Festival of Creativity and Technology EFEST: High Tech Visual Art
EFEST: Technology is now used not only in business, industry, and science. They are actively integrated into the spheres of culture and art, both abroad and in the Russian Federation. To prove what technology can do for creativity, the EFEST Festival of Electronic Music and Visual Arts was held.
It was held from October 8 to 9 in Perm. At the festival, residents of the Skolkovo Innovation Center, Visionero, demonstrated the possibilities of integrating virtual reality and artificial intelligence technologies in the field of culture and art. Details below the cut.
The festival has already demonstrated new ways of interacting with culture, with virtual and mixed-reality technologies becoming a means of artistic expression.
Visionero has created interactive installations such as Solaris, Avatar, and Neuroartist specifically for EFEST, which are based on VR/MR technologies as well as neural network algorithms.
Each installation, according to the organizers, was interactive, all designed for direct interaction with a person. As for the individual combinations, each of them deserves a mention here.
Thus, installing Solaris gave visitors the opportunity to experience co-creation using a neural network algorithm. To do this, just say any phrase or sound into the microphone.
The software’s algorithm converts the sound into ambient music and visualization of the space. The theme of the visualization space was not chosen by chance – this is how the developers emphasize the infinite number of visualization options.
The Avatar installation demonstrated how a computer understands and interprets a person’s image through camera images.
The installation uses two methods of tracking human movements (tracking): by skeletal bones and by depth map points. Each type of layout creates its own world and each person can see their reflection (avatar) in this virtual world.
And as part of a Neuroartist installation, festival visitors were able to create sand paintings, which, using neural networks, were processed in the author’s style of famous illustrators.
“In our projects, we use intelligent gestures and voice control interfaces to interact with virtual reality.
Through installations at the festival, we show that contact with virtual reality can be a simple and interesting process that opens up new opportunities for realization. of a person’s creative potential, ”comments Andrei Lysenko, founder of the Visionero project.
Festival organizers have been integrating virtual and augmented reality technologies into the fields of education and culture for several years. Since 2019, Skolkovo residents have been developing software solutions for interacting with virtual reality without wearable devices.
