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A game of (enhanced) mirrors - China Academy of Arts

This course will take place at the China Academy of Arts, for the students of the School of Design and Innovation.
 

Starting from the simple concept of funhouse distorting mirrors, this course would like to present various ways of displaying and manipulating reflected images through game-like mechanics.

We will be using TouchDesigner, a node-based visual development platform, to integrate various strategies in a complete real-time interactive application.

After a basic introduction to TouchDesigner, the students will learn how to integrate signals and video feeds from a Kinect camera, or basically from any other movement, and how to manipulate, use and display these kinds of video and data sets.

Next, we will discuss the students’ artistic ideas on how to handle these information sources, and we will choose some of them to focus on, facing every production aspect of such concepts.

We will also take a look at the factors to take into account when preparing for the actual deployment, learning techniques and sophistications required to have a standalone product, ready for an installation

 

Students are expected to learn the basic use case scenarios for TouchDesigner software, as well as how to use it to capture and manage different type of data from sensors: video streams, tracking positions, pointclouds and depth data sets.

The class will also be invited to express its views on the reinterpretation of the acquired data, creating graphic real-time effects to enhance the experience of the user.

The course will also provide a detailed view of the requirements of an actual installation, facing the needs of hardware and software when delivering a completed project.