week 04

Piano Stairs demonstration:

Explanation of my Pure War idea:

My real world sensor is a light sensor in a small appartment building. The general idea that my installation is built on is that the majority of society functions only when there's light, be it daylight or the light of a home. When that light disappears, so does all activity.

I'm a night person, I always have been, so for me, this idea is strange. I'm used to being very active in the dark. So for my installation, I created a piece of art that explores this concept of activity only in the light of day. My real world sensor is linked up to a light within the crysis game engine. A flowgraph uses the information found in the .xml file to control the height of this light, illuminating the area and simulating the sun as it moves in the sky.

The civilian AI's that wander around the environment are linked to the light via their flowgraphs. When the light is visible in the sky, they move around on their own set paths. But when the light disappears, they all stop in place, ceasing all activity.

The building I made in google sketchup takes this expression to another level. It simulates a caged environment around the civilians, a metaphor for their entrapment in the "norm" of activity only while it's light out. The central, smaller cage acts as an enclosure for the light, which is placed right in the middle, and casts shadows through the bars and onto the surrounding area, and ever present reminder of it's control.