I had a lot of fun working with project 3. With only days before presentation, I was totally unsure as to what I would do. I had a projector, and thought it would be interesting to project on something other than a flat white screen. Joey gave me the idea of working with some smoke, and so I went to a rental place and town and rented a smoke machine. Still having no clue what sorts of things I would see, I set up a projector and smoke machine in my garage. When I filled the garage with smoke and cranked on the projector, I knew I had project 3.

In a smoke filled room, light coming out the projector takes shape and becomes so defined it's like you can touch it. The smoke creates a marble texture that floats through the beams, reflecting only where there is light. After a few simple tests, I created a few animations that highlighted some of the more interesting phenomenon. After further testing, I created the animation that the class viewed, a 90 second piece that showed things I found to look best.

During all of this, I knew that my presentation would rely on a heavily smoked room, and the cavernous studio would be too large to smoke up to the needed concentration. So, I created a large tent out of PVC pipes and old bed sheets which would contain the smoke. The sheets had emergent side effect: it made viewing the animation much more of an experience. People one by one would step inside the box, close the sheets behind them, and look into the light. People on the outside would just hear the oos and ahhs (and sometime expletives) of the person on the inside, and much anticipation was built as people waiting in line had could have no indication as to what they were about to see.

Capturing the experience on a camera is effective, but nothing like standing in the tent and experiencing it for yourself. The first 2 videos are a camera capturing it from the audience eye, and the third one is what is actually being projected through the smoke.