- Laser producing cloud
- 3D motion capture
Expand the Vision : Flow like the rain
Description/ artistic concept
The project will be an interactive installation in a gallery space about the size of the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London. The room will be flooded and there will be some island structures constructed and connected by bridges and accessed from all the gallery doors. The visitors will be given a rain coat at the entrance, this coat has 3D motion capture reflectors inside that will activate a rain producing laser as people move around. The islands have a established rain intensity map , so when people walk in a certain area a cloud will form above them and it will start to rain. Some areas will only activate the rain if people jump, walk very slow, run, stand. The rain will be watering the plants on the islands.
Technology
Laser that produces rain
Laser pulses strip electrons from atoms in the air and promote formation of hydroxyl radicals. Those in turn make sulfur and nitrogen dioxides into particles which can form the basis for water droplets -- not unlike how current cloud seeding methods use silver iodide crystals as the "seeds" for water droplets.
3D motion capture
Markers coated with a retroreflective material are attached to a suit, the camera can asses their position.
Time-modulated active markers can capture the movement in real time, assessing the exact position and motion of the person. For the scope of the installation time-modulated markers will be used.
Inspiration
Diller and Scrofidio : Blur Building
They built a building on a lake connected by a bridge to land , where water is pumped from the lake , filtered and shot with a very high pressure nozzle, producing a smoke/cloud environment above the building platform.The particles are so small that they often remain suspended in the air.
Transsolar and Tetsuo Kondo : Cloudscapes
They build a bridge/staircase that would take people a couple of meters high in the gallery air where they would be able to experience the formation of clouds.A layer of artificial clouds is produced by warm, humid air coming from openings in the walls .On the ground level, the air is cool and dry.Half way up the ramps among the clouds, the air is warm and humid.Above the cloud layer, the air is hot but dry.