The demo version of Blobby utilized a three-webcam setup, enabling up to three individuals to participate simultaneously. All three webcams were positioned side by side on a table and oriented toward a blank wall. To ensure accurate positioning within each camera’s field of view, an ‘X’ was taped on the floor in front of each camera, designating where participants should stand. Each webcam was connected to a personal laptop running the shaping model code. On the laptop screen, participants saw themselves represented as individual blobs, corresponding to their assigned webcam (refer to video from week 07). Because the demo space was much smaller than the assigned showcase venue, the webcam occasionally captured nearby participants, though, this would fix itself after a few seconds.
“While this is a piece that aims to ‘make the internet more fun again’ is there a connection that we can draw that is less broad? Possibly focusing on an aspect of the web or even a time period.”
“Given that this is a standalone piece, how can it exist within the context of the user’s day as an experience of the interent to inject play into?”
“Have you thought about using the webcams from participant’s personal devices as a way to create their own blobs for the installaton? Especially if connecting six webcams locally takes too much processing power.”
“There is sort of this ‘wow’ factor after realizing what happens to your body when you step in front of the camera, it would be interesting to see if there was someway to document this as a ‘social experiment’. This could be in the form of taking a picture during a participant’s first interaction with the piece and then collecting all of these to show during the presentation.”