Interactive Flutter: Exploring Movement Through Art

There are probably a lot of interactive art displays around, but I’m always fascinated by the way artists take today’s resources and experiment with them in such innovative ways, to create works of art that reflect the age that we live in. The interactive video-butterfly display, created by Dominic Harris of Cinimod Studios, fits right in with this category of art and is also pretty interesting.

flutter1

The Interactive Flutter art features a butterfly shown on 88 different videos screens with motion detectors and the video is of the butterfly flapping its wings. The entire design is made interactive by the motion detectors; the butterflies fly up on the screen whenever someone passes a screen, and so walking past the entire row of screens creates a kind of wave effect that’s shown on the screen.

flutter2

Of course, the really cool thing is that this is really just a row of smaller screens attached to a long mirror, and it is only half the butterfly, with the video array and reflective surface being a big part of the display. The concept behind it is really neat, and I find it absolutely intriguing because it shows the kind of potential technology really has.

flutter3

The installation was presented at the Kinetica Art Fair this year, and was created to explore a viewer’s encounter with a rabble of virtual butterflies, so it’s both interactive and investigative in nature, and the reaction of the viewer is part of the experience. The piece was inspired the zoetrope and the praxinoscope, and attempts to distance itself from the linear nature of historical devices by allowing free and unrestricted interactivity with the art piece. The nice thing is that it really does a good job, and the video below gives an idea of just how its interactive features work.

http://www.cinimodstudio.com/flutter
‘Flutter’ is a new interactive artwork by Dominic Harris of Cinimod Studio that explores the viewer’s encounter with a rabble of virtual butterflies. Set within a striking architectural framework and making use of cutting edge technologies, the artwork is a product of an on-going fascination with the motion of a butterfly’s flight and the iridescent reflections and scattering of light by the scales on a butterfly’s wing.

Design by Dominic Harris

Engineered and Produced by Cinimod Studio

Electronic design by White Wing Logic

Soundtrack in clip: “Something Longer – for Windy” from “Flutter” by Bonobo

The cool thing is that this art piece is something that really reflects new media in a very contemporary way. You can check out other interactive art pieces like this Super Mario mural and imaginative interactive self-drawings.

Via: Fubiz