Échos is a participatory and interactive installation that challenges our perceptions and enhances the richness of the French language through places and emotions.

This installation takes the form of a giant lenticular screen surrounded by four booths. The central structure has four distinct viewing angles, on which curated films by 12 filmmakers from around the world and video responses left by visitors are simultaneously broadcasted. The booths allow guests to watch the films individually and to record their own video messages.

The installation is accompanied by a website – echos.onf.ca – that takes the form of a colourful mosaic in which all 22 short films from the installation are available, sorted by emotion, country or location, as well as all of the visitors’ video testimonials.

Échos was conceived by Departement in collaboration with the ONF | NFB.

Credits
Produced by – ONF | NFB
Film director and coordinator – Pascal Brouard
Design, conception and software development – Departement
Music and sound design – David Drury
Installation technical design and construction – XYZ Technologie Culturelle

Photo and video credits: Sylvio Arriola

Installation produced at Dpt. in collaboration with Baillat Cardell & fils for Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Quebec. The version for Montreal was setup in a shipping container and for Quebec, we tweaked a few things and added mirrors, a lot of them!

The above videos show various scenes with the perspective controlled via the Kinect. The interactive 3D scenes give the impression to be a continuation of the room the user is in. This is done by using the technique of off-axis projection in realtime that simulates reality based on a constant viewing angle.

Built with openFrameworks and the Kinect SDK for Windows.
Check the openFrameworks’ forum for more information about off-axis projection.

Musique / Music: Winner Louise

Time-lapse of the assembly and inauguration of the installation Barcode at Berri UQAM subway station in Montreal.  The installation was presented from the 16th to the 26th of february.

Time-lapse by Anne-Marie Lavigne

“Barcode was born of an encounter between Arte and the NFB – two public cultural institutions that have taken a lead in interactive creation. The common goal is to employ interactive media in an exploration of the everyday objects that surround us…Featuring 100 short films form, the work of 30 directors from Canada and France, Barcode is a trilingual interactive website, iPhone app and gallery installation – an ambitious exercise in transmedia and transcontinental culture.” –  http://codebarre.tv

Here is the last part of a project I worked on this year.  At Departement, we were involved in the project since the beginning. We designed and developed all three platforms used by the project: 1) website, 2) iPhone app and 3) installation. I personnaly worked on the iPhone app with Elie, and I created the installation.

This installation was recently presented at IDFA DocLab in Amsterdam. Here is a video of it.

photo credits : Vandoorn Photography

For the installation, I wanted to bring forward the barcode. This is why the structure, monolithic and pure, takes the form of a giant barcode. As a reminder of the 14 categories of objects of the project, the structure consists of 14 bars of three different sizes. This barcode is used as projection surface for the films and simple animations.

photo credits : Vandoorn Photography

To interact with the installation, you grab one of the objects on the ground and drop it on the stand at the centre of the room. Using RFID, the object is detected and a film from the corresponding category is played. The objects made of EVA foam were designed by Rita Studio. In the absence of scanned objects, the installation moves to standby mode. The Barcode is mapped with colourful flashes and animations synchronized with the audio tracks of the project.

photo credits : Vandoorn Photography

Credits for the Barcode.tv installation:
Co-produced by the NFB and Arte France
Producer: Hugues Sweeney / NFB
Design and conception: Hugues Bruyère / Departement
Software development: Hugues Bruyère / Departement – Built with openFrameworks
Set construction: Lucas J. Wareing
Objects design and production: Rita Studio

We were one of the top three most visited studios with 590 visitors during the Design Montreal Open House. Once again, we showcased work produced during the past year as well as with additional interactive prototypes.

One of the prototypes was a small projection mapping installation using live animation presets that visitors could trigger using a simple yet colourful controller.

The projection mapping was designed using a custom tool built using openFrameworks. One useful add-on was ofxFenster, as ‘it simplifies the handling of multiple windows…’. In our case, we had one window for the controls, and an other for the projection. The control window simplified the creation of a mesh, to edit a previously saved mesh, etc…. It also allowed us to record sequences of keys in phase with an audio track in order to produce synched animations presets.

Here are some snapshots showing the process of building the physical structure in a half day. Mathieu Léger and I started with a 2D flat plan and then we recreated it using a 3D modelling tool.

Our next step was to use Pepakura to generate an unfolded version of each pyramidal shape from their 3D data.

Once all these unfolded patterns had been traced on paper, Mathieu and Moko built the structure. I watched the process while drinking a beer.

Mathieu and Moko admire their hard work. Pas pire!

And voilà, the first quick mapped mesh.