GMU:Breaking the Timeline/projects/Reconstructing the truth: Difference between revisions

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==Deconstructing the truth==
==Description==
The project focuses on the truth and reality of the images we see. Taking any kind of video source as input, the stream's audio channel is continously played back. The corresponding frame is calculated from similarity to all previous frames. The most similar frame will be displayed. Each new frame is then placed in a database for comparison with forthcoming frames. This creates a steadily growing and learning mass which—after some time—can replace ''reality'' with frames from the past. At that point no clear distinction between reality and fiction can be made anymore.
[[Image:Reconstructing the Truth.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Reconstructing the Truth]]
Nowadays reality is a highly constructed body made up of many different ideas, desires and influences. The biggest reality-producing machine, the media with all its different distribution channels, confronts us with a huge colourful moving  mass made up of countless pictures and sounds. The question about whether what we see is real or not is neither asked nor encouraged. The catchphrase of modernity is see it and believe it, critical discourse is never held. While in ancient times, following Plato's ideas, reality to some is the dancing of shadows on a cave wall, for us it is the interplay of many differently coloured pixels on flat surfaces. Screens are our viewfinders to the world. Our perception is created by artificial interfaces. The connection between reality and man is created by copper wires and silicon plates. A very fragile umbilical cord highly dependent on those who feed it thus holding the ultimate control.


Similarity between frames depend on an amount of chosen factors. Most commmon are histogram, structure etc. but always depend on the features one sees as important in an image. It's not important to match the look of a frame as close as possible but to match a frame in a given set of interests.
Two movies dealing about the question of what is real, [[wikipedia:The Matrix|''The Matrix'']] (1999) by the Wachowski brothers and [[wikipedia:Welt am Draht|''World on Wires'']] (1973, orig. title ''Welt am Draht'') by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, are left to the electronic brain of a computer to create, with its countless circuits instructed by a programmer, a reality partly constructed partly real to explore reality and its constructed nature. The outcome is a formal critique of (mass-)media's reality.


==Approaches==
==Final Result==
===Similarity===
<videoflash type=vimeo>16170658|600|490</videoflash>
Searching the most similar frame to the current frame in the same source doesn't work so well. In a movie the next or previous frame to the current frame is almost always the most similar one. This results in the same video delayed oen frame. Using two sources and matching source1 to source2 works better.
The final result (21 minutes).


<videoflash type=vimeo>12747037|430|236</videoflash>
==How it works==
Two different sources. Images are from source2, audio is from source1. Images are selected from source2 not only from similarity to the current frame of source1, but also from the overall difference to the previous frame, resulting in smoother image sequences that somtimes might be reversed. (source1 is Ger vs Aus, source2 is Ger vs Srb)
[[File:Reconstructing the truth mechanism.jpg|thumb|250px|Schematic function view]]
The piece utilizes a mechanism that compares frames of both sources. The first source dictates with its linearity the rhythm and flow of the second sources but at the same times breaking up its former linearity, creating a literally broken time line that becomes the linear flow of the final piece.


<videoflash type=vimeo>12887221|430|236</videoflash>
The technique used to achieve this is called optical flow, a mechanism to track the motion from one frame to the next. The analysis returns multiple vectors that indicate motion in the contents of these images. Motion hereby can be moving objects and persons but also movement of the camera's perspective. By finding images with the same motion vectors in a different source creates a completely new narration is based on the input source but exhibiting properties of the compared source.
This is the Tagesschau (tagesschau.de/download/podcast/). Source1 (Tagesschau 25.06.2010 20:00) is compared with Source2 (Tagesschau 24.06.2010 20:00). Audio is from Source1, images from Source2. Again this is similarity by distance to the previous frame.
===Motion Estimation===
Smart text about motion estimation
<videoflash type=vimeo>13175444|430|236</videoflash>
 
==Links==
*[http://vimeo.com/user3599886/videos More/older videos]
 
==References==
* Bernhard Hopfengärtner: [[GMU:Works#Bernhard Hopfengärtner: TANZMASCHINE|Tanzmaschine]]
* Sven König: [http://www.popmodernism.org/scrambledhackz sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ!], [http://www.popmodernism.org/appropirate/ aPpRoPiRaTe!]
* Perry Bard: [http://dziga.perrybard.net global remake project]
* Beom Kim: [http://www.mfah.org/ybf/ybf/artists/kim-news.html Untitled (News)], 2002
* Harun Farocki: [http://www.farocki-film.de/deep.htm Deep Play], 2007, [http://rhizome.org/editorial/3635 Deep Play on Rhizome]
* Purgand/Neumaier/Neupert: [http://www.burg-halle.de/~trimm/kunstrasen/neupert.htm Tipp-Kick Spiel], 2004


[[Category:Dokumentation]]
[[Category:Dokumentation]]

Latest revision as of 09:10, 1 August 2011

Description

Reconstructing the Truth

Nowadays reality is a highly constructed body made up of many different ideas, desires and influences. The biggest reality-producing machine, the media with all its different distribution channels, confronts us with a huge colourful moving mass made up of countless pictures and sounds. The question about whether what we see is real or not is neither asked nor encouraged. The catchphrase of modernity is see it and believe it, critical discourse is never held. While in ancient times, following Plato's ideas, reality to some is the dancing of shadows on a cave wall, for us it is the interplay of many differently coloured pixels on flat surfaces. Screens are our viewfinders to the world. Our perception is created by artificial interfaces. The connection between reality and man is created by copper wires and silicon plates. A very fragile umbilical cord highly dependent on those who feed it thus holding the ultimate control.

Two movies dealing about the question of what is real, The Matrix (1999) by the Wachowski brothers and World on Wires (1973, orig. title Welt am Draht) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, are left to the electronic brain of a computer to create, with its countless circuits instructed by a programmer, a reality partly constructed partly real to explore reality and its constructed nature. The outcome is a formal critique of (mass-)media's reality.

Final Result

<videoflash type=vimeo>16170658|600|490</videoflash> The final result (21 minutes).

How it works

The piece utilizes a mechanism that compares frames of both sources. The first source dictates with its linearity the rhythm and flow of the second sources but at the same times breaking up its former linearity, creating a literally broken time line that becomes the linear flow of the final piece.

The technique used to achieve this is called optical flow, a mechanism to track the motion from one frame to the next. The analysis returns multiple vectors that indicate motion in the contents of these images. Motion hereby can be moving objects and persons but also movement of the camera's perspective. By finding images with the same motion vectors in a different source creates a completely new narration is based on the input source but exhibiting properties of the compared source.