This week’s reading is eerily interesting. Learning about how we can now interact with our computers with our entire body seems uncanny, if not revolutionary. Reading about Myron Krueger’s work, Videoplace, which he developed between 1969 and 1975, stands out as an early example where participants’ silhouettes were digitized and used for interactive graphics, showing the potential of whole-body interactions with computers. This overcomes the common use of mouse and keyboards. It reminds me of the Apple Vision Pro and how we can interact with the digital space by just moving our hands around, and how physically turning can show a 360 view of our space.
The article also introduces Messa di Voce, a collaborative project incorporating whole-body vision-based interactions, speech analysis, and augmented reality to create a unique audiovisual performance. This shows the evolution of computer vision in the arts, combining different sensory inputs for creative expression.
David Rokeby’s Sorting Daemon and the Suicide Box by the Bureau of Inverse Technology delve into a rather darker side of computer vision, shedding light on issues of surveillance and profiling. Rokeby’s installation creates diagnostic portraits of social environments, reflecting concerns about automatic systems in the context of the “war on terrorism.” On the other hand, Suicide Box, which is near the Golden Gate Bridge, captures live data on suicides, giving birth to controversy of using technology in social and public settings.