Hologram Project

Project Name:
The Good Host

For my Capstone project, I wanted to experiment with the same technique used to bring us holographic Tupac—Pepper’s Ghost—to tell a story about AI holograms gaining sentience and rising up. The goal was to incorporate as many aspects of new media as possible, so we created an interactive installation that blended narrative, tech, and audience engagement.

Hologram Box V1

At this point the box did nothing but just show off how all the components would be housed to make the effect work. The idea was that we would use a screen on the top of the box and an angled piece of glass to create the peppers ghost effect asking it look like there was a hologram in the box. the finished project was going to have to be scaled up significantly for an audience to see but the vision was there.

Hologram Box V2

From there came version 2. We realized that with the sides open it was letting too much light in and was ruining the effect so we painted it all black and left the front open with this version were able to get approval and a budget to start building the big version for the capstone presentation. Not wanting to waist the V2 we had the idea of using a Makey Makey box to simulate a mouse and programmed an app on a tablet to give a random yes, no, or maybe response to people so they could ask it any question, and a hologram would provide them with a response.

Hologram Box V3

When we built the final version, we made some changes. For one, we moved the screen from the top to the bottom to make it easier to work with. We also left the back open while leaving the sides closed off. We found that with a back, it just looked like a regular ol screen instead of a hologram, so we decided to leave it off, and to really sell the effect, my partner and I would walk behind the screen to show people it actually was completely see-through. We also made a short video about testing the small one and worked it into the narrative of the project's story.