Untitled Looks | Process

The Plan

An initial mock up of the mannequin's body.

We purchased a mannequin though Ebay. After waiting anxiously for about a week...she arrived at Graeme's house.

Attaching the camera was no easy task, Graeme had to essentially get the camera's cord to go down her leg and out her foot in order to conceal it and make it go into the computer's shelf inside the pedestal.

While Graeme was working on getting the camera installed and some of the Flash Communication Server stuff working Rachel and Nate began brainstorming about the look and feel of the installation.

Once Graeme was done with his part Rachel took care of the server-side and database technologies as well as getting all the information synced up to project on the wall. Nate worked on building two pedestals that the mannequin would stand on to elevate her to the appropriate height.

The first time we hooked everything in together was kind of crazy, but super exciting. We had moved the mannequin over to Nate's apartment since he was handling the physicality of the installation.

The mannequin is pretty tall, about 5' 9" so usually we had to take off her torso in order to work. This is the mannequin in Nate's apartment in the spare bedroom.

Graeme and Rachel spent quite a bit of time debugging code so that three computers, two cameras and one projector would sync flawlessly.

Rachel and Graeme deugging code.

We had to present Untitled Looks as part of our Virtual Entertainment class. That meant bringing all of the pieces of the puzzle together in the RIT New Media Lab. This sounds easier than it actually was. We had to transport a 5' 9" mannequin from Nate's apartment and the two pedestals Nate was working on in the Engineering building over to the Art and Design building the night before crit.

We used a cart from the New Media Lab to transport the pedestals and the mannequin...and Graeme?

Nate adjust's the mannequin inside the pedestal so that we can transport it back to the Art and Design building.

Doorways and slopes between the buildings were a bit difficult to navigate but eventually we got the mannequin back to the New Media Lab full of confused, over-tired students wondering what was going on.

Graeme pushes unpacks the cart in the New Media Lab.

We had to set up the mannequin in the New Media Lab, luckily the ceilings were tall enough!

Once we got the mannequin working we wrapped it up so no one would touch our work. Everyone in the lab was kind of freaked out by our mannequin, but they were also pretty interested once we explained what it was, and what it was about.

Nate taped off one corner of the New Media Lab to protect our work,

Everyone in our Virtual Entertainment class really enjoyed what we had done. Next step, finding a place to install the piece.