This framework simplifies the process of creating interactive environments through a collection of custom real-time media objects developed by artist and software designer John Crawford. These environments also may incorporate optical motion capture and other technologies for representing and responding to movement.

Implemented using a mix of custom-built software, commercially available products and open-source media programming tools, the Active Space media objects include systems for multi-channel live video and audio processing, generative animation, musical composition, mediabase storage/retrieval and high bandwidth networking. Associated motion tracking objects perform real-time sensing and analysis of location, speed, duration and various other characteristics of movement. The results of this analysis can be used to generate video and audio in response to movement.

Motion tracking involves real-time sensing and analysis of location, speed, duration and various other characteristics of movement. Motion capture is the technique of sampling movement in 3D space and creating graphical representations derived from the resulting numeric data. Typical applications of motion capture tend to produce realistic animations, but the aesthetic focus of our work goes beyond realism to explore notions of non-linear association, embodiment and reflexivity. The interplay between improvisational and compositional elements is of particular interest.