Terraria by Cati Vaucelle

in collaboration with Michael John Gorman, Andrey Clancy and Brendan Tangney

Bringing technological landscapes and robotic art into the scene to participate in the exhibition space

Story

Within the context of a three-month exhibition on the history of robots at The Ark: a Cultural Center for Children, in Dublin, Ireland, Michael John Gorman, curator of the exhibition, asked me to design Terraria a system for visitors of the exhibition to make movies taking the simplest idea of children’s play : playing with toys, adding voices, turning toys into characters, and allowing children to capture the play on video, turning movie-making into a natural extension of play.

Rationale

I proposed the creation of a system for visitors to author the content of the exhibition space by creating their own movies and designed a technology that would enable visitors to experience movie making using popular devices, e.g. a joystick to control the movie making process. I also wanted to re-think real time video making for the museum exhibition space. Indeed, within the context of an interactive exhibition space, dividing the tasks of recording and editing of digital media between production and post-production can be disruptive to the visitors’ experience. The challenge of making a finished video is combined with the challenge of engaging exhibition visitors to make their own thematic visual story.

Terraria allows participation in the physical space through capturing video and instantaneous export to the digital space for the modification of the content they create. That content is projected within the museum, feeding back into the physical environment. Finally, the simplicity of use, and immediacy of response aims to engage visitors in movie creation. Video capture, editing and publication of the final video is optimized. With this interface I have attempted to expand the level of interaction for individuals in the physical museum space. Unlike the typical museum, spectators can transform and contribute to the physical exhibition space.

Description

Terraria consists of four landscapes with robots to play with, four video cameras, four joysticks and five wireless networked computers. Terraria captures movie segments, voice over, and offers real-time video and robotic sound effects. The user records sounds and visuals, and applies real time effects using a joystick. The joystick commands the movie creation, and consequently, a novel movie gets created and generated in a very transparent, and easy manner.

Within the short time frame unique to the museum and exhibition experience and given the low attentional focus that can be expected of the visitors, capturing and projecting a video would certainly be satisfying. However I wanted to allow more novelty in the interaction and provide a minimum of editing features such as voice over, soundtracks, and video effects. Finally, the simplicity of use, and immediacy of response aims to engage visitors in movie creation. Video capture, editing and publication of the final video is optimized.

Research

Terraria is directly a continuation of my previous research on bridging the gap between video capture and editing within the context of an exhibition. While usual editing tools such as iMovie™ facilitate the editing process, they require a longer time frame of interaction than the one offered in an exhibition space and are mainly suitable for home use. There is also no transparency between capturing a video, digitizing it and visualizing it. For this reason, digital jockey systems offer a paradigm for simultaneous real-time performance and editing of sound for a show space, and could be applied to video.

Within the context of a three-month exhibition on the history of robots Terraria is a system to perform movies using a joystick, editing the movie while capturing, and exporting a final piece instantly to contribute to the existing exhibition space. Indeed, after having created a short movie clip, the user has the option to project it in the exhibition space, and to contribute to a Diaporama of the visitors’ movies.

More information

Web blog for Terraria

Terraria on We Make Money Not Art

Publication

Re-thinking real time video making for the museum exhibition space Vaucelle, C, Gorman, M.J, Clancy, A, and Tangney, B. In Art & Design Tools. Published in the Proceedings of SIGGRAPH'05, Los Angeles, California, USA, 31 July - 4 August 2005. ACM Press.

Terraria is a collaboration between CRITE (directed by Professor Brendan Tangney), and the Ark, a cultural center for children, created for the three months (summer 2005) Save the Robots exhibition.

Terraria web site at CRITE

Terraria is created by Cati Vaucelle (concept, interaction design, software & hardware development), Michael John Gorman (concept, interaction design), Andrew Clancy (interaction design, sculpture), and Matt Karau (design of the camera mount).