Mensch am Meer/Man by the sea
"Herrlich ist es, in einer unendlichen Einsamkeit am Meeresufer, unter trübem Himmel, auf eine unbegrenzte Wasserwüste, hinauszuschauen." (Heinrich v. Kleist)
Das Meer und der Mensch stehen einander gegenüber. Die Nacht bricht an und die Wellen rauschen. Der mächtige, grau-violette, fast strukturlose Himmel wird dunkler und dunkler. In Relation zu der Umgebung und dem übergroßen Spektakel der Natur wirkt der Mensch klein, einsam und allein.
Man by the sea is a theoretical and practical work on the importance of the position and influence of a beholder inside the painting on a beholder outside the picture. It was developed in the romantic and was used often to show the overwhelming power of the nature compared to that of mankind. One famous painting showing this is David Caspers Friedrich's work "The Monk By The Sea"
Man by the sea is a reenactment of this work. First it was just a moving picture of the deserted cold sea in january in my homeland by the north sea. With the help of PD and Backround Substraction with a WebCam it gets more interactive. If someone is entering the area of the webcam the video will change and a tiny little man will walk into the picture. So will be a sound activated of a poem by Charles Baudelaire "L'Homme et la mer/The Man and The Sea".
The Idea is simple: A Beholder outside the picture helps to bring a beholder inside the picture.
Actually there are some problems with reseting the video and sound. I also wanted to start with a counter and only if the beholde is staying in the area of the webcam sight about thirty seconds the new video should be shown. But it seems not to work with a simple backround substraction because the number will always increase if more and more people are moving thorugh the webcam sight.
Media:2012-01-20 Patch - In Work.pd
Schall-Wasser-Tanz/Sonic-Water-Dance
A year ago I worked on the interaction of water and sonic. Both together they can make a great visiual experience. With PureData and Eyecon it now reachs a new level which was a year ago only developed as a concept.
The core of the work is that the structure of the water gets sharper if the pitch of the sonic rises higher.
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About the Concept in short: A Camera is filming water that will be moved by the sound of a loudspeaker. That will be projected by a beamer in a dark room to a wall. If a Person enters the room the sonic will be activated and the projected water will get a structure. If the Person is moving to the Picture on the wall the pitch of the sonic will rise and the structe of the water gets sharper.
The work is at the moment based on Motion Tracking with Eyecon and Puredata. We still got some problems to make a clean pitch of a sound. I got my friend Daniel Winterberg helping me with Eycon and OSC.