Misty Dawn superimposes the past on the present using video projection in conjunction with custom software and realtime image segmentation. A video camera records action taking place within its field of vision. The time-delayed foreground is layered on the current video to produce a doubling effect.
The piece creates an uneasy spatial relationship in which viewers interact with versions of themselves seven seconds in the past. Through the multiplication of bodies, we might lose track of who is who, or which is the double. The Brechtian interruption of chronology poses questions about identity and memory.
Misty Dawn was designed and developed during the fall of 2005 in the Interrogative Design Workshop at Center for Advances Visual Studies at MIT. The video installation was shown in January in Collision Nine at Art Interactive.