A. Project Title: A unique mask-changing performance
B. Project Statement of Purpose :
In my previous research, according to Crawford’s article The Art of Interactive Design, I defined interaction as a cyclic process where two actors alternately receive and respond to the message, which in computer terms are called: input, processing, and output. Looking back on my previous research, I have a new understanding of interactivity: people should learn something meaningful while interacting with interactive devices. In the final research paper, I studied the anti-drawing machine. I think this project can not only enable users to create art but also reflect on the relationship between human and machine, to have a deeper understanding of this Information Age. At the same time, in the media and daily life, I find that people tend to ignore their traditional culture. As a Chinese, I am very interested in the art of Sichuan dramatic face change, but I find that many new generations of young people in China slowly forget this art. I intend to design an interactive device to attract people, especially the new generation of young people, to value and understand the traditional art of face changing. I want to use processing for face recognition, and add the traditional face mask to the face that appears in the picture. Through Arduino’s manipulation, I hope to achieve changes between different masks. With the user’s performance, this project could create a scene that the user is giving a mask-changing performance on the stage. I hope that through this project people, especially teenagers can find the pleasure and charm of changing faces through virtual performances.
C. Project Plan *
For my project, I plan to use openCV to realize facial recognition and add masks to human faces by programming. I plan to make as many mask models as possible to increase the diversity of change. Also, I will add appropriate music and provide face-changing costumes to create an atmosphere where users are performing. To give users a sense of artistic creation, the project will provide a video recording function. After using interactive devices, users can save their own performance videos and have an interesting and meaningful memory. For the Arduino section, I plan to use keys to manipulate face changes. Users can play their own performances freely according to music or other factors.
In the next three weeks, I’m going to figure out these things:
In the next three weeks, we are going to figure out these things:
Week 1: Visual Coding
Week 2: Start working on connecting the buttons from Arduino to Processing
Week 3: User testing
D. Context and Significance *
In my group research paper, I defined interaction as a cyclic process where two actors alternately receive and respond to the message. In my final research paper, I put forward two new ideas: Firstly, interaction should be people-oriented. Secondly, interactive works should make people feel motivated to input next time. With the progress of learning, I have a new insight into the interactivity of final project: people should learn something meaningful from interactive works, and interactive works should have more profound significance. In the anti-drawing machine project mentioned above, besides interaction, users can feel the freedom of artistic creation and have a sense of reflection on the relationship between human and machine. The project “A unique mask-changing performance” is not only artistic but also can be used as a media to promote traditional culture.