Local Projects
2006 – 2007

The second of three media pieces that Local Projects created for the Slavery in the Civil War exhibit at the New York Historical Society, this interactive voting theater situates visitors in the middle of heated debates on the future of the African-American community. (At that time, New York was a newly free state, but still relied heavily on the cotton trade)

Produced as a partnership with the Classical Theater of Harlem, the film projects the ideas and aspirations of America’s first generation of free Black Americans, and then invites the audience to vote on the issues with a simple lift of a paddle. The intuitive infrared interface creates a seamless experience between watching and interacting with the film.

As the 3D Artist and Hardware Designer for the project, I had the opportunity to truly see this project from beginning to end: Jake and I came up with the idea for the machine vision system that we used, and then I built the virtual mockups to show to the client as well as the physical prototypes for testing. (and final onsite installation) As you can see from the images above and below, concept transformed quite well into reality.