Video of the Joshua Davis interactive installation at OFFF Oeiras 2009

Cool effects in the installation, playing with lights and LEDs

Recorded live at The Utzon Center, Aalborg (Denmark).
10th October, 2008.

In memoriam Jørn Utzon.

The installation Jørn Utzon Borealis is a personal approach to the work of this great Danish architect, translated to an audiovisual and contemporary media. Thinking about the Utzon’s work brings to mind thoughts of clouds, northern lights, and ethereal dream-like feelings for me. Most particularly the dramatic roofs of his buildings, floating over massive, robust and rational bases. I feel that Utzon taught us how to be lyrical and rational at the same time, how to dream the contemporary, discovering new hidden possibilities within Modern Architecture. Utzon’s investigations provide profound lessons for me, inspiring an understanding of how architecture should be now: delicate, suggestive, reactive, using contemporary technologies and capturing our zeitgeist. Jørn Utzon Borealis aspires to be a non-tectonic, audiovisual approach to 21st century architecture – a meditation about the experience of spatial sensation, using video and sound.

Visuals, production and concept: Javier Milara. Visuals were played in real time.
Music track: Skakka, by Amiina: last.fm/music/Am%C3%ADna/_/Skakka

Dedicated to Rocio Rodríguez and Kela Jurado.

Many thanks to Amiina String Quartet, Adrian Carter, Morten, Nacho Fernandez Torres and all the stuff at the Utzon Center.


Javier Milara, 2008

The aim of Expressive Identity is to use an interactive exhibit to express identity through audience movement and expression.

By playing repetitive looping footage of people in movement, unique characteristics will stand out. When people's movement are compared to each other side by side, differences in personality becomes clear.

The interactive exhibit uses a webcam to film people infront of a large screen. When there is a person infront of the screen five frames of their movement are recorded and added to the screen. The screen has a grid of 20 smaller screens which continuously loop the captured footage. The newest footage replaces the oldest footage and keeps the screen busy with activity.

The exhibit for Expressive Identity uses facial tracking to know when there is anyone infront of the camera. By only capturing footage when people are infront of the camera, a broader range of people can be shown on the screen at once.