SOME RANDOM DUDE

Yesterday, I added functionality to my video color sampler experiment to have the ability to pull YouTube videos. This was the last piece of functionality I wanted to add to this system before I really start doing some visual/motion exploration. The feature was extremely simple to add (two or three minutes of work) - but it makes this project extremely more interesting from a public interaction perspective. I already have some ideas for public installation projects I will start to consider working on since the time and materials would theoretically be very minimal.

Not too long ago, I posted a Flash experiment where I sampled video color data to create real-time visualizations (by the way, feel free to download the base code). I have yet to really spend time on the visual treatment of this technique - instead playing with more technical aspects to expand the potential of what can be done creatively. I am truly looking forward to experiment in more interesting visual/motion treatments, but first things first...

A while back, I came across an art project that put a translucent grid over public LCD monitors in New York. I was very attracted to the constantly changing abstract grid of colors - the whole idea was very clever and well-executed. Soon afterward, I thought it would be a fun experiment (albeit much less cool) to do the same thing in Flash with video. A few hours later, I had made a pretty cool system for sampling and averaging colors within a specified area. The final code was quite flexible - allowing for some very interesting representations. Below is the most simple form - I will be tidying up the code, converting it to AS3 and do a much more thorough writeup on it. Still, I thought it would be fun to show off the preliminary version.

The SWF below has a video to the left and its sampled grid to the right. Just press the play button and enjoy.