Design for interactive art — Winny's Portfolio

Mirroring Loss

#Interactive Art #Motion Capture #Three.js

An artwork that serves as a meditative ritual to bid farewell to the people who lost their lives due to Covid-19. It aims to challenge the social prejudices and their dominance on mentality during the ongoing global crisis by designing a meaningful self-reflection experience.

Timeline

Two semesters

Project Type

Capstone Project

Mentors

Junghyun Moon, Yanyue Yuan

Tools

Figma, Illustrator, Github, React, Tailwind, Next.js, MongoDB, Google slides, Excel sheet

Achievement

Data Analysis & Visualization, Computational Vision, Real-time Interaction, Installation Exhibition

Background

Problem

The memories for 2020 are full of chaos: contagious disease, the shutdown of schools and shops, people losing jobs, etc. It is hard to imagine how much terror, anxiety, prejudice has emerged directly proportional to the confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide. The word “Chinese virus” has boosted shockingly from 2% to 61% in two weeks, from Jan 12 to Jan 25 (trends.google.com).

We are sometimes buried in such chaos, distress and anger, while forgetting that the year 2020 signifies the sudden loss of lives, those who could have more time. When the overall society fears closeness because of the contiguous disease, people might lose the basic practices to interact, communicate with each other, and to feel other people’s sorrow or joy. That’s why a retrace of empathic experience becomes necessary.

Challenge

Problem Statement

How to build empathy of lost lives due to Covid-19 through an interactive digital experience?

Research & Analysis

Literature Review

I started my research by looking into relevant literature on ‘empathy’, from philosophical writings to psychology theories to news articles. In order to design an interactive experience, I then conducted research on user experience design strategies and data analysis.

Related Art & Practice

Then I researched relevant art projects and practices, either they’re serving for a similar purpose like contextualization and reflection, or their method is inspirational on how to create such a reflective experience, for example, by looking into a mirror.

"a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves"

Charles Taylor. (1992). p25
“Multiculturalism and ‘the politics of recognition”

Sarah Howorka. (2015).
“average face mirrorr

Design Concept

Design an Interactive Art Experience

Mirroring Loss recreates the memorial ceremony rituals and environments, passing along the feeling of loss and honoring death. It designs a sophisticated process to emerge this awareness step by step by focusing on the inquiry: how to build a reflective, empathetic experience on death due to covid-19? More specifically, how to engage users in reflecting about death by linking the data of lost lives with the users themselves?

Development

Build a Real-Time Depth Tracking Particle System

To simulate a smooth process of looking inside the mirror, I used a Kinect depth tracking system to receive information about the user’s gestures and body image, making an intuitive and spontaneous process. The depth camera sends real-time coordination information to Three.js environment and it generates an immediate self-reflection in the screen.

Outcome

Final Outcome

Mirroring Loss helps us become consciously aware of the large number of deaths caused by Covid-19, and at the same time to reflect on the collective human loss. In a way, a visual representation of the user will experience death in the process under the larger background of the covid-19 pandemic.

It directly conveys that everyone is waiting for this crisis to end, preparing for a collective moment to honor death. The artwork becomes not only a place to mourn, but also to celebrate life, affection, and empathy.