Daniel Rozin – PomPom Mirror (2015)

While doing the Processing Hour of Code, I was intrigued by the projects Dan mentioned that used computer programming as a key component. I was under the impression at first that art made with code was limited to the computer screen, so it was eye opening to see the pieces Dan showed, which were sculptural, interactive, immersive – nothing like what I had in mind.

With this new understanding of art made with code, I recalled a piece I saw on tumblr (lol) a while ago about a kinetic mirror, and realized it may, too, be an example of art made with code. After a google search, I found it – the artist, Daniel Rozin, made the mirror using a camera connected to a computer which controlled hundreds of motorized black and beige pompoms on an octagonal board. The camera receives the image of the person, the computer interprets the image, then somehow, by the magic of code, the motorized pompoms recreate the image. See the video below to watch the mirror in action.

“Rozin’s anthropomorphic “PomPom Mirror” features a synchronized array of 928 spherical faux fur puffs. Organized into a three-dimensional grid of beige and black, the sculpture is controlled by hundreds of motors that build silhouettes of viewers using computer-vision. Along its surface, figures appear as fluffy animal-like representations within the picture plane, which is made permeable by a ‘push-pull’ forward and backward motion of meshed ‘pixels’. Ghostly traces fade and emerge, as the motorized composition hums in unified movement, seemingly alive and breathing as a body of its own.”

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