Remaking the Making of Americans

An example of projection mapping through an array of mirrors. There is a single projector in this room projecting content on three walls simultaneously, covering almost a full 180 degree span. Without a mirror array the layout of projected content would have been severely restricted due to the size of the room. Read more about the projection technique here: http://www.benpurdy.com --- Video was taken at the "Liminal presents Gertrude Stein" event as part of the March Music Moderne in Portland Oregon. This room was an installation by Ben Purdy and Bryan Markovitz titled "Re-Imagining the Making of Americans"

In March of 2012 I was invited to work with Liminal Performance Group to participate in the March Music Modern. I collaborated with Bryan Markowitz to create an installation based on Gertrude Stein’s novel “The Making of Americans.” We described the installation this way:

In the living we are doing there are things that make us and things we make, something like bubbles. And the space between holds the possibility of unexpectedly anything. So making this has been a tracing of unending families of foam and residue. And it is something like the making of the Making of Americans.

The installation consisted of a small room containing twelve ink prints, four of which housed projection mapped output from a dynamic simulation. The simulation was an autonomous system based on the characters and interpersonal connections from the novel. 

Role:
Artist, Developer, Engineer

Tools and Technologies:
Processing, Eclipse, Ink, LEDs, Projection Mapping

Date
March 2012

The simulation was tuned to unfold over the course of three hours, starting in a very simple configuration and ending up in a massive swarm of character instances.  Initially only a single instance of each character exists, over time, interactions within the system yield new instances, and old instances die and accumulate in the simulation.  

A selected set of portrait photography from the creative commons was built into a dynamic collage based on the simulation and projected into the ink prints around the room.

Visualization of the simulation space used to drive dynamic photo collage which were projected onto ink and paper prints. Part of the installation "Remaking the Making of Americans" by Bryan Markovitz and Ben Purdy. Shown March 2012 as part of the March Music Moderne in Portland Oregon. Read more here: http://www.benpurdy.com/portfolio/