Interactive Art installation:

MOUNTROTHKO

MOUNTROTHKO consists of the three scenarios “day”, “noon”, and “night”, which are presented a single interactive installation which itself contains hundreds of thousands of single frames, and 37 limited edition prints. The prints feature the selected frames from three series that are derived from the same spatial composition. Each individual piece honors the attention to coloring, layering and composition of forms, forms flow off and away from the surface of the projected canvas, yet extends perceptive qualities through time. The concept of the scenarios is to explore different interaction styles and create gradually more dynamic aesthetics in the theme of mountain formations, light, and particles.

MOUNTROTHKO as a multi-layer rendered interactive installation uses voice track and position track at the same time. White particles in this artwork have depth of field rendering. Particles themselves are not rendered as dots, bus as complex composite shapes. The Kinect tracks the position of visitors and changes the three scenarios according to the horizontal position in space. The energy of sound in space is filtered in the two-step process that determines the increment moment of mountain starting from a randomized baseline. The energy of sound in space also controls amount of horizontal movement of particles.

As a series of interactive art, MOUNTROTHKO aims at fusing the immediacy of interaction with the qualities of traditional art pieces from artist Mark Rothko. Inspired by the specific painting techniques that Mark Rothko explored in the 1950s, MOUNTROTHKO is blending all of the background colors together meanwhile leaving hard outline in the foreground which would visually locate the form in space. It allows visitors to shift attention, at same time read one image quite literally through another. Through veils of images, visitors could see the over layer and the under layer because layers of images are transparent and overlapping each other from background towards foreground, back and forth. Visitor will never experience a finality within this interactive artwork which is one that almost unravels in time.

Left: day #01 (108,333,31); right: night #01 (363, 156,40)                                                                                                                    Two selected frames from sequence "day" and "night" within interactive art installation MOUNTROTHKO                           50cm*50cm each, archival pigment ink print on metallic surface                                                                                                            Exhibition view

day #01 and night #01 exhibited in  Stadhuisplein 1 of Eindhoven (the Netherlands) in the event EINDHOVENART on 27,28,29,30 of December in 2017.     

MOUNTROTHKO is set up and experienced in LG -1.17a LaPlace in Eindhoven University of Technology (the Netherlands). The entire installation space is 5m*6m*4m. The projected image is 2.5m*2.5m.

MOUNTROTHKO is a multi-layer rendered visual installation by using voice track and position track at the same time. White particles in this artwork have depth of field rendering. Particles themselves are not rendered as dots, bus as complex composite shapes.The Kinect tracks the position of visitors and changes the theme according to the horizontal position in space. The energy of sound in space is filtered in the two-step process that determines the increment moment of mountain starting from a randomized baseline. The energy of sound in space also controls amount of horizontal movement of particles.

Final installation settings: parallel images of 2.5m*2.5m each projected by EPSON EB-Z10000, one 0.4m*2m*0.5m bench is placed in the middle of two projection screens with 1.5m distance. The entire installation space is 6.5m*8m*4m.                Filming and editting: Yu Zhang; BGM: Mathias Funk

From upper to lower raw: scenario "day", "noon", and “night” within interactive installation MOUNTROTHKO.

A kinect is settled to capture the participant position within the installation and a flute is used as sound input for the participant to interact with the installation.

StartScreen: go beyond considering immersive experience as the quality of interaction, MOUNTROTHKO  is also embedded into the web-based interactive framework. This "webrothko" is built on a novel domain-specific language (DSL) PULP created by Mathias Funk in 2012. Details about PULP:  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-33542-6_65

Sound scenarios within "webrothko".