Manifold+Warp


 * Project Name:** Manifold Warp
 * Project Credits:** Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo (jgarciad@gsd.harvard.edu) & Stefano Andreani (andreani@gsd.harvard.edu)
 * Project Brief Description:**

//Manifold // // Warp is an installation where time, space, user and matter collide into a single performative media as the tangible incarnation of a higher-dimensional manifold. //

The idea for Manifold Warp arises from an investigation of the dynamics of the body, and how these dynamics can be translated into meaningful experiences. Usually, human movements turn into affective gestures only when performers act in particular and well-studied ways – e.g., dancing or rhythmic gymnastics with ribbons. Instead, everyday gestures embed hidden meanings that, if properly translated, might create unexpected spatial, visual, and emotional results.

MW explores one of these methods to generate meaningful experiences out of natural movements of people, by manipulating physical space, fictional representations, and time conception through a never-repetitive interaction process. In particular, MW allows to create a performative actions through the user’s body without preconceiving the action itself: natural gestures are in fact processed in such a way that even a banal movement acquires meaning, creates effects, and stimulates further action.

In order for this mechanism to happen, the adopted principle takes inspiration from the well-know concept of self-image mirror, in which two parallel mirrors create the effect of an infinite series of reflections. In MW, this function is played by a camera and a projector, is processed by a sophisticated algorithm, and is altered by the user’s dynamics. Being at the same time protagonist and spectator, the user in fact engages with both camera and projector in a physical way, influences with his movements the digital world, but most of all affects the surrounding space and the perceived time not only to him/herself, but also to the spectators. The media performance is in fact only the – always updated – result of a deeper level of experiences, blending “the digital” and “the physical” in a subtle – though spectacular – way. In the very performative moments, each of the user’s gesture creates a series of overlapping wakes that, by flowing after these dynamics, give rise to fluid imprints projected into a canvas placed in between camera and projector. The user is in fact tracked, his movements are then processed and projected, and finally altered by the user himself.

With MW, several levels of interaction occur:
 * 1) //User / front canvas // interaction, in which the user engages with his projected and manipulated shape.
 * 2) //User / back canvas // interaction, in which the user “erases” his residual traces.
 * 3) //User / time // interaction, in which the user manipulates the performance’s time delay.
 * 4) //User / matter //interaction, in which the user deforms the fabric and thus affect the projection.
 * 5) //User / user //<span style="font-family: 'Swis721 LtCn BT','sans-serif';"> interaction, in which multiple-user projections are mutually affected.

<span style="font-family: 'Swis721 LtCn BT','sans-serif';">In the overall range of experiences that a user can generate with MW, the theme of //disappearance// is a constant theme. In fact, not only gestures gradually disappear while the related wakes fade, but also the entire body itself can disappear. This is particularly true in certain light conditions, when a user stops moving, assisting to his projection fading away – and then eventually reappearing again when a new gesture is performed.

<span style="font-family: 'Swis721 LtCn BT','sans-serif';">MW is thus a generator of unexpected emotions, a tangible – yet sublime – media, a space and time manipulator, an interactive hyper-game, an interpreter of human dynamics, that aims to open up new ways of exploring the body and its relation to the physical and digital worlds for meaningful experiences.

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 * Project Analysis:**