Digital Embrace
Although social media claims to catalyze social connections, much of the time it only serves to simplify our experiences and lives into manageable, easy to digest snippets. This level of control in online interaction, couple with our body’s release of the “cuddle drug” oxytocin during the act of social media engagement, create an allure that few are able to resist. But how is this potentially affecting the way we interact in the long run? Digital embrace is a data driven experiment that seeks to unveil these shifts are they are occurring.
Role /
Design,
Development
Team /
N/A
Class /
Thesis
Year /
2019
Caricatron is initiated when the user places their hand on the capacitive button affixed to the window, triggering Caricatron to turn its high beams on and begin looking for a face.
Once a face has been detected, Caricatron turns the lights illuminating the user's face off to indicate that it's ready to begin drawing. Using Python and OpenCV it then draws the contours of the user's face to an SVG file and then hands it to the AxiDraw.
A pentagraph connected to the AxiDraw draws the image on a touch screen monitor running a processing program. Once it is done, the button turns on and the process starts all over again.
