Capturing Images - Creating Art: MIT’s I/O Brush
MIT Media Laboratory has developed the I/O Brush, an amazing animation tool that allows you to “capture” objects and then paint with them. This demo video shows it better than anyone could explain:
As explained on the MIT website:
“When the brush touches a surface, the lights around the camera briefly turn on to provide supplemental light for the camera. During that time, the system grabs the frames from the camera and stores them in the program.â€
This is an amazingly creative tool, however for some people it could be an IP nightmare. Some of the examples shown in the video were books and toys being captured and turned into art. I have to wonder what the copyright owners think of that.
Andy Warhol succeeded artistically in reproducing IP with minimal alterations. How would the art- and IP-world respond if someone simply captured a protected object and attempted to sell it as their own creative expression via video art? Alas, those questions are for another day, but that day is probably approaching fast.
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Alex said,
on June 13th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Ok…this is awesome. Now combine this with Microsoft’s Surface product (mentioned in an earlier blog) and the fun will never end.
Does anyone know if that brush can be scotchguarded to prevent beer stains?
Seriously, Jason has a good point. How would the studios feel if someone bought an episode of Lost for their video iPod and then scanned that into this product with blinking eyeballs as a border only? Is that a violation of IP law? Does this tool record audio as well? If so, seems to be that someone would cry foul.
How did Warhol get away with it? Warhol’s art was Campbell’s Soup best marketing campaign! The copyright owners should be paying artists to use this stuff! Hmmm…another product placement opportunity? The end of “starving artists”?