It comprises an environment with ambient music and image in which visitors manipulate virtual 3D objects through a series of luminous boxes strategically placed in the room. This boxes are the nexus between the virtual and the physical world by allowing active connections such as the equal inclination, rotation and position of objects in both spaces. Thus the visitors can move virtual objects in a 3D audiovisual setting that visually coexists with our reality.

Audiovisual entertainment is rapidly changing towards immersive experiences. A few years ago we stared in awe at young people in Japan ecstatically jumping for hours in front of strange videogames. It was called Pump it Up, and today kids all over the world enjoy it too. These games combine the libido of dancing with the adrenaline of entertainment, an exhilarating and addictive mix.
In turn, concerts stopped being about performing live music, and instead have became shows that stimulate and dazzle audiences with incredible sound and visual effects. Nowadays a U2 concert is an explosion of light and colour. In the meantime, the film industry has for the past years been looking for ways to enhance the visual experience, the results have been unevenly successful, from 3D vision to simulators that make our seats jerk violently as we watch a rollercoaster ride on the big screen.
Different factors have made these changes in entertainment possible: the development of more powerful and cheaper technologies, the targeting of the expanding teenage consumer segment by technological corporations, the search for innovative sources of excitement and the exploration of new technologies as means of expression.
This work attempts to contribute to the development of a new audiovisual model that engages the audience in an active way, allowing them to permanently modify the work, instead of simply viewing it.
We could say that throughout artistic evolution there has been an intention to broaden our perception of reality, to highlight a moment, an experience. Thus, we assume, there is an acceleration and an expansion of emotions. My father tried to convince me that a kite was more exciting than my Commodore64, as you can see he couldn’t. I’m not referring to the quality of one or the other, but to the extent to which they commit our senses to fantasy. There is a sort of craving for entertainment, a frenzy to constantly and exponentially consume novelty, a demand for what’s stronger, newer.
This work is an artistic proposal and a practical development that brings forth our commitment as artists to this constant search our society performs for expression beyond a specific content

But how can nature be reinvented in a digital universe?
With this objective in mind, Lindenmayer developed in the sixties what is now called L-System. A structured grammar system based on Chomsky’s hierarchies, which provides a solution to the theoretical development of a plant’s morphology. It’s a dynamic grammar system that using an axiom and a interpretation rule as a starting point allows the structure to grow indefinitely.
We reinterpreted these algorithms with mediums generated by us. In these mediums we converted the grammar structure into different esthetic models controlled in the live scene.
As a result the work plants seeds that grow altered by the interaction of the audience and thus generates a constantly changing, always unique audiovisual environment.
If God created man in his image and his likeness then potentially we can reinvent and reproduce the auto-generative ways of natural beauty.

We used two new media techniques to set up the work. The first is a series of scale models in OpenGL that audio rhythmically respond to the environment. OpenGL is an open source language which is directly reinterpreted by current video cards. Due to the fact that it needs no further reinterpretation by the computer and that it establishes a direct communication with what is generated onscreen, it has an enhanced performance and reach in its potential.
Together with these 3D models we use a set of algorithms that operate on the interpretation of ambient sound (we call this platform CRAFTS) and build reinterpretations of the model in different angles using various combinations of objects and colours. The result looks very much like video, but it’s actually a sequence of images generated in real time.
The second of the techniques utilized in the work is called Augmented Reality. This system uses cameras to calculate the position of certain objects in the physical world and their exact deformation in space (rotation, inclination, etc.). We use the resulting coordinates in an OpenGL environment together with the L-System described earlier. Consequently virtual objects, that can even be modified in the moment, appear in real physical situations. Thus, someone in the audience can move a virtual object through the exhibition space and someone else can rotate it as if it was actually there.

The whole experience takes place in a single exhibition room, with an esthetic setup that is part of the audiovisual clip. There are also different active elements in the stage, these are lit up boxes with a mark stamped on them that the Augmented Reality system easily recognizes. The boxes can be moved, shifted or rotated by the audience. On the screens the public can see how virtual elements, intertwined with the real physical space, grow from inside these boxes. The people manipulating the boxes can watch themselves onscreen manipulating virtual elements.
In the exhibition space there is also a couch and a digital station with small TFT screens where the audio-rhythmical elements generated by CRAFTS can be appreciated. On the other end of the room there will be a large projection with visual contents to liven up the setup.

A MiniDV camera and an Apple MiniMac computer is neded for every signal generated using Augmented Reality. We propose the use of three different generators.
A video projector is needed for every output signal, but more than one projector can be used for each signal.
An Apple MiniMac and a webcam with a USB microphone is required to generate the CRAFTS signal, as well as five to ten TFT screens.

bibliography:
Crafts: http://www.i2off.org/crafts
Augmented Reality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
ARToolKit librería de Augmented Reality: http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/
L-System: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system
Jerarquias Chomsky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy
Quartz Composer utilidad OpenGL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_Composer

other works :
http://www.i2off.org/crafts
http://www.i2off.org/naturl
http://www.i2off.org/ramas

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