Orit Zuckerman & Sajid Sadi

http://ambient.media.mit.edu/projects.php?action=details&id=21

The moving portrait is based on a set of black and white portraits, comprising a rich library of photographic sequences. The portrait resides in a picture frame and interacts with its viewers using a variety of sensing techniques (vision, ultrasonic, RFID etc.). The sensing architecture enables the portrait to be aware of view­ers’ presence, identity, distance, speed, and body movements. The cognitive architecture controls the portrait’s reaction, taking into account the viewer’s behavior, the portrait’s mood, as well as memory of previous inter­actions. All of which contributes to a complex, believable behavior. By adding interaction, dynamics, and mem­ory to a familiar portrait we create a different and more engaging relationship between the viewer and the portrait. The viewer gets to know more about the subject and in addition the portrait’s responses are adapted to the viewer’s behavior and to prior interactions with current and former viewers. Just like in real life, where every person reveals a different side of his/her personality to different people and situations, the evocative portrait reveals different sides of its own personality.