Milk Pixel Arts Trail videos

Last weekend a highly improved Milk Pixel featured on the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail. The system was installated in the studio of the Creative Glass Guild, a brightly lit white-walled space filled with colourful glasswork. As Milk Pixel works best in the dark was necessary to build an enclosure. Being on a tight (i.e. non-existing budget) can be fun sometimes as a tent was quickly cobbled together out of a £15 Gazebo and a roll of cheap 'Halloween' fabric.

The system was working on some new 'autonomous', semi-random code whereby it would automatically change between different modes of responsiveness, sometimes overlaying colours onto it's video/motion/sound derived patterns while at other times ignoring what was happening in the tent and just doing it's own thing (i.e. displaying and moving pretty colours around). The idea was that:

1. The audience never actually knew what the system was doing
2. No two visits to the tent were the same

As I result we got some interesting behaviours out of both the system and the audience! Some of the most interesting comments went something like "It seemed to be watching me walk around, then it got bored and did something else".

Here's a video of the sort of interaction you get with the system, as you can see it's alot of fun (ignore the flickering, my camera went weird at the weekend, it doesn't actually flicker in real life):



I couldn't resist making a timelapse of the dissamembly:




Perhaps the most rewarding comments came from about 4 different people who all compared Milk Pixel to some of the installation work by Brian Eno and all said we should aim for more exposure in larger venues. Obviously, we were flattered!