Reaction to Legalism, 2014
– Projection, Video, Sound, Wood, Graphite, Interactive Performance
The Chinese philosophy of Legalism was brutally pragmatic. You complied or you died. This social structure was adopted in the wake of great social turmoil and war.
Reaction to Legalism does not bother itself with the individual. It seeks to create cooperative compliance, sparing the citizen the UnPles. The compliant are implicated in Reaction to Legalism by bearing a mark of compliance.
About:
The room is scanned for participants. Once two users are found, they are presented with natural, calming sights and sounds while being presented with a passively self-instructional artifact. If compliant action isn’t received in a timely fashion, then users sensations are subverted towards compliance. The User Implication Device (UID) allows people to avoid punishment through compliance. This compliance is rewarded by either maintaining or returning to the pleasant state.
*Thank you to: Ben Glas, Tera Kraft, Hilary Tsai, Avery Gilbert, Jason Williams, Carl Diehl, Dr. Ryan Jordan, Stephen Slappe, and PNCA.
The Wrap
After spending a lot of time considering the video of the users of Reaction to Legalism, I was able to figure out some patterns of behavior. Some that reinforced the project's intent, and some that were distractions. This lead me to correct some deficiencies in the...
Static, Static, Recursive, Static
Reaction to Legalism had a little problem when first installed. The artifact would deliver a false read to the MaKey MaKey. This is why in the final video, you see me sitting there, as I'm manually triggering the project. After researching, I've potentially found...
The Ples and UnPles
Screenshots of the two respective videos. The audio amplifies the effect of the images.
The Physical Interface
User Implication Device (UID):
Programming Complete
I've wrangled Isadora into doing what I want. When there are no people detected (using blob counting), then the project is in a dormant state. Once a two people (blobs) have been detected, the "Ples" video plays and an UnPlesCounter (UPC) starts counting down. Once...
Video Crossfading
This seems to be my biggest hurdle so far. This might be the solution. I was able to take a user made crossfader to get two of the videos to fade from one to another. I need to make a "stop" for the out faded video upon crossfade completion. And the crossfade needs...
Project Function
Reaction to Legalism. The project uses the punishment/reward principles of the Chinese philosophy of Legalism. Collaborative compliance is rewarded, non-collaboration is punished, individualism ignored. Project Functions: Ples Stereotypically pleasant...
Scene Crossfade
This is more of a note-take for me, than any sort of tutorial. I was able to get the scene to crossfade on the expiration of a timer. I also did a bit of housecleaning.
Isadora Blob Counting
I was able to get the camera to see when there was two blobs, and then start playing a video and separate track of audio, after a certain amount of time elapsed. Here's the screen shot. I need to have it play something immediately once two blobs have been...
Legalism Reactions
Initial Idea: Forced cooperation for the betterment of the group. Viewers must both engage in a task, such as putting their hands on a surface. If they both don't comply, the experience is designed to punish the participants by creating a negative atmosphere using...