Mike Wirth

Exhibitions

Mike is currently creating innovative and unique interactive pieces with: Processing, Flash, Database Driven Web Applications, and custom sensor based tracking systems.

Interactive exhibition design requires skills in custom software design, physical computing and architectonics. My interactive exhibitions go beyond the keyboard and mouse, encouraging participants to touch, move about or view choreographed dance performances which incorporate sensors that trigger programmed events.

Dance.Draw : A Mischief of Mus Musculus

The Dance.Draw project is a collaboration at UNC Charlotte between Dr. Celine Latulipe and Dr. David Wilson in the Software and Information Systems Department, Professor Sybil Huskey from the Department of Dance and myself. In Dance.Draw, the motions of the dancers act as input to a Get the Flash Player to see this player. visualization, which is projected in real-time on a screen or wall behind the dancers. Sometimes dancers’ motions control objects individually, eventually combining to control something more complex and interesting

River Docs: A Catawba River Narrative

RIVER DOCS was planned as a mix of creativity and activism. Six artists, including myself, created a comprehensive multimedia documentation of the Catawba River. My contribution included custom software that provided touch screen access to an interactive database of images, including those from the exhibition and contributed images from the public and local archives. The exhibition was featured at the Lightfactory Museum of Photography and Film and at the Museum of York County. Get the Flash Player to see this player.

 

Staged Intelligence: Les Artes Florrisants

Les Artes Florrisants was an opera production at UNC Charlotte. The project involved the collaboration of The School of Architecture, The School of Music and The School of Art and Art History. A combination of interactive projected scenery and intelligent physical fabrications, the 17th century opera by French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier was truly adapted for the 21st century. My role as digital artist in the project allowed me to create custom software that used computer vision to create some unique effects during the performance.

Notably, my “action painting” effect allowed performers to gesture whimsical paint strokes against the backdrop(seen left).



Variant Iteration

Variant Iteration is an interactive art installation that allows viewers to manipulate sounds with their bodies. The project uses computer vision to track the participants body shapes with a web camera. Simple geometric shapes animate onto the projection and become triggers of various sound samples. The goal is cause users to organize the shapes and create a unique sonic experience with their whole body. Vi: has been shown at the WRO Media Arts Biennale in Wroclaw, Poland; the Split International Film and New Media Festival in Split, Croatia and the Lightfactory Museum of Photography and Film.
Photos from WRO Biennale

 

The Holzer Machine

The Holzer Machine is a public space installation that features digital projections of augmented news headlines.

Brecht Machine

Brecht Machine is a digital performance installation envisioned by GH Hovagimyan, that allows actors to dialogue with language translation software over the internet. I created the software hack that allowed for translation to happen in semi-real-time. The performance took place in Split, Croatia at the Split International Festival of New Media in September of 2002.
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