Irregular Regularities

Type

Interactive Installation

Appearances

NYC Media Lab 2016
Overfitting, Ouchi Gallery 2016
Between Spaces 2017
Anonymous Others, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York 2017

Role

Developer, Designer

Technology

OpenFrameworks, C++

Irregular Regularities, a series of art installation, asks the audience to consider how the nature of individual consciousness is influenced by distortions of space-time. Every person—and indeed everything in the cosmos— perceives and is perceived differently as conditioned their specific frames of reference; this is Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.

This piece posits scenarios that make space-time perceptible through observation and interaction. Time exist in all kinds of forms reference system drastically changes could reveal a whole new perspective. Semi-accessible clues can be embedded or hidden in a regular scene in a way not immediately apparent to the audience. These deceptively prepared mechanisms could lead to the noticeable irregular case of the changes of space-time.
The whole experience encourages curiosity by leading observers, while the human subconscious takes the initiative. How is our objective reality experienced subjectively? Is reality objective considering that we live and die in a material world that is a mutable product of changing, warping space-time?

Slow Light, is the third installment of this series. Its idea was coming from a theoretical hypothesis that light traveling speed is adjustable or reducible. Hence the perspective of where the observer could be standing is drastically changed - a new reference system indicates completely different representation of what is regular. Following this, a demonstration of theoretical experiment gives a better visual presentation of the regular phenomenon of slow-light.

My thesis is an installation series that includes 3 experiments.

//-----------------------------------------------------------
EXP3 - Slow Light (depth slit scan): This is an installation about slowing the light traveling speed. By spinning the cone, audiences can see the irregular space-time distortion caused by slow light. Shapes become abnormal, straight lines become curved.

The gif shows the process of getting depth image -> inpainting it -> delay it slice by slice -> output match color image

A demo shows how an uniform shape is being distorted when in motion.

Another demo shows how law changed in space-time could result in this distortion.

An earlier demo shows how graphic information is being processed. This experiment is actually trying to create the effect that light speed is being slowed. Everything will reach the observer from close to far.

//-----------------------------------------------------------
EXP1 - Synchronization : Audience can use the knob to control playback speed of the video. Three performers were recorded performing in their own speed. Tuning the knob to the right spot can make the sound and one of the performers in sync. You can see this video to get the idea:

//-----------------------------------------------------------
EXP2 - Frequencies: The second one is a vinyl record that people can spin at different speed. Audience can hear several perceivable sounds (singing or talking) when the speed is right.