I have an idea to make a tangible webcam -- a handheld device that moves/vibrates/jiggles whenever there is motion in a webcam feed. Although the process of translating the video to movement is only a part of the whole project, as I started looking at video clips last night it started to dawn on me what an interesting concept it is. If you are only looking at video for its changes -- pixels changing color -- the importance of the original content really disappears. The screen is a flat surface that only records change in vertical or horizontal directions.
So far, I've gone through two clips and marked the movements that are most noticeable. I attached a buzzing sound to each movement marker to imitate a vibration for the sake of prototyping. Eventually I hope to have software doing the video analysis, at which point I'll have to figure out the tolerance of pixels changing/pixels staying the same. Observations: a fixed camera allows the movement to better represent individual movements in the frame. With a panning/zooming camera, the movement becomes more about the filming technique than the subject. One clip I studied is of the penguins at the Monterey aquarium, the other of a Fox News interview with Dick Cheney.
I am fascinated by this technique. With the videos running and the buzzing announcing the motions, one's attention is drawn to the actions. In the penguin webcam the most action came from one of the penguins wagging its tail. In the Cheney interview, the most motion came from the interviewer waving his hands.
When the video is hidden and just the buzzing plays, you can pick up some paterns and concentrations of action and calm. But it also levels the two videos to a series of buzzes, that are different, but indistiguishable as to what their original content was.
The leveling effect speaks to the media of video more than its content. Granted, I am not working with audio at all, but the translations I've been doing give me an overwhelming impression of the mono-texture scene of screen based media. More thoughts to come.