A look at the technology behind the exhibition Are We There Yet?. As visitors to this installation walk through the gallery, their movement triggers the state-of-the-art computerized audio system, creating a unique experience for each person in the space. Read on to learn more about the technology behind this customized system.
Computer Vision System
With a camera, this computer system tracks each visitor’s movement in the exhibition. Based on emerging research in robotics, the system uses machine learning to maintain a statistical model of each camera pixel. Those pixels, shown here as white shapes within boxes, represent the visitors’ movement.
Audio Spacemap
The audio system’s “Spacemap” illustrates the placement of speakers and audio focal points in the gallery using the groundbreaking D-Mitri System by Meyer Sound. The Spacemap is uniquely designed to deliver sound so that the voices (recorded questions) move smoothly and float through the gallery.
Question Database
During the run of the exhibition, a database of questions is being expanded, based on submissions from the community via social media. The questions that you hear while you move around the space are selected from thousands of audio tracks recorded by a variety of voices.
Sound Levels
Drawing from the Computer Vision System, the Spacemap, and the Question Database, this screen shows the dynamic sound levels used to create a unique audio experience for each visitor.
Along with stories of illicit sex and human derangement, Stanley Kubrick and Vladimir Nabokov both dreamed of making art about the Holocaust. Nabokov, a three-time refugee from totalitarian governments, famously rejected literature bearing social messages. Yet at the end of his seventh decade, he vowed to his first biographer that he would one day tackle Nazi terror. “I will go to those German camps and look at those places and write a terrible indictment.” 1 Decades later Kubrick made real progress toward his goal: he drafted a script, cast lead actors, and scouted a location in the Czech Republic for a film with the working title Aryan Papers . Yet neither man would complete his project. Lolita , their only collaboration, somehow survived the censors, despite a plot centered on a professor’s cross-country travel and multi-year sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. While the subject of the movie stands at some distance from genocide, Nabokov’s 1955 novel and Kubrick’s 1962 film e...
Thoughts from scribe-in-residence Julie Seltzer on what she's writing, her process, and the experience of writing a Torah on public view. One of the questions I am often asked is, “Do you have a favorite letter?” The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet (or 27, if you count the five letters that take a different form when they appear at the end of a word) feel in some ways like children. How can one have a favorite? But even with children the Torah reports to us certain leanings at certain times (“Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game; and Rebekah loved Jacob.” Genesis 25:28). Similarly, different letters bring unique joy, new connection, and insight at different times. Past “favorites” have included the Bet , the Gimmel , and the Chet . My current leanings are toward the letter Peh , and I’ll explain why. [These Hebrew letters spelled out, by the way, are all valid Scrabble words, FYI.]
Burberry as Jack Kerouac Created in conjunction with the San Francisco SPCA All photography by Rod Kilpatrick A lot of the cats at the San Francisco SPCA have had beat lives. Living in backyards, alleys, and abandoned buildings, they have been deserted by their families. Some of the female felines are impregnated and left to care for their litter. And yet these creatures still persevere. They lead dignified lives full of spirit and love. They are open and ready for new relationships at a moment’s notice, much like the Beats. For example, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and Allen Ginsberg all fall in love with multiple people in the beloved Beat bible, On the Road. These cats, more importantly, are survivors. They have lived outside of society, looking in, observing, and wanting to be part of it.
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