Interactive Art Installation. South Korea 2016
By Betty Sargeant and Justin Dwyer (PluginHUMAN)
A randomly generated story created from crowd-sourced content.
MEDIUM: 9-channel video-art, audio, mixed media, designed environment. SIZE: 13m x 6m x 4m (h).
COMMISSIONED BY: ACC Creators, Asia Culture Centre, South Korea.
EXHIBITIONS: ACT Festival, Asia Culture Centre, 2016. Geelong After Dark Festival, AUSTRALIA, May 2017. Glen Eira Storytelling Festival, AUSTRALIA, June-July 2018.
AWARDS: Good Design Award Winner, 2018. Premier’s Design Award WINNER, 2017.
THE STORYTELLING MACHINE is an interactive art installation that instantly transforms people’s drawings into animated characters that roam the artwork’s video worlds. This artwork delivers a randomly generated collective story created from crowd-sourced content.
People of all ages can draw characters of any shape and feed them into the machine. The machine instantly animates the characters and decides their path across video settings that feature international locations. The public can also contribute short story texts in any language. THE STORYTELLING MACHINE randomly displays peoples’ drawings and story texts, so each exhibition experience is unique.
The machine chooses the combination of characters and texts creating a collective story. In many ways, social media has become society’s dominant narrative. Social platforms often dictate how we write, publish and consume our stories. THE STORYTELLING MACHINE reflects practices used in social media. As soon as audiences enter their character and text into the machine, they relinquish control over them. The machine determines the narrative.
THE STORYTELLING MACHINE is a unique interactive artwork created in TouchDesigner. It generates real-time graphics across 9-channels of real-time video.
ACT Festival, Asia Culture Centre, South Korea
Glen Eira Storytelling Festival
RELATED ACADEMIC PAPER
CREDITS
Betty Sargeant ~ Artist, creative director, producer
Justin Dwyer ~ Artist (projection mapping), programmer
Andrew Ogburn ~ Music Composer
Peter Walker ~ Creative Coder
The Storytelling Machine, Gwangju exhibition was co-produced under sponsorship from the Asia Culture Centre and the ACI.
SUPPORT
The development of The Storytelling Machine was supported by the City of Melbourne; the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria; the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund; and the City of Port Phillip through the Cultural Development Fund.
Thanks to: Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller and the Exertion Games Lab, RMIT University.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Betty Sargeant lives and works on the land of the Yaluk-ut Weelam clan of the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation (Australia). Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Betty respectfully acknowledges the ongoing struggles and achievements of First Nations custodians. Sovereignty was never ceded.
