The Watching Eye

Interactive project based on surveillance and created using Processing.

In his book 1984, George Orwell spoke of a surveillance society where “Big Brother is watching you”.  We are increasingly living in a world where this is the case.  Everywhere you go the eye follows you.

code used:

 import processing.video.*;
 
Capture video;
 
PImage prevFrame;
 
float threshold = 150;
int Mx = 0;
int My = 0;
int ave = 0;
 
int ballX = width/8;
int ballY = height/8;
int rsp = 5;
 
void setup() {
  fullScreen();
  video = new Capture(this, width, height, 30);
  video.start();
  prevFrame = createImage(video.width, video.height, RGB);

}
 
void draw() {
 
  if (video.available()) {
 
    prevFrame.copy(video, 0, 0, video.width, video.height, 0, 0, video.width, video.height);
    prevFrame.updatePixels();
    video.read();
  }
 
  loadPixels();
  video.loadPixels();
  prevFrame.loadPixels();
 
  Mx = 0;
  My = 0;
  ave = 0;
 
 
  for (int x = 0; x < video.width; x ++ ) {
    for (int y = 0; y < video.height; y ++ ) {
 
      int loc = x + y*video.width;            
      //(width-1-x) + y*video.width;
      color current = video.pixels[loc];      
      color previous = prevFrame.pixels[loc];
 
 
      float r1 = red(current);
      float g1 = green(current);
      float b1 = blue(current);
      float r2 = red(previous);
      float g2 = green(previous);
      float b2 = blue(previous);
      float diff = dist(r1, g1, b1, r2, g2, b2);
 
 
      if (diff > threshold) {
        pixels[loc] = video.pixels[loc];
        Mx += x;
        My += y;
        ave++;
      }
      else {
 
        pixels[loc] = video.pixels[loc];
      }
    }
  }
  fill(255);
  rect(0, 0, width, height);
  if (ave != 0) {
    Mx = Mx/ave;
    My = My/ave;
  }
  if (Mx > ballX + rsp/2 && Mx > 50) {
    ballX+= rsp;
  }
  else if (Mx < ballX – rsp/2 && Mx > 50) {
    ballX-= rsp;
  }
  if (My > ballY + rsp/2 && My > 50) {
    ballY+= rsp;
  }
  else if (My < ballY – rsp/2 && My > 50) {
    ballY-= rsp;
  }
 
  updatePixels();
  noStroke();
  fill(200, 200, 200);
//// ellipse(ballX, ballY, 20, 20);
//rect(0,0,320,240);
PImage img;
img = loadImage(“eye.png”);
image(img, ballX, 0, 320, 260);
 
img = loadImage(“eye2.png”);
image(img, -50, 0, 400,250);
}