#lightnelson

Here are my first experiments with rear curtain flash firing, at Light Nelson with help from one of the lovely volunteers and her wonderful umbrella!

The first shot is overexposed as I forgot to lower the ISO (was set at 1600). The camera settings were f/1.8 and shutter speed was 1/2 second (the fastest shutter speed I can use on my camera with flash firing on rear curtain.

For the second shot I only lowered the ISO to 200 and left the other settings the same. Although I preferred the circular effect of the first shot, lowering the ISO hid the movement of the strips of fabric, which only show when the flash hit them, which froze them mid movement and gave them a lovely translucent quality.

Very grateful to the volunteer for being a willing subject.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to show my LED shirt off at the Light Nelson festival in cold yet beautiful Nelson, NZ.

It wasn’t just a rehash of my Masters project either. I recruited a fellow developer, Jenna Gavin, to help make the shirt more focused on the body, both as the wearer and the watcher. Here was my brief:

This project centres on wearable and interactive technology; primarily featuring a shirt covered in over 1000 LEDs. These LEDs are independently programmed, creating a complex and visually-intriguing display area. The artist will be moving around the Light Nelson venue, with sensors on the shirt that react to the infrared activity (body heat) in close proximity. By picking up the controller attached to the artist, an individual may begin a personal and visual conversation. The participant moves the controller to produce unique light patterns and sequences on the artist. The physical-to-digital input and digital-to-physical output become a conversation that reveals more about each other.

We thought of the digital shirt as a tool to engage with the body in a visual form. We did this by using a touchscreen attached to the wearer’s arm. When a person dragged their finger on the touchscreen it would illuminate onto the shirt (green line) and allow for an exploration of the torso. The user could move and light up anywhere on the shirt.

To attract people over to the shirt we utilised a heat sensor that captured body heat. The shirt would just stare (a green/white eye) at whatever was closest/warmest until someone took action and started touching the screen. Unfortunately it is very difficult to get a good reading from the sensor when in temperatures under 8 degrees and when everyone is covered in lots of clothes!

We tried different types of interactions with different areas of the shirt and decided to go for a literal take with the anatomy of the body. There are blue ribs on the sides with which the user could shake up and down, a heart that pulsates stronger when the user's finger was closer and little bits of food that the finger can pick up in the stomach/intestines.

What we found however was for most people, they instead just like to write their name on the shirt. Another interesting note was if stood still long enough while the shirt is on, people begin to think you are a display model, like a mannequin.