The Brunswick Ball
The Brunswick Ball is a physical outdoor interactive-projection prototype, focused on movement
and music-making through motion capture or environmental interaction.
It is continuously being developed by Carlo Tolentino in collaboration with Sahaj Garg.
It was initially produced during the Playable City Brunswick 2020 project,
under the RMIT School of Design – Masters of Animation, Games, and Interactivity.
It aims to connect people to their community and environment, through the universality of music, movement,
and nature. The Brunswick Ball’s prototype development process hopes to contribute to the framework in inspiring site-specific interactive designers and light-projection artists to constantly consider the significance of Urban Play, a city’s historical and cultural connections, and above all, its community.
The Brunswick Ball is now digitally part of Melbourne Design Week 2021, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the NGV.
The Brunswick Ball is an outdoor interactive experience that connects people with music, movement, and nature.
Due to the COVID 19 lockdown restrictions: The Brunswick Ball, and the other projects in *A Maker’s Trail have yet to be publicly staged and play tested.
The Brunswick Ball is currently exhibited in virtual form on this website with an Art Book and video essay detailing its production.
Music & Movement
In this site-specific installation, participants that touch the physical environment generate sound, music, and visual light-projections. With motion capture, participants may also choose interact with it by simply moving or dancing.
Community Collaboration
The Brunswick Ball is designed for the general public and the local community of Brunswick. It is intended for people curious to explore, discover, and reconnect. In the spirit of collaboration, The Brunswick Ball can be openly played by multiple participants at a time.
Culture & History
The theme of The Brunswick Ball is inspired by the Art, music, and multicultural celebration that has energized Brunswick’s identity as it developed over the years. The light-projections on the Library’s windowsvisually suggests the silhouettes of people inside having a ball. Which harkens back to the Brunswick Library’s previous function as a dance hall.
The following section will detail The Brunswick Ball’s production development during
the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown in Melbourne, Australia.
SITE VISITS & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: The Playable Cities RMIT MAGI team conducted site visits and community interviews around the Brunswick design district to plan out and conceptualize projects for the walking tour. The Site visits gave us the opportunity to assess the locations we are tasked to conceptualize projects on thewalking tour. It was valuable that we did these initial site visits, before the project and coordination transitioned fully online.
Our team would share ideas, solutions, and developments to our project lead, Troy Innocent, and guided by our studio mentors Matthew Riley, Max Piantoni, and Uyen Nguyen.
A significant milestone for the team was receiving a good response and feedback when we presented each of our final project ideas, and overall project theme and direction to the Council of Moreland and RMIT industry engagement.
COLOUR AND THEME: The floral and nature elements stem from The Brunswick Design District’s appreciation for nature, and by 1950’s fashion and patterns. Its music-making and motion capture interactive design is informed by The Brunswick Design District’s celebration of their multicultural community through performance and music festivals.
INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE DESIGN: This development flowchart was used as a guide in creating interactions within The Brunswick Ball, and A Maker’s Trail walking tour,
as we finalize within our team how each of the projects in the walking tour lead into each other for a more cohesive walking tour experience.
To effectively plan out the site without physically being there, I had to make use of the photos we have taken from the site visits. Google earth was also useful to get a sense of accurate distancing between environmental elements.
This site planning would also be fundamental in assessing the project’s requirements in equipment, budget logistics, and coordination between collaborators.
CONTINUOUS ITERATIONS & PROTOTYPING
INDOOR PROTOTYPING - As part of the pre-production, it was a fundamental step to create a working proof-of-concept prototype of The Brunswick Ball.
Using a small LED projector, polystyrene boards to stand-in as the Brunswick Library’s windows, and aluminum foil for the rocks.
This prototype of The Brunswick Ball was using ResolumeArena, a VJ software and includes placeholder sounds, visuals, animations, and the makey-makey triggers in action. This proof-of-concept would inform the interactive and art direction refinements of The Brunswick Ball.
As we continue to develop The Brunswick Ball, we implemented the use of anArduino (Leonardo), to have less conditional conductive touch interactions with the inputs. It was a successful improvement on the project.