Moon Theater is an interactive shadow-play installation exhibited during the Glow festival in Santa Monica. The festival took place against an unique backdrop of the historic Santa Monica pier and the Pacific ocean. An estimated number of 200,000 people attended the event. We conceived the project with the unique opportunities offered by a large scale public festival in mind.

Moon Theater is designed to address issues of scale and social performance in a public setting. In the context of Glow, it is realized as an opportunity for communication and expression between members of a large crowd. Moon Theater aims to empower the participants with a broadened capacity for visual communication. The moon is defined as an urban screen. It is perceived as a unifying element; a common symbol for people across great distances. The piece successfully sustained a community around itself throughout the night, transforming strangers into collaborative performers.

The software component of this project is written in Processing. It uses custom hand tracking code by Andres Colubri.

Creators: Michael Kontopoulos and Nova Jiang
Special thanks:
Andres Colubri
Frank Chang
Jacob Tonski
Paul Yarin
Kinetic Lighting

PHOTOS

In “Inner Forests”, a user’s shadow is augmented and expanded by the gentle growth of trees and shrubs. The longer the user stands still, the more growth occurs. If the user moves, the growth disappears quickly.
While the notion of augmenting the human form through shadow has been widely explored in new media art, what strikes me often is the frequency with which the expectation of immediate feedback and instant gratification is rewarded. With this piece, I was interested in the concept of slow interactions, interactions that take patience and investment from the user; that develop a personal relationship between the user and their shadow rather than constructs an interface where the shadow is merely a tool.
Slow interaction rewards the user for personal investment over time.

PHOTOS

EXHIBITION HISTORY

• 2007 > Regina Gouger Miller Gallery (Pittsburgh, PA)
• 2007 > Ellis Gallery (Pittsburgh, PA)

This exercise was a response to a brief but frightening stalker threat that a friend and housemate was receiving. In an exploration of projection, I decided to rear-project a set of paranoid, gazing eyes into the two upper windows of the house. The simple addition of eyes really brought the house to life.

PHOTOS