Meet the Other Me 🖤
Description
Purpose & Usage:
Under the context where everyone is locked down at home due to the pandemic, the chance for people to hang out with friends or date is limited to the worst degree.So the camera captures a mirrored image of the user, which can be a medium for people to see the other "self" and interact with it. It's meant to ease loneliness.
Design Process
Turned Downed Ideas:
1. Ghosting Self Portrait:clmtrackr tracing the face in the dark
2. Parallel Universe: using clmtrackr and loadPixels() together, to capture both the tracing face & pixelated effect.
Executed Idea:
3. Meet the Other Me: Mirrored pixelated image using loadPixels() and scale().
Final Choice Demonstration:
1. Didn't figure out how to trace a smooth line drawing of a face using clmtrackr. Still working on it.
2. It's hard to put clmtrackr and loadPixels() in one sketch. The laptop kept on crashing due to the large amount of storage required.
3. The 3rd idea responses to the current context, and the feeling of being alienated will continue being a social issue even after the pandemic, due to post-pandemic trauma, and the development of the internet which makes communication more efficient but interpersonal relationship colder.
p5js code
Reflection
1. loadPixels() & updatePixels() require a large amount of storage, it may make the website or the laptop to freeze. Save the work before hitting the play button.
2. Whenever and whatever we see, we see part of ourselves. For instance people with darker skin color tend to care about the technology bias towards blacks more than other people with lighter skin tones, and people eager for social interaction (like me) are more sensitive to social issues caused by isolation.
3. For the camera effect, try whatever comes to your mind. One can never know how an idea will look like until actually sees it.