on about some interesting topics from information design, 3d spaces, architecture, narrative, theater, etc…

Enjoy!

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Hey Everyone –

So it’s been a while since I visited Spatial Computing. Spatial Computing 1 and 2 were packed with some good interesting ideas, and video number 3 is coming down the pipeline.

But I want 3 to be better. I don’t want it to be a result of rushed, work-night render sessions, and I don’t want it to take another six months to complete. I want to direct my full attention to this project to make it as awesome as it deserves to be.

And I need your help.

Whether it be pledging a couple of bucks or just spreading the word, any help I can get will get me one step closer to hunkering down and focusing in on the project that is Spatial Computing III.

To show your support, please visit my Kickstarter campaign, where you can pledge a donation and learn more about the project. There are also tools on that page that you can use to introduce Spatial Computing to your friends.

Thanks for your support everybody!

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