There is a thin line between the real and the virtual. Chris O’Shea’s
Hand From Above installation plays with crowd behavior using blob
tracking software to process surveillance and feed it back to the crowd
on a 25 meter screen.
O’Shea encourages us to question our normal routines as we rush from
one destination to another. Large scale installations draw attention
for novelty value – the kewl factor, but I found this piece interesting
because it transformed public space into theater and strangers into
performers.
The installation presents a live image of pedestrians casually
strolling through the city center, and then the augmented reality
funhousery begins. Hey, there’s a giant hand floating around and it’s
menacing everyone near enough for it to touch!
Omg, did it just grab that guy next to me? I look around and see him
standing there, but when the Hand picks you up, it looks real. The
system replaces your image with an image of the empty background
captured a few seconds before. It doesn’t just look real, it feels real.
We caper and cavort for the Hand in response to being touched. We try
to get away from the Hand when it paws and pinches. Our motions and
expressions change in response to what is happening onscreen. We
believe this thing is as real as we are. We behave exactly as though
the Big Hand were there. We don’t use systems, we become a part of
them. “I’ll do this as if I was actually there.”
Immersion as a state of mind
There is a thin line between the real and the virtual. Chris O’Shea’s
Hand From Above installation plays with crowd behavior using blob
tracking software to process surveillance and feed it back to the crowd
on a 25 meter screen.
O’Shea encourages us to question our normal routines as we rush from
one destination to another. Large scale installations draw attention
for novelty value – the kewl factor, but I found this piece interesting
because it transformed public space into theater and strangers into
performers.
The installation presents a live image of pedestrians casually
strolling through the city center, and then the augmented reality
funhousery begins. Hey, there’s a giant hand floating around and it’s
menacing everyone near enough for it to touch!
Omg, did it just grab that guy next to me? I look around and see him
standing there, but when the Hand picks you up, it looks real. The
system replaces your image with an image of the empty background
captured a few seconds before. It doesn’t just look real, it feels real.
We caper and cavort for the Hand in response to being touched. We try
to get away from the Hand when it paws and pinches. Our motions and
expressions change in response to what is happening onscreen. We
believe this thing is as real as we are. We behave exactly as though
the Big Hand were there. We don’t use systems, we become a part of
them. “I’ll do this as if I was actually there.”
BBC Big Screen Public Broadcasting Project
Hand From Above project site