silentlyCrashing::net

On top of the reflected image, the mirror also displays Louie’s trapped soul blended with an echo of what the camera sees. The camera only records when someone is in front of the mirror, so your soul stays trapped in the mirror until someone else looks at it and takes your place. The computer-generated image is warped using vector fields based on the activity captured by the camera. The code is written in C++/openFrameworks, and is based of the vector field examples given for the Making Things Move class at Parson’s.

The set-up is very simple. It’ just a framed acrylic see-through mirror mounted on an LCD screen. I originally used a projection and it worked quite well, but the problem was that the mirror would hang in the middle of the room. The trick with a projector is to use a short-throw model (like the LED projectors we have on the floor) and to cover the back of the mirror with a piece of vellum paper.