The Adventures of the Original Hamster

A video project I did a while ago. We were given roughly 1 hour of footage to remix into something new. This is what I came up with.

Six Frames from Matti Niinimäki on Vimeo.

I’m really interested in stereoscopy, which you might have guessed, if you’ve ever seen me running around with my View-Master camera. In my opinion, View-Master is still a superior method for viewing stereoscopic images, but it’s only still images. That’s why I wanted to see if I could improve the design and make an interactive View-Master for animations.

This little hybrid between Mickey Mouse and Steve Mann enables you to control and view stereoscopic animations that are animated in real-time.

It’s an old View-Master viewer modified to have ChromaDepth lenses, some custom buttons, accelerometer, bluetooth radio and an Arduino to control it all. I thought about hiding the electronics with bigger ears, but decided not to, because I like the ghetto-cyborg look he’s got going on there.

So how does it work? You look through the viewer to the screen where you will see some 3-layer Månsteri-action in all of it’s stereoscopic glory. The great thing about ChromaDepth stereoscopy is that it works with basic colors. You don’t need two channels for the video to achieve a 3D-effect. On a dark background, everything that is blue will appear to be in the background and everything that is red will appear to be in the foreground. Colors in the spectrum between blue and red will appear to be somewhere in the middle. If you didn’t understand my explanation, look it up on the interwebs.

The accelerometer detects your motion and will move the character on the middle layer, giving the illusion that the character is trying to mimic your movement. You can control the content of the layers with the three buttons on the side of the viewer. Button three controls the background, button two the middle layer and button one controls the foreground. Check out the video and you’ll understand what I mean. If you have ChromaDepth glasses, put them on to see the 3d effect.

The Arduino sends the sensor data and the button states wirelessly via bluetooth to my computer. The information is parsed in Max/MSP, which in turn sends the data as OSC packets to Animata (my favourite software at the moment). Animata then animates everything in real-time and handles the hiding/revealing of different layers.

If you are interested, I have uploaded the Arduino and Max 5 source codes and also the Animata scene. It’s all very specific to my setup, but someone might find it useful. Download the source.

Pow! Sorry for the lack of updates. I moved to Montréal a month ago and I don’t have Interweb connection at home yet, so I haven’t really had the chance to write anything. Anyhow, Montréal is proving out to be a nice city. Pictures and more info some other day.

In the meantime, why don’t you listen to some of my Månsteri Mixtapes. They are now available for download over at the revamped music section http://originalhamsters.com/music/. If you are a promoter in Montréal and like my style, don’t be afraid to email me at matti (at) originalhamsters.com. I’m getting serious withdrawal symptoms from not having turntables around.

-Monsieur Pamplemousse Baguette

If you are in Rovaniemi from 2nd to 28th of June go check out the exhibition of two of my very good friends.

Jeanne Jo and Rachelle Beaudoin are two talented individuals who I met at RISD last summer. Modded/Modattu will have wearables, hacked headphones and other cool shitten. (shitten™ by Steven)

In other news, things are kind of hectic and I´m running out of energy. I´m leaving to Helsinki on Thursday and on Monday I will be on my way to the e-MobiLArt workshop in Athens, Greece. I’m really glad I have the opportunity to travel and be part of these great projects, but I could really use just a few moments when I don’t have some deadlines waiting around the corner. My schoolwork is lagging miles behind, countless of other projects would need a lot of attention and I´m stressing a little about work. I´ll manage, just bear with me if I seem like my head is not attached to my body sometimes.

What else… I will be moving to Montreal for a year next September. So holla at me, if you are from there and interested in working with me (DJing, VJing, design, art, anything…) And also contact me if you know of a good and cheap place to live for me and my girlfriend, preferably in Mile End.