de-kAn-'str&kt

I have developed a method for resynthesizing existing videos using material from any other video(s). This process starts by learning a database of objects that appear in the set of videos to synthesize from. The target video to resynthesize is then broken into objects in a similar manner, but also matched to objects in the database.

A perceptual model based on proto-objects is presented as a visual reconstruction of Harry Smith’s Early Abstractions. I train the model on a scene from Dumbo, Pink Elephants, asking it to interpret Harry Smith, having only knowledge of Dumbo. The reconstruction is surprisingly able to capture a wide variety of the abstract images and movements in Harry Smith, as well as capture after-image. This model is an early prototype of my PhD work on visual resynthesis.

Part of the SURFACES exhibition at BAR1 in Bangalore, India, this piece organizes the thoughts and speech of numerous Indian politicians using a microphone input. Participants are invited to use a microphone in front of a 3-channel audiovisual installation where the patterns of sound coming into the microphone are matched to a large database of different speeches by Indian politicians. The resulting cut-up fragmented narration by the different politicians feels like an infected synthesis of promises, lies, and puppetry. Made in collaboration with Prayas Abhinav and 9 students from the CEMA course at the Srishti School of Art and Design, Bangalore, India.

Part of the SURFACES exhibition at BAR1 in Bangalore, India, participants enter an ambisonic audio environment where they each become a character in a post-apocalyptic cyber-punk tale of a one-dimensional fate. As they enter the 3x3x3m space, audio cues spatialized from their perspective are triggered based on a randomly chosen character. Cut-up fragments of the voice of the character are synthesized where the participant stands. As they move within the ambisonic space, their character’s narrative is unfolded further, revealing more of their story. Other participants can enter the space and hear each of the participant’s tale synchronized to each of the participant’s location through the use of ambisonics. Made in collaboration with Prayas Abhinav and 9 students from the CEMA course at the Srishti School of Art and Design, Bangalore, India.

An auditory reconstruction of Michael Jackson’s beat it using “Memory Mosaicing“. Every sound being played comes from a sample of Chris Watson’s nature recordings.

captincaptin and Parag K Mital exhibited Responsive Ecologies at the Watermans between 6th December 2010 and the 21st January 2011. The installation was in the form of a 360 degrees multi-screened projection or CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment). Visitors to the exhibition would enter the CAVE through a passageway leading from the gallery entrance. All four sides of the CAVE were back projected with each side connecting to form a large continuous projection. The presence of people within the space would be tracked and used to deconstruct and interlace the video in response to their movement. The video documentation below was taken from the installation (throughout this video the camera is panning around the space in order to record all sides of the CAVE).
Read more.

http://captincaptin.co.uk

A collaboration between Christos Michalakos, Lin Zhang, and myself, ‘The Trial’ was presented as a live laptop set for the Dialogues Festival in Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms, as a support act for Rune Grammofon artist Humcrush

http://www.dialogues-festival.org

http://www.runegrammofon.com/

A collaboration between Christos Michalakos and myself, ‘Calibration’ was the continuation of an audiovisual synaesthetic duo exploring raw symmetry with digitally-controlled analog aesthetics between sound and visuals.

http://christosmichalakos.com

‘Memory’ is an augmented installation of a neural network by Parag K Mital & Agelos Papadakis employing hand blown glass, galvanized metal chain, projection, cameras; 1.5m x 2.5m x 3m. Ghostly images of faces appear as recorded movie clips within neural-shaped hand-blown glass pieces. As one begins to look at the neurons, they notice the faces as their own, trapped as disparate memories of a neural network. Filmed and installed for the Athens Video Art Festival in May 2010 in Technopolis, Athens, Greece. The venue is a disused gas factory converted art space. Also seen at Kinetica Art Fair, Ambika P3, London, UK, 2010; Passing Through Exhibition, James Taylor Gallery, London, UK, 2009; Interact, Lauriston Castle, Edinburgh, UK, 2009.

http://agelospapadakis.com

COLONY is a multi-faceted networked and interdisciplinary platform for exploring creative ideas. The idea behind this particular incarnation is that a microscope video feed is processed for numerous tracking parameters and further influencing the resulting re-projected visuals. Live audio is also processed based on these same parameters. Additional performers can “plug-in” by receiving the tracking information, or simply by viewing the other performers or visuals.

This unadulterated (and very rough) clip was initiated at the Edinburgh HackLab on 17 Sept 2010 with Shiori Usui on Live Instruments, Sarah Roberts on Microscope, and Parag K Mital on Audio/Visual processing (other clips feature Owen Green also on Audio processing).

http://edinburghhacklab.com/

X-RAY invites participants to interact with a seemingly broken television installed as part of a 1970′s living room. Television signals are affected by the surrounding audio textures in the room as well as a novel measure of attention invoked while a user views the television.

First installed as part of Neverzone on 10 June 2010 (pictures

http://pkmital.com/home/2010/06/07/x-ray-the-roxy-arthouse/

Polychora stands for a 4 dimensional polytope, a connected or closed figure of lower dimesnional polytopal elements. These elements are thought of as the impulses of the piece and their combinations are intricately explored and decomposed in order to create a soundscape of particles. As an exploration of synaesthesia, the visuals are created as an audio-reactive algorithm based on brightness, panning, texture, noisiness, pitch, and their combinations. By combining the amorphous space of possible impulses and the range of sound textures, the polychoron takes a visual shape altered by the different dimensions of texture.

This piece was presented at the Soundings Festival on February 6th and 7th, 2010 (curated by Andrew Connor).

http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/soundings/

COLONY is a multi-faceted networked and interdisciplinary platform for exploring creative ideas. The idea behind this particular incarnation is that a microscope video feed is processed for numerous tracking parameters and further influencing the resulting re-projected visuals. Live audio is also processed based on these same parameters. Additional performers can “plug-in” by receiving the tracking information, or simply by viewing the other performers or visuals. Featuring Sarah Roberts, Shiori Usui, Owen Green, and myself.

Attention explores the nature of meaning making processes within our perceptual machinery. Participants of a quadrophonic multiscreen immersive installation are eye-tracked for eye-movements while watching a Timecode-style film. The resulting installation creates a new film based on the participant’s eye-movements, creating real-time edits of sound and video to create atmospheric sounds, off-screen voice-overs, and video edits between close-ups, mid-shots, and wide-shots, all depending on the eye-trackee’s original attention to the film. This work, performed in collaboration with Stefanie Tan and Dave Stewart and under the mentorship of Tim Smith, has been exhibited in the Teviot Hall in Edinburgh University, and the Leith 2008 Short Film Festival.

Read more.