An Interactive Art Installation

The Graffiti LSU event went off without a hitch. It took place on LSU’s campus on April 27 from 7:30-9:30.

It turned out 7:30 was still too bright outside for the projection to show up on the building. Around 8ish it became more visible. Participants had shown up at the starting time, and thankfully were very patient and understanding of having to wait. The event got started a little slow, participants weren’t really sure as to what they wanted to draw. But once it got in motion, they were coming up with a very wide variety of drawings and writings! I’ve included a video from the event that shows the set-up as well as the actual event taking place.

The set up : Max (my boyfriend) and John Chauvin helped me with the setup. We had A LOT of stuff to bring into the quad from the parking lot! We used two table, laptop, monitor, projector, 2 extension cords, a radio w/ iPod, 2 cameras and 2 tripods, and a mouse. Oh, and 2 chairs. I wanted to have a pen tablet available for those who preferred to use it, but I forgot mine at home. Thankfully, John had his in his book sack and he let me use it for the event.

We set up the two tables, one in front of the other, with the projector on the one in front and the laptop, monitor, mouse, tablet on the table behind it. I wanted to use two tables so that in case the participants shook the table while drawing, it wouldn’t move the projected image. The monitor was set up as the main screen for the drawing and centered on the table. The only thing that was displayed on the external monitor (15″ in case you’re wondering..) was a Photoshop window set to full screen. The projector had a split cable coming from it plugged into the external monitor and the laptop. The laptop had the tool bar for photoshop displayed on it and my regular desktop. I had two reasons for the toolbar staying on the laptop. 1. The main reason is because if it were on the monitor then it would show up on the projection which would take away from the piece. 2. I didn’t want the tool bar to intimidate or confuse participants who were not familiar with Photoshop. Oh, the radio… the radio was set up connected to Max’s iPod playing Nine Inch Nails. Whew… so that’s how the setup went. If you have any questions about that or if I missed something let me know in the comments and I’d be happy to fill you in.

Surprisingly, I didn’t have any technical difficulties at all (aside form the sun being too bright, of course, but that was hardly technical). I knew I was prepared for the installation, I practiced it previously to make sure everything worked. I was still half expecting for something to go wrong. Once everything was hooked up and plugged in, it just… worked. Smoothly.

I’m working on putting together an analyzation of the event. It turned out to be very interesting to see not only how the participants interacted with the installation, but with each other as well.

Stay tuned for more on that!