Horizons Youth Centre is a very busy, chaotic and creative youth club, frequented by similarly busy, creative and chaotic young people. I've found them a hard group to crack, as there are many activities happening every Monday night and there are core groups who like to stick with their more comfortable, regular activities than work with a techie such as myself.
I thought I might try a new approach by bringing in a live visuals application and piloting it with a small group of interested people. MouthOff is actually quite an old idea, one I first created when still using the proprietary software Macromedia Director. The concept is simple:
- Webcam input is displayed on the screen
- The display is frozen, and a circular selection is made on the screen
- The live webcam input is then displayed in the circular selection
This leads to lots of creative possibilities. Role-play, social and relationship exploration, and in the case of this group, creative use of projection and live video. The frames displayed here show the vast array of ideas that came from a short 30 minute session.
I'll definitely be piloting this again.
