Internal Phenomenon

- 2017   


Project Type | Installation
Client | Self-Initiated
Location | Venue

Credits :
Visual Design & Programming | Ke Jyun Wu

“If the environment changes with your heart, then happiness will come; if your heart changes with the environment, then chaos will come.”

What influences one’s heart in this chaotic world is not the outer environment but one’s emotions and attitudes. Internal Phenomenon focuses on emotions. The project combines with new media, utilizes the reformation of interactive images, and reproduces the changing process of emotions. The audience realizes the nature of emotions and the importance of emotional conversion when they are involved in the great flood of emotions.

The seven-minute artwork leads the audience to understand the meaning of the project with four chapters – Tranquility, Stricture, Transition, and Return.

The Interactive Part

Tranquility – Real-time scene scanning and visualizing (Kinect – Point Cloud)
Stricture – Emotion recognition (Affectiva)
Transition –Emotion recognition (Affectiva)
Real-time calculus performs the visualization and the interaction.

Chapter One 

-- Tranquility

Concept

Things and people travel through our lives shortly and simply. After we encounter these passengers, we express totally different emotions with each other because our memories and personalities differ from them. The emotions accumulate every single moment and the feelings grow out from our hearts. Those feelings then bring us into our state of mind. The mentioned process is originated from the reflection of our internal mentality. The subjective cognition decides our state of mind is either struggling or pleasant. If we review the whole process as a bystander, we will realize all the emotions are temporary and what influences us is ourselves.

Interactive Mode

The infrared sensor, which locates right in front of the stage, immediately catches the silhouettes of the participants. At the same time, the sensor visualizes the silhouettes and projects them to the virtual scene. The participants can control their self in the virtual scene and interact with the ball and the environment after the visualizing process.

Chapter Two

-- Stricture

Concept

Everyone cannot avoid facing difficulties throughout their lives. Sometimes we lose control of our state of mind and become gloomy. Other times we experience the unstableness of our emotions after going through frustration several times. This kind of experience also alters our attitudes towards everything – like the way we talk and express silently influences people around us. Try to let go of your subjective stereotypes and emotions. View things in a broader perspective and adjust your attitudes. In that case, you might get a completely different result. Eileen Chang, one of the greatest Chinese writers, said, “The world will smile with you when you smile, but no one will cry along with you.” Smiling could be the simplest and purest way to deal with frustrating situations and also the best medicine to ease the pressure in your heart.

Interactive Mode

The performance area has a mirror on the left side. The micro-computer, which is installed inside the mirror, detects people’s facial expressions.
The scene immediately adjusts the brightness, the active level of the particles, and the photosphere’s fluctuating range according to the strength of the participants’ smile.

Chapter Three

-- Transition 

Concept

After several transitions of emotions, one’s heart will be back to stability and tranquility, but the rise of the emotions will break the calmness again. However, the transition differs from each person, which makes it unpredictable.

Interactive Mode 

The performance area has a mirror on the left side. The micro-computer, which is installed inside the mirror, detects people’s facial expressions.
The scene switches to the corresponding emotional tunnel according to the facial expressions of the participants.

Chapter Four

-- Return

Concept

After suffering from the storm of emotions and being back to tranquility, we look back and realize the way our emotions work – the process repeats itself over and over again. What we can do is to gain experience over time, gradually become familiar with our emotions, and calmly distinguish the true quality and essence of things in our lives. This is the only way to let the environment change with your heart.