Give Me a Sign is an interactive tech art installation created by Switch Studio’s Upasana Nattoji Roy and UK based artist, Diane Edwards. This audiovisual experience combines aspects of Indian philosophy and practices with narratives around Artificial Intelligence and the impact of human actions on our planet, through an illusionary AI entity called ‘Shunya’ who responds to certain Indian dance mudras with visions and dreams, stories, concerns and hopes for our changing planet.
Give Me A Sign premiered at the Future Fantastic Festival at art centre HOME in Manchester, United Kingdom held on 25 and 26 February 2023. In India, the Pop up version was presented in Bengaluru at Rangashankara on 11 and 12 March. It will be premiering in India on 25 and 26 March in Bangalore International Centre, during the Future Fantastic event supported by the British council ‘India/ UK Together’ grant.
Future Fantastic is an exciting and ambitious new AI+Art festival as part of the British Council’s India Together UK Season of Culture. It celebrates the bond between two countries and explores our cultures, our shared planet and our relationship with digital technologies that will shape our future together. It is conceptualised by Jaaga’s BeFantastic (India), in association with FutureEverything.
More details about the innovation project:
THE EXPERIENCE : The artwork will show an interface animation until someone uses one of the six mudras in front of the webcam. If the mudra is identified, one of three possible short video outputs per mudra is triggered after which the video will revert to the home animation.
The gesture triggers an audio visual response on the projection screen. Shunya manifests as hands in an animated spherical world and informs the user about climate action related to that gesture.
THE CONCEPT: The goal of the larger ‘Give me a Sign’ project is to create a dictionary of hand gestures to highlight the significance and power of physical gestures in expressing meaning and to build a bridge between human and machine, as well as between cultures.
For this prototype of Give me a Sign, the focus is on six topics related to human impact on climate change. These topics were chosen by the two artists, based on the urgency for action. Shunya manifests as digital human-like gestures and voices, providing an alternate lens to challenge our understanding and thinking around the human impact on our planet and our ecosystems.
THE PROCESS :
“The process has been an exploration of possibilities in creative and production workflows,” said Upasana. “I see Ai as ‘Augmented intelligence’ and currently see machine learning tools as an augmentation to my design and artistic practice. Our studio is already developing collaborative workflows using traditional, digital as well as Ai Tools.”
Upasana and Diane researched climate related themes, developed spoken word scripts and mapped them to six curated dance mudra’s which are used in choreography by ‘Shunya’. The research included traditional forms as well as ChatGPT3. The scripts needed to be written by them.
Shunya was created through dance choreography by Upasana, motion captured through DeepMotion (ai tool) and the animation was retargeted onto Metahuman hands in Unreal Engine. Shunya is designed to be able to respond with gestures, yet abstracted from a full human.
This art installation has been designed with the possibility of being experienced in two formats:
Immersive: An interactive immersive experience typically projected onto a large screen with immersive sound.
Popup: Using a TV setup as a display and a simple laptop along with a connected camera setup for image capture.
The Switch Studio founder Upasana Nattoji Roy (India) and Diane Edwards (UK) are the artists of ‘Give me a Sign’. Hasan S was on board as the creative technologist, Tim Garratt & Ugendran Padiachey worked on the sound design, handpose guidance was done by Computational Mama, Future Fantastic by Befantastic (India) and Future Everything (UK) supported by British Council UK India Together Grant. The installation is geared to be able to travel to various art shows and curations.