Encounters

In collaboration with the Victorian College of the Arts and the Microsoft Research Centre for Social Natural User Interfaces (SocialNUI), Encounters was a large-scale interactive installation created for the SummerSalt Festival — an outdoor festival led by the Melbourne Recital Centre celebrating the Melbourne Arts Precinct.

Set across three platforms presided over by a large screen, the space was filled with light and sound that responded to audience movement, creating a dialogue between human and machine. Microsoft Kinect sensors detected each person’s presence, triggering sounds and lighting effects based on not only what participants were doing but what they were doing relative to everybody else. Every audience member was represented on screen, and particular actions — jumping, coming together with others — changed that representation in real time.

Three VCA dance students and graduates joined audience members while sporting wearable technology, projecting their movements in detail on screen. Approximately 1,200 people experienced the installation over four Saturday nights from 23 January to 21 February 2015.

Beyond the audience experience, Encounters provided a unique research opportunity — taking computational innovation from the lab to the streets and allowing SocialNUI and the VCA, two very different disciplines, to come together for a first-of-its-kind collaboration at the University of Melbourne.