DEL.ICIO.USThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/08/08
It might be a way to get video gamers off the couch. It could be a fun teaching tool. Or perhaps an art installation.
The developers of Embodied Comics at Georgia Tech can't say yet what the real-world applications might be for their creation — a blend of comics, video games and performance art.
 Jessica McGowan/AJC | ||
| In this screen capture, a selected sperm shows the possible child created by the sperm and egg. | ||
 Jessica McGowan/AJC | ||
| 'The idea is to take comics out of the comic books and make them interactive,' said Ozge Samanci, a Ph.D. student in digital media who came up with the concept and did the drawings. 'Can we bring it into 3D and still call it comics?' | ||
 Jessica McGowan/AJC/Staff | ||
| Ozge Samanci, a Tech student in Digital Media, talks about how actions render certain story lines in the Embodied Comics project titled 'Egg's Journey.' | ||
 Jessica McGowan/AJC | ||
| Co-creator Yanfeng Chen, a recent graduate of Georgia Tech with a masters in Human Computing Interaction, demontrates an Embodied Comics project titled 'Egg's Journey.' | ||
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"The idea is to take comics out of the comic books and make them interactive," said Ozge Samanci, a Ph.D. student in digital media who came up with the concept and did the drawings. "Can we bring it into 3D and still call it comics?"
It works like this: You stand in front of a white background while an animated figure — representing you — appears on a big screen. Your movements are captured by a camera and determine what happens in the story that unfolds on the screen. You move and your character moves. Clap and it might rain. Wave your hands and many small waving hands appear on the screen. The creators are working on incorporating props, such as an umbrella, into the story line. At the end of your interaction, you get a printout in comics form.
Samanci worked with assistant professor Alexandra Mazalek, who has a film background, and Yanfeng Chen, a master's student who studies human-computer interaction, to develop the interactive comic.
For the first one, Samanci chose the timeless story of the sperm and the egg.
"I wanted to do something absurd and funny and shocking," Samanci said. "Also something that's a playful challenge. You don't often have the chance to be inside the female reproductive system."
The viewer is the egg, which chooses a sperm. You can wave your hand over a swimming sperm to see how that choice might play out in adulthood. (Your embryo might become a scientist working in the digital media lab, for example.) This first comic can last a couple of minutes or longer, depending on the participant.
Samanci, a native of Istanbul who got her start in comics with some of that city's many humor magazines, said Embodied Comics has been tested with students, some of whom have helped refine the story line. She plans to add the option of choosing twins, for example.
The interactive comics were developed at Tech's Synaesthetic Media Lab, which also is working on interactive video game tables and other new media that heavily involve the viewer. Although they're definitely on the cutting edge, researchers at this lab aren't the only ones working in this area.
Scott Snibbe, a San Francisco-based artist who works in interactive new media, just put up a piece at the Berkeley Art Museum titled "Falling Girl" that incorporates the viewer into a story about a girl falling from a skyscraper. During her miraculously slow descent, she reacts to the people and events in each window. Night falls, and at dawn when she finally lands on the pavement, she's an aged woman who bears no resemblance to the girl who started her fall minutes before. Viewers interact with the narrative in real time and are inserted in the windows to become part of the story.
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