Behind the Curtain, or, Off the Wall is the second map in a series exploring the body in space through depth analysis.
While the first only registered change in depth, this map creates a threshold, or curtain, in front of which is seen and in back of which is hidden. As bodies pass through the curtain, parts become disassociated, prompting the viewer to consider if they even belong to the same body.
The curtain is a digital representation — it doesn’t exist in the physical realm — yet it changes how one moves to show and hide different parts of their body.
Two representations were explored. In the first, pixels are unmodified other than showing those in front of the threshold. In the second, visible pixels are modified to exaggerate depth from the curtain. Pixels further from the curtain are brighter, while those closer are reduced in both size and opacity.
Technicals
The map was built using Processing and the Open Kinect for Processing Library. The depth camera and resulting data is explained more in this blog post. To create the curtain effect, a depth threshold is set using the mouse Y position, which is mapped from the height of the window to the gray scale range. Any pixel less than the threshold is drawn to the screen — anything greater is replaced with a black pixel.