(Submitted to class on 20 Nov. 2006)

TRANSIT
Christopher Caporlingua | December, 2006

Abstract:            

Places are designed to accommodate people who in turn are affected by residing in those places – but without people those places lose meaning. This project examines this recursive relationship through the use of interactive video and digital manipulation. In a series of locations, the aforementioned relationship becomes is highlighted and able to be explored.

Concept:        

Everyday we find ourselves in different locations. We sometimes fail to stop and think about how the presence of
others and ourselves effects  the workings of said locations. Places are tailored to suit the needs of people, but it is sometimes hard to see how that is in the places that we are ‘just passing through’. How are places changed when you remove that essential element that it is their sole purpose to accommodate? How drastic would these changes seem if we were able to see these situations change immediately?
Also, as we affect these places, these places must also affect us. What changes in our movements are dictated by the design of the locations. Surely there are things that over time have caused us to have behaviors that become habit.  Upon reflection we may find that we have adapted certain behaviors to serve in the interest of these inanimate systems of  design. We may find it surprising how much we adapt to changing  situations in these locations and how similar we find that we as a whole  and as a group have learned to adapt in similar fashions.   
We change places and places change us, the important thing to conside  is how and to what extent that this happens.

Experience:            

This project allows the audience to see video of various locations and manipulate it by exploring and finding clickable regions. Clicking on those regions will make people and objects relating to people such as vehicles appear or disappear. Also, they can turn on and off a tracing of the paths that all the possible elements in the scene take.
It is my hope that by adding subtracting the human element to and from these scenes we can observe how the aesthetic and functionality of the location is changed. This process will also allow the audience to observe, for an extended period of time, locations that are normally ignored and just passed through. These are mainly locations which serve a public function such as concourses, shopping centers, stairwells, bus stops, train stations, and sidewalks.
While the previous feature focuses on the personal side of people and places, the tracing option will focus of the viewpoint of the place itself. It shows how the place and the situation has affected the population which utilizes it, an example is seen below.

(Currently this is a sketch, when the project is complete it will be replaced with a screenshot from it)
This feature shows a much more mechanical view of the situation, rather than the personal view already seen.
With both of the features, the audience can interact with the components of the situation on both sides of the equation.

Structure:            

The different scenes are accessed by selection through thumbnails and descriptions. Regions, once found, can be clicked on to start its respective video to contribute to the scene. Regions which take up the majority of the screen will play full in the frame rather than integrated, to the  viewer, this change is subtle and not distracting as the full frame elements are comparatively brief and not looped like everything else.
The tracing is turned off and on by selection of an icon. Another icon brings the audience back to the initial menu.

Technology:            

Video was recorded with a Sony TRV-17 mini-dv video camera. It was imported and converted to the flash video format. From there these videos were integrated into Flash and given layer masks to integrate them into the full video of the scene. These videos visibilities are modified through ActionScript coding which activate one the regions are clicked on to hide or reveal the movie objects. The Files and their embedded videos are sorted and accessed through an HTML page made in Dreamweaver.

                       
Process:            

Video was recorded on various days in different locations, after filming the were put into dv files on the computer. Once they were brought into flash and overlaid and aligned with the base video, they were masked to make them seem to be part of the same video. Tracing lines were made in Flash by manually drawing over every frame of a sped up video of the location. This was one of the most time consuming parts of the project.
              

         
 Method:            

My choices from locations stem from my experiences working on night shifts where you arrive at work when it is still crowded, and may end up being the only person left around when it is time for you to leave.

References:       

At the New JetBlue Terminal, Passengers May Pirouette to Gate 3
From the New York Times, an article that got me interested originally in the relation of people to the places they inhabit, and the behaviors taught to people by the places.