Muse Yourself is a composition tool in the form of an interactive digital art installation. It loops a live camera and projector via a piece of code written in Processing language which allows the user to ‘burn’ their photographic image into the canvas by pressing against it.
An infinite number of photographic layers can be burnt into the canvas although older layers soon deteriorate. This distortion is not artificial but due to feedback and loss of resolution as the equipment tries to re-sample and reproduce each successive layer. It’s the same kind of thing you see if you point a digital video camera at an LCD screen, or comparable to the way notes deteriorate when played through a digital delay pedal.
Above being just a fun painting tool, Muse Yourself plays with the distinctions between gallery visitor, subject, artist and artwork. By using the tool you do, to an extent, play all of those roles at once.
In the gallery, each finished image lasts only until someone decides to restart the process, beginning with a blank screen. However the program is easily able to store images for posterity; here are a few samples:
