Making Spaces:
America’s Attic

“America’s attic" has been used as a term of endearment for the landmark Smithsonian Institution. The America’s Attic project pays homage to the Smithsonian’s history and legacy as a place that has been and continues to be an incubator for big ideas and curious minds.

The proposed installation is a dark, enclosed and habitable space. Visitors enter carrying their glowing “orb”—a device distributed to guests on their arrival and used throughout the museum to facilitate interaction with exhibits.

The orb is a flashlight to explore. As one scans their orb across the walls, projected light follows their path of motion, illuminating snapshots of people, objects and places. Text is displayed when the orb is passed over an image to inform visitors about its context or meaning. As the orb is moved closer to the wall, the circle of light grows larger and brighter.  America’s Attic is designed flexibly and adaptably; the visual content can be curated to promote exploration of material culture past, present and future.

Tracking script coded using CV in OpenCV library with Python. Camera feed is analyzed to approximate “x” and “y” location and size (“z”) of orb to trigger content display. The Java-based programming sketchbook Processing reads in coordinates from tracking script to update photo masks. Images and text are back-projected onto screen to eliminate shadows or any blocking of light.

Project completed in fall 2017 as part of undergraduate course at the Yale Center for Innovation and Design. Semester-long project-based course focused on creating tools for forward-thinking, tech-based and generative tools for audience engagement at the Smithsonian Art and Industries Building in Washington, D.C. Client was Director Rachel Goslins, Smithsonian Institution.

Professor: Dr. Joseph Zinter
Role: Concept design and archival research and curation. Assisted with prototype fabrication.
Team: Julia Mankoff, Thomas Zembowicz. Source code developed by T. Zembowicz. Access here.