Emotable Portraits: Episode I
"Emotable Portraits"on exhibition at SuperComputing 2008 in Austin, Texas.
IU's Bill Barnett explains Emotable Portraits to a scientist from Italy at SC08. Photo by C. Eller.
The facial recognition system includes visitors in artistic ritual. Photo by M. Dolinsky.
"Emotable Portraits" is a video drama diptych that uses a facial recognition system to incorporate
visitors' faces into the artwork. The diptych comprises two video feeds. The first video is The Saint
and the other is The Choir. The Saint recognizes the visitors when their face is reflected in the eyes.
Once recognized, the visitor's visage is incorporated into The Choir. The Choir represents real life
visitors, past and present as virtual singers. As more visitors are recognized by the system, the choir
sings louder in exaltation. The system can recognize up to four visitors faces at one time and can play
a combination of eight real-time and pre-recorded faces. The music is a recording from a live concert
by Concentus of the Early Music Institute, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.