Augmented Shadow by Joon Moon

We quite often say, here at Kuriositas, words along the lines of interesting, but how is it done? It isn't often, though, that something leaves us genuinely perplexed from the word go.

This is one which genuinely had us perplexed by its sheer wizadry (and if it looks like magic, then it must be!).

However, when we visited Joon Moon's website, things became a little clearer - or at least we think they did.  This is what Moon has to say for his project.

"Augmented Shadow is a design experiment producing an artificial shadow effect through the use of tangible objects, blocks, on a displayable tabletop interface. Its goal is to offer a new type of user-experience. The project plays on the fact that shadows present distorted silhouettes depending on the light. Augmented Shadows take the distortion effect into the realm of fantasy. Shadows display below the objects according to the physics of the real world. However, the shadows themselves transform the objects into houses, occupied by shadow creatures. By moving the blocks around the table the user sets off series of reactions within this new fantasy ecosystem"

You can see more explanatory words and images - which do make it all a lot clearer (honestly!) over at Moon's Wesbite joonmoon.net.  The installation was initiated from Moon's thesis for MFA Design & Technology in Parsons, The New School for Design in 2010

Augmented Shadow, by Joon Moon, 2010. used openframeworks. It's a tabletop interface on where artificial shadows of tangible objects displayed. You can play with the shadows lying on the boundary between the real, virtual, and fantasy.