Brainstorming!

We want to create an immersive, individual experience in which you give something (your image) and in return you receive feedback of your own image in the form of led lights. The image is distorted by the simplification of the LEDs and the reflections of the mirrors. There is little to no integrity to your actual image, the device is just using your image as a base to create fractal patterns.


The "kaleidoscope" aspect is just a device for distortion. I was also thinking what if we had a camera that took a still frame instead of video so it has more of a context of being forever captured? If you're seeing your image distorted, is that unsettling somehow? It can be but at the same time you can't take your eyes off of it.
It reminds me of doing the photo booth pictures on my Mac or the popular "Face Swap" meme.


Since there may be little to no integrity in the visual representation of your image being reflected, is it still an image of you? Where is the line drawn where it stops being an image of you and just starts being an array of pixels. How much can you distort an image before it is no longer that original image? When does it stop being "you"? Is it when you can't recognize yourself anymore in the image? The image is always formed from the data of your undistorted image.


This video demonstrates how we are going to use the webcam and an LED matrix to display the image.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vERS_CKG2iQ

We found a few guides to RGB LED matrix
http://www.ladyada.net/products/rgbledmatrix/


http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php?topic=51656.0
But this was disheartening, they said in order to do a 32x32 RGB LED matrix you would need 16 arduino boards each powering 1, 8x8 RGB LED matrix.

If we aren't able to do the RGB matrix, we think that just a 2 color threshold display of your image will be just as effective visually and will still stay true to our concept.