Reading Reflection: Week 05

I read about Myron Kruger’s “Videoplace” from another article and I think Myron W Krueger’s philosophical approach to make an interaction between Arts and Computer Science is a pioneering idea in the 60’s that made him a first generation virtual reality and augmented reality researcher. His examples of creating art on the hands of his friend and visual aesthetics reminded me of the times when I used to draw just lines and patterns on the “Paint” software of windows computer and sometimes it would come out pretty aesthetically, but he took this simple idea to generate something out of the box. From this paper, as I read more about the VIDEOPLACE, I felt it was more advanced than the technologies of that time and surely created a path for today’s AR and VR tech. I felt this paper works as a stepping stone for students interested in Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence.

I also felt very curious to know more about Messa di Voce, created by Golan Levin in collaboration with Zachary Lieberman. The concept of what can be done in the field of Human-Computer Interaction expanded more through this project. Previously, image or pattern recognition would come to my mind while talking about HCI, but now I see how our voice, can be an excellent element for interacting with audiovisual installations. I agree on the fact that algorithms play a key role in this field and I wonder do we all need to keep rebuilding new algorithms to explore more opportunities in HCI? The idea of building machine vision techniques “from first principles” resonates with my desire to understand how these systems work under the hood. While many environments provide off-the-shelf solutions, the challenge of implementing vision algorithms from scratch seems like a rewarding process that deepens one’s understanding of the mechanics of vision systems.

After reading this paper, I want to explore how vision-based systems can interact with audio, visuals, and physical devices to create immersive, interactive experiences. Tools like Myron, Rozin’s TrackThemColors, and especially Max/MSP/Jitter with CV.Jit seem like powerful platforms for experimenting with art and performance which I haven’t used till now.

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