Media Concept Idea for Public Screen Project

For the design iteration project i'm required to create a piece of interactive work which will be displayed in a public space. The interactive work must revolve around a digital design concept for example ideas such as surveillance, abstraction and compression are all acceptable concepts to work with.  The concepts I'm going to be working with are 'distortion' and 'decryption'. Distortion is somewhat similar to encryption as they both involve the process of hiding information from users.

Distortion is a process when something like an image is altered in a certain way which causes it's visual clarity to be hindered. Distortion is sometimes used in the media industry to hide a person's face which therefore makes it very difficult to identify someone. Distortion is often used on news channels when interviewees want to speak out about something but remain anonymous, the visual distortion of the face as well as the distortion of the voice ensures the interviewee remains anonymous.

Distortion can also be a technique utilized by artists in order to convey emotions such as confusion or uncertainty. Anamorphosis is a distortion technique which basically requires the audience to view a painting or installation at a certain angle to see it clearly as viewing it at any other angle will cause it to be distorted. A painting by Hans Holbein's called the "Holbein Skull" uses the technique of Anamorphosis, the image is completely distorted if not viewed at the correct angle.

The second concept I will be utilizing in my project is that of decryption. decryption is the process of revealing encrypted data, decryption is normally done using a password or key which when inputted correctly causes the hidden data to be revealed. My idea for a project is to present the audience with a distorted image or piece of information and its the role of the audience to interact with either physical objects linked to the installation or to interact with virtual objects on the screen. The user is required to put the objects in a particular order or interact with the objects in a particular sequence to decrypt the distorted image. The objects being interacted with would be something significant to digital media for example one idea is to use storage devices such as a floppy disk, memory stick and hard drive. I may present the user with a direct question which will aid them in solving the puzzle or another idea would be to instead leave it to the user to decide whether they are supposed to put the objects in  order of storage capacity or order of introduction. 

Holbein, H. (1533). The anamorphic skull. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_(Holbein)#mediaviewer/File:Holbein_Skull.jpg. Last accessed 16th Nov 2014.