A-Life G-Vision Interactive art

Interactive art is the theme of two ambitious research projects currently being undertaken by Nigel Johnson in the Visual Research Centre's Centrespace.

Centrespace has been divided in two to accommodate A-Life and G-vision, individual, yet complementary artworks. Nigel is a Reader in the Duncan of Jordanstone College Division of Media Arts and Imaging.

A-Life is a large-scale computer controlled interactive work which will see this area of Centrespace dominated by a large interactive LED wall which users can interact with using a device similar to a gaming console control.

The work pays "retrospective homage" both conceptually and stylistically to the early work of John Conway's Game of Life. Users will be able to create their own A-life colonies and see how they evolve with each passing generation.

G-Vision - a vision-based gesture and motion recognition software - is a collaboration between Nigel, Stephen McKenna (School of Computing), Kenny Morrison (research assistant) and Dr Simon Yuile (an external consultant).

"Imagine a symphony of sounds raised by the movements of a conductor's hands even though there is no orchestra, or images that change depending on the number of people looking at them and where they are standing. Imagine art and the interaction experience that can be influenced as much by the audience as by the artist - this is the potential of G-Vision," Nigel explained.

A-Life and G-Vision will exhibit at the Visual Research Centre, DCA, from Friday 1 - Friday 15 December.