Visualising Traces of the Urban Flâneur with Computer Vision and Generative Digital Media

This paper describes a digital media artwork utilising computer vision and real-time generative digital effects to capture the immaterial character of crowd dynamics in public spaces at different times of the day. The process allows the emergence of a double layered audio-visual impression of population flow through the city: (1) a series of short videos, shot at various urban spaces and digitally manipulated in real-time to register the flow of pedestrians; and (2) an exhibition in a gallery space of the collective footage, collated as a movie strip. Gallery visitors can explore the videos by sliding the strip sideways via interaction with a depth-image sensor.

The outcome of an art and science residency, the artwork investigates the intangible aesthetics of urban life. It refashions CCTV surveillance media, video art and painting by offering, from a passive observer viewpoint, traces of daily walking activities in various different public spaces, re-rendering them artistically in real-time. By doing so, it proposes a new idiom for visualisation of patterns of human flow in the digitally augmented city. In isolation, each movie offers a high level of transparent immediacy, positioning the audience in the centre of the space albeit hidden behind the window frame of the camera. When placed and played side by side at the exhibition gallery, however, the collective footage attains a high degree of hypermediacy, simultaneously highlighting the hedonic character of the interactive medium itself while offering an ironic critique of private and public driven surveillance practices increasingly commonplace in contemporary society.

Luke Hespanhol is an interaction designer, media artist and researcher based in Sydney, Australia. His works explore the potential for digital media and interactive technologies to support human-centred, participatory interventions in public urban environments. He has exhibited in various galleries and public art festivals, presented in academic conferences and industry events, and published in international peer-reviewed journals. Luke holds Master degrees in Interaction Design and Electronic Arts (University of Sydney), and Cross-Disciplinary Art and Design (COFA-UNSW). He has more than 16 years experience in large software development projects both in Australia and overseas and is currently a PhD Candidate at the Design Lab, University of Sydney.

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