Space stars

Concept

A totally black environment that is part of the universe more than 100 kilometres from Earth. A black environment which is filled with many stars. We can see the many clear, bright and beautiful stars from any point on earth. Space. What does space look like? How would it be if you are in space? Are the stars in the space really so beautiful?

This installation Space Stars give an impression of how it would look like if you are in a space full of stars. It creates a projection of stars all around the physical space which puts you in the middle of a starry sky. Because the stars can be seen all around you and there is a real starry sky on the ceiling, you will immerse yourself in the beautiful space full of stars. To make it even more beautiful and to give you a little control over the space you are in, it is possible to be surrounded by a red, green, blue, purple, yellow, black and white space. Choose your favourite colour and immerse yourself in the beautiful space.

My Project

For this project, I interpreted the concept of space as two different ideas. First, I thought about the concept of space as the environment around you. With this idea in my head, I was thinking about things that reflect the space where you are in. I came with the idea of mirrors and water. Because I wanted to create something in the physical space, I choose to do something with broken mirrors because they create a projection in different directions. This makes it possible to make a reflection through the entire space. The second concept of space where I was thinking of was the concept of the cosmic space. A totally black environment that is part of the universe more than 100 kilometres from Earth. A black environment which is filled with many stars. I wanted to show the stars from a viewpoint where you are in the middle of it. I combined the two concepts and that is why I created the cosmic space in the space around you. To add some interaction, and also with the reason to understand and learn Open Frameworks I added colour tracking to the program. With this people can change the colour of the stars.

Implementation: Open Frameworks

I started by writing a code for colour tracking. Because Open Frameworks was totally new for me this was a really challenging thing to do. With the help of a lot of tutorials and books, I created my own code for colour detection. I used a camera to track the environment and created this code: https://github.com/Suzy321/ColourTracking to know if there is red, green or blue in the camera field. The code checks every pixel from the camera and checks if these colours are found. I combined this code with the Open Frameworks particles Example. This code is responsible for the stars. I changed this a little bit so it was possible to change the colours with the camera. The camera can detect the three colours: red, green and blue. It can also combine the colours; red+blue=purple, red+green=yellow, blue+green=turquoise, red+blue+green=white and if it does not detect any colour the stars are black. I made cards so that the participants can choose a colour they want.

Implementation: Reflection

I wanted to do something with reflection and that is why I opted for mirroring. I find broken mirrors very interesting because they reflect in different places. This makes it possible to make a reflection through the entire space. I made a kind of broken mirror by using a whole mirror. This whole mirror provides a clear starry sky on the ceiling. In addition, I broke mirrors (I hope now I don’t have 7 years of bad luck) and glued them into a kind of mountain around them, which gives reflections throughout the entire space. I used a beamer to project from above on the mirrors. This resulted in one clear reflection on the ceiling (from the not broken mirror) and different small reflections around the space.