Creative Coding + Physical Interaction + Prototyping + Storytelling
Let's Make Some Art ft. The Mona Lisa
An interactive installation to explore topics of ownership in the digital age by manipulating an iconic, age-old painting
DURATION:
Oct 2019, 4 weeks
SKILLS:
Arduino programming, Processing, Laser Cutting
MY ROLE:
Planning, design, and execution of all steps of the process
Starting with what seems like an ordinary image of the Mona Lisa presented as if in a gallery, the viewers are free to interact with the image via the control box. They can change the hair, the face, the backdrop, and the clothes.
At the end of every creation, the viewer presses a button on the console which saves the image created in a database and displays a message which either congratulates the player on the new piece of work or encourages them to try again.
What makes something an original Artwork? Let’s look at the Mona Lisa.
What makes something an original Artwork? Let’s look at the Mona Lisa. Can it be called an original?
I change her hair. Now? What about if I change the background and clothes too? Now can I call it mine? How much do I have to change in an image to call it an ‘original’? If my start point was the Mona Lisa, can the resulting artwork ever be an original? When everything is changed, what connects it to the Mona Lisa? If changing everything still means I cannot claim it, then what is it on the basis of which it isn't original? Is it the iconic pose? Can I claim copyright based on a pose, is it even possible to claim a pose?
These are the kinds of questions this artwork hopes to give birth to. Especially in the age where material is so easily found and copy-pasted from the internet, concepts such as copyright and ownership become difficult to understand.
This project is an attempt to shed light on the intricacies of these concepts albeit, with some humour and excitement.
Modality and Medium
- A large wooden frame
- A photograph of the Monalisa,
- The control box; the main interactive interface; consisting of a laser cut body, Dials and Buttons connected to an Arduino Uno (running a program in Java on Processing through the Firmata library)
- The wires and circuits and blinking lights within the circuit are used as visual elements as well as functional leveraged by transparent acrylic. The different types of inputs indicate different functions
Process
I began with the rules given to me:
1. Make use of an Arduino Board with Processing through the Firmata Library.
2. Create a physical 'control' tool to interact with the program and output but only through buttons, sliders or dials.
3. Laser cut an element in your Artefact
I brainstormed possible areas of intervention. The idea of ownership was born out of an initial idea to replicate old arcade games.
This was followed by exploring possible forms of interactions that could reflect this idea in a new way through the action. This was accompanied by many iterations on designs of the control device as well as the kinds of interactions it would enable.
Variations of Code were tried in order to represent the idea as well as possible.
Why the Mona Lisa?
My chosen image is the Mona Lisa, precisely because it is a very well-known image and does not have the visually complicated structure, to the untrained eye, that a lot of other renaissance paintings possessed at the time.
The main topics of dispute on the basis of which people decide if an image is copied such as image composition, pose and orientation of a character etc remained the same to spark thought in the audience. On the internet, the people are the police and hence in most cases, they decide what is an instance of copying.
Hence, the messages displayed at the end of creation ("Congratulations on a new piece of art", "Try again") either validate or point towards a retry based on the information I have gathered from discussion forums and online Q and As between the internet community.
.png)
^ Some of the images created by visitors