Skin to Skin: Performing Augmented Reality - Augmented Reality Art - page 160

Fig. 9.3 'Spikey Guy' (The Crack-Up) 2013 by John McCormick, Alison Bennett, Steph

Hutchison and Kim Vincs

of augmented reality as the embeddedness between the digital and the physical. In
this work, a series of spheres move, again in 3D stereoscopic space, in response
to motion capture data from a performer, again via a scene in Unity game engine
created by McCormick. The spheres are wrapped in an image of the iris of one
of the creator's eyes, as a way of embedding the physicality of the performer's
physical body within the digitally generated aspects of the work. The movement of
the spheres follows the performer's limbs, and is mirrored to create a symmetrical
yet highly readable rendition of the movement (see Fig. 9.4 ). In this work, however,
the digital imagery can be driven either in real-time by a performer, or by an
artificial intelligence choreographic agent developed by McCormick (McCormick
et al. 2013 ). The agent, constructed using a self-organising map (Kohonen 1989 )
'learns' from motion capture data input and is able to perform a rendition based on
known movement phrases. The agent was given input from Hutchison's movement
data, and therefore has a dance vocabulary derived from her movement. This system
created a more detailed and complex integration of physical and digital elements
since the machine-based system, in this instance, shares not only a visual projected
space with a human performer, but also shares a movement vocabulary which is
not simply imposed upon the software, but which the software actively learns and
reproduces in its own fashion.
This integration of digital and physical represents, for us, a high-water mark
in a series of artworks that consider augmented reality as a conceptual model