The Kaleido-Cinema-Scope (KCS) is an experiment in creating engaging, interactive visuals using famous movie scenes, particularly, those from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
At the core of the KCS is a large array of triangles that serve as individual cells of the kaleidoscope. To get the kaleidoscopic effect, each triangles is given a texture mirroring the triangle next to it. While the underlying movie scenes play, a portion of the movie's current frame is applied to the triangles.
For this installation, I developed an application that would allow audio sensitivity and response to be tuned in real time. Due to the placement of speakers and the final projection, the audio application analyzes the audio using FFT and sends triggers to the visuals application via OSC messages.
The audio spectrum is first divided into 4 bands, super low, low, mid and high ranges. The width of each frequency band can be tuned while the system keeps track of local maximums in each band. A percentage of these maximums are used as trigger thresholds that allow the system to respond quickly to changes of music type and volume.
For a more whimsical addition to the installation I created a wireless, bluetooth button attendees could smash to trigger additional effects. Triggers are sent from the button to the system that play sound effects (horns and other party appropriate sound effects), manipulate the triangular grid and display large flashing gifs over the projection.
Video coming soon