Global Goblins

First exhibited at Techno Messe, Softopia Centre, Gifu, Japan, 2003

Collaboration with Kiyoshi Furukawa

Obake creates an interactive space for non-verbal communication through objects, gestures and sound. The shadow of the participants’ hand serves as a human-computer interface. A machine-vision system detects the hands of the participants. The program analyses the hand’s movements and gestures. According to the movement of the hand’s shadow, virtual puppets were generated in real-time and displayed as if attached to the shadow. These virtual objects respond to the movement of the shadow to create the impression as if the user is controlling a virtual puppet. The computer-generated creatures follow the movements of the participant’s hand and both behaviour and appearance of the virtual puppets changes continuously. Information related to both movements of puppets and the overall state of the installation is used for the generation of sound through a MIDI sound synthesiser, based on the sound-action design defined by composer Kiyoshi Furukawa.