In one of the best eye-tracking technology projects I’ve seen, the folks from the Graffiti Research Lab and FAT Lab have teamed up with Theodore Watson, Zachary Lieberman, and Christine Sugrue to tackle a novel accessibility problem: enabling pioneering graffiti artist Tempt, hospitalized for over two years with the muscle atrophy of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), to be able to tag again. Out of all of the things I heard about at SXSW this year, I think this project was the thing that excited me the most — open source hardware + software hacking, vision work, accessibility concerns, graffiti and a great story!
The system they’re developing is using the excellent openFrameworks library and two small cameras: the left can be used as a “mouse button” event by holding that eye closed, and the right eye’s pupil is tracked for gesture. The result is a simple hands-free drawing app, which they will connect with the GRL’s laser tag tools, giving Tempt the ability to express himself through graf writing again.
You can check out the rest of their videos under the TEMPT1 tag on fffff.at (“Release early, often, and w/ rap music.”), but here’s a good one to get you started:
Chase Manhatten bank is getting in a bit of trouble for using digital projectors to beam their corporate logo onto the sidewalks of NYC, an act that the Times article construes as guerrilla marketing. Representatives from the neighborhood are describing the logos as visual blight and officials from their Department of Transportation equate it with defacement. I can’t say that I argue with it being an eyesore, and based on the photos I’ve seen I think it looks a bit obvious to be “guerrilla” (the logos are projected directly in front of the Chase outlets, they’re quite noticeably the Chase octagon logo). What I find interesting is that laws applying to physical defacement of city property are coming into play to stop the projection. This makes it different from previous cases of corporate ad-graffiti (like when IBM tried it with stenciled Linux logos or Sony’s PSP graffiti misfire), and brings it more into the realm of artist-hacker types like fi5e/Graffiti Research Lab and other more established artists who use projection in public spaces as a disruptive technology (along the lines of Krzysztof Wodiczko or Jean-Christian Bourcart). Obviously, the function of art is very different than advertisement or branding (right? hmm…), but I wonder if this will lead to something of a crackdown against unapproved projected imagery in major cities – will light be considered as infringing or destructive as painted graffiti?
