openFrameworks and custom software, eyeglasses, PlayStation Eye Camera, IR pass filter, IR LEDs, battery clip, resistor, zip ties, and flexible metal wire

7 3/4 x 5 7/8 x 1 7/8" (20 x 15 x 5 cm)

In 2003 TEMPT1, a Los Angeles–based graffiti artist and activist, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which soon left him entirely paralyzed except for his eyes. The EyeWriter research project was born as a collaboration among TEMPT1, the members of Free Art & Technology (FAT) lab, the openFrameworks community, and Graffiti Research Lab (GRL), with support from the Ebeling Group production company, the Not Impossible Foundation, and the MFA Design and Technology program at Parsons The New School for Design, New York. The team equipped a pair of inexpensive eyeglasses with eye-tracking technology and custom-developed software that could capture TEMPT1’s eye movements. From his hospital room, wirelessly connected to a laptop and laser-tagging apparatus installed in downtown LA, the artist can paint graffiti tags in color, which are then projected at a superhuman scale in real time— so that viewers see the glowing tag as it is created—on buildings. The hardware, software, and assembly instructions are in the public domain, so that the power of these creative technologies is widely available, eventually leading to a network of, as the designers envision, “software developers, hardware hackers, urban projection artists, and ALS patients from around the world who are using local materials and open-source research to creatively connect and make eye art.”