The Color Mirror is a responsive light sculpture that displays the colors of the people standing in front of it, ignoring all shapes and sizes, transforming fashion into abstract aesthetics.
When somebody stands in front of the mirror, it adapts to display the color of their presence. The colors of one person morph into the colors of another, etc. As time passes, The Color Mirror recognizes trends in fashion that occur over the seasons and years.
The Color Mirror consists of 10 horizontal cubes of colored light, each one displaying a different color. The cubes are arranged to form the outline of a mirror. The top-most cube is the most commonly occurring color (of the top 10). The next most popular colors are displayed clockwise.
This wall-mouted sculpture consists of a web camera, a computer running customized software for image analysis, a micro-controller and a series of lights. The camera detects when a new viewer is present and takes an image of that person. Using customized software, the background is subtracted from the image before it is analyzed to detect the most commonly occurring colors. The top 10 colors are then displayed on the screen, based on their relative popularity. The Color Mirror holds that person's image until the next person arrives.
The software (Top 10 Colors) was developed for Pixel By Pixel, while the hardware was developed for Physical Computing. Special thanks to Alice Tseng-Planas for assistance with fabiration and construction.
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