Almost Mirror is almost a mirror. It encourages the participant to bring more fully into to consciousness the medium of the color digital display. This display, like most displays, represents a simulation of a full-color reality through the use of only 3 colors of light: a Red, a Green and a Blue that some-what match the prominent light sensitivity of “red”, “green”, and “blue” cones in some human eyes, to create the illusion of a full color experience.

Step up to the Mirror and watch your reflection as it slowly grows each pixel until the red, green and blue components that make up this “full-color” display fully saturate the experience.

Almost Mirror was shown in the Altered Realities show produced by ArtSynergies at the Cotuit Center for the Arts from October 9, 2021 to November 13, 2021. With Altered Realities “Twenty-two artists explore the show’s title in various media defining experiences of changed reality—how the content of a photograph, painting, print, or objects transform the nature between real and illusive appearances.”

Color Theory

With Almost Mirror, a 2D camera is used to present a mirror image of the viewer on the monitor. Instead of presenting the image precisely we break up the display into quadrants. Each quadrant then varies in the size of the pixel it is currently showing, the colors it uses (either red+green, red+blue, green+blue or red+green+blue). Each quadrant can also be sub-divided into more quadrants. Over time quadrants collapse or divide, and vary in which colors they are using and their pixel size. Standing and viewing Almost Mirror over time forces the viewer to be aware of how pixel sizes and color representations affect how we perceive the world.

When the viewer observes a quadrant that is red+green+blue with small pixel sizes they have the most precise recreation of the world (that our display can produce). As the pixel size grows the viewers eye is forced to deconstruct the red+green+blue pixels that previously were merging to produce a single color into their constituent parts: red+green+blue.

Quadrants consisting of red+green can only reproduce the colors red, green and yellow, and various colors in between them. As the pixel sizes grow, or as the viewer steps back from the display, red+green quadrants turn a wash of yellow making the viewer cognizant of the color mixing red+green produces in their vision system: typically yellow.

Quadrants consisting of red+blue can only reproduce the colors red, blue and magenta, and various colors in between them. As the pixel sizes grow, or as the viewer steps back from the display, red+blue quadrants turn a wash of magenta making the viewer cognizant of the color mixing red+blue produces in their vision system: typically magenta.

And finally quadrants consisting of blue+green can only reproduce the colors blue, green and cyan, and various colors in between them. As the pixel sizes grow, or as the viewer steps back from the display, blue+green quadrants turn a wash of cyan making the viewer cognizant of the color mixing blue+green produces in their vision system: typically cyan.

Technical

Almost Mirror is a vertically wall mounted television monitor powered by embedded linux. A Raspberry Pi 4 2-GB computer running Raspberry Pi OS Buster connected to the Raspberry Pi V2 Camera is mounted behind the monitor. Software is written in Processing using the JRPiCam library to interface with the Raspberry Pi camera. For performance nearly all code is written as an OpenGL fragment shader.

Almost Mirror gallery view

Sound Squares is an abstract interactive experience where festival goers can create visuals and sounds by walking in front of the installation. Sound Squares has two modes and switches between them every minute.

This project was shown at the Somerville Ignite Festival on October 2nd 2021 and funded by the Somerville Arts Council.

The first mode is a colorful grid of squares representing sheet music (a drum machine). Each column represents an instrument, each row represents a point in time. As time progresses, rows are played, for each of the 3 instruments if a square is active a sound will play, the sheet music is read from bottom to top and then repeats. Viewers can active and deactivate cells by standing in front of the projection and using their hands to activate and deactivate various cells.

The second mode of Sound Square acts an abstract visual mirror. As people walk in front of the display their image is show represented by oversized rectangular “pixels” of red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow. As they move a subtle soundscape forms changing in pitch and duration in time with their movements. Even in this mode the sounds programmed in the colorful grid mode continue to play. As well, even in the colorful grid mode sounds from a person’s movement continue to form as well.

Technical

Sound squares is written in the programming language Processing using the Maxim sound library for all sound generation. It uses an X-Box Kinect to capture people’s hand positions for programming the sheet music, as well as skeleton tracking to trigger the ambient soundscapes, as well as the depth map to show people’s silhouettes in the abstract visual mirror. Images are rear-projected onto rear projection plexiglass.

City Built by Andrew Ringler; adapted from code by Luca Sassone Schizzo Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike, October 2nd, 2010

City Built is an algorithmically generated line-drawn city skyline created in the Processing language. City Built was shown as a projection on a building facade most evenings from 5—9pm November 15^th 2019 through February 2020 in Union Square, Somerville Massachusetts. City Built is supported by a grant from the Somerville Arts Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

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Video by Alyssa Ringler

Artist Statement

Walk by, look at the tablet, see what happens. Stand still, see what happens. Ghost mirror simultaneously shows the present, the very—near—past, and the slightly more distant very—near—past. Enjoy.

Black Android tablet, power cord, software (Processing)

Shown at Higgins Art Gallery At Cape Cod Community College as an invited guest of Scott Anderson. November 12–December 9, 2019. Art Faculty & Guests Show.

Technical

Ghost Mirror is an interactive art piece written in the Processing programming language for an Android tablet mounted on the wall 4 feet off the ground. It uses the Android camera to capture people walking by. Movement is translated into thin vertical lines roughly translated into the dominant color of the original object. Moving objects are replayed over time as translucent “ghosted” images of the original creating “ghosts” moving throughout the image even when the viewer is no longer moving.

Public Radio is a collaboration between New American Public Art and Andrew Ringler.

See New American Public art’s post about the radio at newamericanpublicart.com/publicradio.

Public Radio is a giant controllable public FM radio. It plays music from FM stations, visitors can change the station or volume by turning giant plastic wheels mounted on the front. I was responsible for the design and fabrication of all electrical components including: audio, FM radio control, lighting, channel and volume changing sensors as well as all programming of the microcontroller.

A micro::bit microcontroller controls the entire radio. Each wheel spins continuously clockwise and counterclockwise, as the station wheel spins clockwise stations increase and then roll over at max. As the wheel is spun counterclockise stations decrease and then roll over at the minimum FM station. Volume increases while spinning the volume wheel clockwise, then rolls over and starts decreasing in volume, then repeats, spinning the wheel counterclockwise does the opposite, thus creating a feeling of continuous change no matter what the wheel is doing. See source code and detailed implementation explanations at github.com/NewAmericanPublicArt/public-radio.

Public Radio was the winning proposal for the 2016 Public Space Invitational Digital Challenge. It was made possible by Microsoft Technology and Civic Engagement, Microsoft Garage, The Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, City of Boston, and the Artisan’s Asylum. Public Radio is a collaboration between interactive design studio New American Public Art and Somerville artist and creative programmer Andrew Ringler. It is sponsored in part by Vernier Software & Technology.

Installed outside District Hall, Boston, Seaport April 19th 2019—2021.

FM stations laser etched and edge illuminated with LEDs

Visitor changing the FM station

Visitor listening to radio

Radio in the daytime

Visitor scratching some tunes by turning the tuning dial

Lights animate with a pulse when station is not changing

Lights give feedback while changing station and smoothly transition back to pulsing when at rest

Channel changing and volume changing animations. Volume flips direction when hitting max or min allowing the wheel to be continuously spun in any direction

Visuals by Andrew Ringler mimic-ing the Cirque Noir Elephant on Ball logo reacting to sounds by Know Thyself by Aphrohead and Clarian from Founders of Filth Volume One Felix Da Housecat

“Slightly Structured Visual Noise” is a constantly evolving visual experience running throughout the evening at Cirque Noir X Houston X Scorpion (November 10th 2018) reacting to the DJ’s music live. “Slightly Structured Visual Noise” runs unattended as an autonomous agent-based model taking cues from the DJ’s sound in addition to following beautiful semi-harmonious gradient noise spaces like ridged multifractal, Perlin, Voronoi and spherical.

I created a set of sound-reactive Processing sketches that played throughout the evening generating unique and ever-changing visuals on multiple screens, walls and surfaces always reacting to the ever changing DJ’s beats.

Collaboration with Cindy Sherman Bishop and Philip Gedarovich.

Boston’s Spring Lane is transformed into Wellspring Fords, a communal watering hole that encompasses the days of Shamut peninsula before the Pilgrims to the present day. Continue reading →

Collaboration with Fish McGill and Saul Baizman.

Enchanted Forest is magical interactive experience for all ages, installed at the Government Center promenade. The Forest contains multiple hands-on exhibits and responds to the natural environment Continue reading →

Ignite Beats Promo Video by Philip Gedarovich.

Ignite Beats is a collaboration between Andrew Ringler and Philip Gedarovich.

It is an interactive digital sound and visual experience activated by visitors using Ignite themed blocks at the Somerville Ignite Festival on August 19^th 2017. Continue reading →

Fruit Beets is a collaboration between myself and Philip Gedarovich. Fruit Beets is an interactive sound and visual experience activated by the fruit and vegetables of festival visitors. Installed on a banquet table inside a white tent at the Somerville Agricultural Festival on October 2^nd 2016. Continue reading →

Macropavilion is a public outdoor pavilion providing visitors with shade from the sun as well as an interactive LED light experience in Casco Viejo, Panama. It was the result of a collaboration between myself, Valeria Lalinde, Miguel Espino and the architecture firm Suma Group. Continue reading →