Motion swarms: video interaction for art in complex environments

We create interactive art that can be enjoyed by groups such as audiences at public events with the intent to encourage communication with those around us as we play with the art. Video systems are an attractive mechanism to provide interaction with artwork. However, public spaces are complex environments for video analysis systems. Interaction becomes even more difficult when the art is viewed by large groups of people. We describe a video system for interaction with art in public spaces and with large audiences using a model-free, appearance-based approach. Our system extracts parameters that describe the field of motion seen by a camera, and then imposes structure on the scene by introducing a swarm of particles that moves in reaction to the motion field. Constraints placed on the particle movement impose further structure on the motion field. The artistic display reacts to the particles in a manner that is interesting and predictable for participants. We demonstrate our video interaction system with a series of interactive art installations tested with the assistance of a volunteer audience.