Leonard
Leonard was built as part of my Masters Piece "Case Study". He is a giant mediated/interactive costume I built with a fantactic team of people:
- Jordan Golding , professional costume builder/sculpture/visual artist
- Christopher Martinez, composer/media artist/programmer/visual artist
- Stjepan Rajko, programmer/dancer
- Shawn Cook, programmer/media artist
- Ryan Spicer, programmer/videographer
- Andrew McCord, programmer
This was my first attempt at building a mediated costume. I was very fortunate to win a contest for a free Miditron Wireless through dance-tech.net. We used the Miditron Wireless to wirelessly control Leonard. The sensors in the costume communicated with a max/msp patch via Midi. The max/msp patch triggered sounds representing Leonard's voice (nonsensical clicks, burps, and growls) based on the sensor data it received. To learn more about Leonard and the process of making him, check out my blog I built as part of the Miditron Wireless contest agreement.
In the context of "Case Study", Leonard is Diane’s imaginary friend, a life size version of the therapist’s therapy puppet. Diane creates Leonard in order to break up the long periods of isolation that she encounters every day. Diane treats Leonard as a best friend, though it is clear that he is often more of a nuisance or even a threat than a good friend. Whiney, taunting, and unenthused, Leonard appears to act more like a child than the best friend of an adult woman. One reason for this childlike manifestation is due to Diane’s underdeveloped understanding of a relationship, whether it be friendly or romantic. Leonard represents many different men in Diane’s life, her brother who died as a child, her father who neglected her, John Morris who took advantage of her, and the Primary Investigator with whom Diane wishes to have a romantic relationship.
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