GoETP (Glitch over Emotion Transfer Protocol)

Inspiration

When I read the website of Emotion Hack Day, I was intrigued by the idea of Emotion Transfer Protocol. Transferring data always suffers from noises and glitches. If emotions can be transferred in the same manner, for example, captured by a webcam and sent through Skype to your friend, aren't there noises that causes glitches on your emotions? The goal of this project is to experience such emotional glitches on a Skype call.

What it does

Run your GoETP app and call someone with Skype. Then your friend will see your face as a regular video call. However, as soon as your facial expression becomes unclear (for example, half smiling or half surprised), your computer gets confused and understands that there is a glitch in your facial expression. In that case, the computer will no longer send your video but glitch images of some screenshots to your friend. If your facial expression becomes clear again (e.g., neutral, smile or surprised) then the glitches disappear and back to a video call.

How I built it

• openFrameworks
• ofxFaceTracker
• ofxJpegGlitch
• Skype screen sharing
• food
• and a bit of coding

Challenges I ran into

The biggest problem was to implement remote communication to achieve emotion transfer. Although there are some solutions using video libraries, it will probably take another day to integrate them. Instead of implementing it, Skype screen sharing magically solved the problem.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The live demo/presentation worked with my face as well as the audiences' faces.

What I learned

Programming is not necessarily the best solution.

What's next for GoETP (Glitch over Emotion Transfer Protocol)

Add more sensors, more emotions to understand and more glitches.

Built With

• openframeworks