We live in a world of distractions — so many distractions that even the line between attraction and distraction gets blurred. We think about where to go for vacation when we work, and worry about the work that didn’t get done when we are on vacation. We are constanly one foot in one thing and one foot in another, afraid of missing out, afraid of giving our all. This experimental camera explores the idea of the divided self, who’s always caught between two exciting worlds. I decided to use very bright colors rounded pixels in order to arouse visual excitement, not unlike video games or social media filters. You can swing left to right, experiencing the fluidity and non-commitment this camera grants you — just like a mirror of our life from second to second.

Reflection

This is probably the first project so far that I didn’t do a non-digital sketch before I started coding. Instead, I used coding to guide my way through, exploring various possibilities using the functions taught in the lecture and lab. One important reason for this is that I wasn’t sure how exactly the image capture function works in p5js, and didn’t know what I could do to manipulate the pixels. After trying out 5-6 versions, I finally came up this one, which I think can best illustrate my concept.

Credits

This project was assisted by the lectures & tutorials give by Katherine Moriwaki & Xin Xin.