http://secondstory.com/portfolio/works/body-collective

This free-standing installation in the Portland Art Museum (Portland, Oregon, USA) was deployed in concert with the museum’s exhibition Marking Portland: the Art of the Tattoo.

Integrated into an alcove adjacent to one of the busiest thoroughfares in the museum, this two-sided experience literally merges the museum’s community and collection. On a large display on the inner side of the unit visitors walk up and see themselves with details of artwork blended onto their likeness. A row of scrolling thumbnails lets visitors browse and select the artwork they want to see on themselves. After a few seconds an image is captured of the composite and added to the Body Collective collection where it can be viewed on the outer side of the unit. On this screen visitors can browse through thumbnails of every image captured since the exhibition opened to observe the playful convergence of art and audience.

Both "sides" are developed using VVVV, the capture side streams live "higher res" video from a PtGrey Chameleon usb camera. Then uses blend modes to composite a piece of art (the "tatoo") onto the live image. A picture is taken then saved to the other side. User input is detected using infrared proximity sensors, these are hooked up to a Make Controller which broacasts the visitor's hand position as an OSC value.

This was our first VVVV project, it was a great experience!