Art Dance/Dance Art

When I heard that Wii Fit had a weight limit on it (and if you are too fat, you should take it back to the shop ... Nintendo representative), my thought was that they wouldn't want me and my chair on it. A powerchair and its user can get pretty heavy -- and even though I use a manual chair, such a fragile piece of plastic wouldn't stand up to the kinds of movement I'd wanna do (snark).

You can imagine my delight upon seeing and experimenting with Mr. YoungHyun Chung's Digital Wheel Art. As part of his thesis, Mr. Chung has created -- excuse my description; it's not particularly technical -- a way of drawing with your wheels. The sensors attached to your chair translated the movement of your wheels into lines of colour that are projected onto a wall. You can change the colour by clicking a button/knob. It was awesome fun. Here's me doing it. Live. On video -- sort of in time to the music of the dance arena in which this was presented.



Cool. Very Cool. I must admit to having had some difficulty. The knob that changes the colour of your line is also the knob that resets and erases everything. I lost my "work" several times. And there wasn't a save function available at that point. As far as I could see the system is designed for all kinds of levels of use, but it does seem to respond best to slow sustained movement rather than the jerky bounces I wanted to give it at first. (live and learn -- I actually thought I had broken it at several points. Sorry. Eeeek).

Anyway. I had a blast. And if you get the chance, Mr. Chung will be presenting his work here and here.

Here are the results of my work that we did manage to save. I probably shouldn't give up the dance job for an art job, but this was good fun ... and it is technology that has potential.

Enjoy.

The post includes 3 pictures of me doing my thing. In each case, you can see me in silhouette in various positions -- arms up, arms out, bent over. Up towards the top righthand side of the frame are my various efforts: swirls of different coloured light. Some circles, some jagged edges. In the two right most pictures, the sensor projects upward like an antenna from my chair.