Rob Locke remarks, "The University's relationship with Green Hippo was essential to this project which would not have been possible without the support of Simon and Nick, and we look forward to further collaboration in the future."
Erica Frost and five of her fellow students were given the brief to design an 'interactive sensory garden' for their final end of year project. This event was a first for the course as the planning and programming of interactive sound, lighting and video was not something taught or discussed as part of the course.
Locke continues, "The brief for the sensory garden project was designed to stretch the final year Lighting and Live Event Technology students' understanding and practical application of all the material they had learned over the past three years. The Garden required innovation and adaptation to produce an interesting and interactive experience."
Held at the Ty Crawshay Garden at Glamorgan University the group, called Enteract, had high ambitions for this project, as Frost explains, "We researched how we could make light, sound and video interactive in ways that went beyond just pushing faders and buttons."
The initial idea revolved around a bedtime theme, creating a relaxing dreamscape within the garden, including stars in the trees and hot chocolate.
Using a Hippotizer Stage media server, Frost managed to find hardware and software which enabled them to convert analogue and digital signals from a variety of sensors into MIDI and OSC messages. These messages could then be picked up by Green Hippo's Hippotizer and the university's Pharos LPC1 unit.
The group managed to successfully secure equipment from various sources, giving them the opportunity to forge connections and work with some of the best companies in the business.
The student devised several set-ups for the project, which started immediately when visitors walked up the steps to the garden. The group had spread out motion sensors in the shrubs beside the steps and picking up the movement from people walking up the stairs the sensors send signals via a laptop to the 100v line system in the trees, creating the sound of the 'Talking Trees' around the garden.
Walking onto the lawn visitors were able to investigate video projections on the main white tepee in the middle of the garden. Initially Erica and her fellow students had planned to create an extensive bedtime setting using a double bed at its centre with a canvas above for visitors to watch projections while lying on the bed and triggering various dream sequences depending on which sensor they activated.
Using a USB webcam as the 'sensory input' for the Hippotizer, they programmed various parts of the camera so that movement in the right side of the camera would trigger a different timeline in the server than movement in the left side of the camera. The JunXion software received the triggers from the webcam, and in turn sent MIDI signals to the Hippotizer, which took care of all the video projection and provided the media representing dream sequences. A timer within the JunXion software ensured that over the course of the evening different timelines were triggered.
(Jim Evans)
