Doodling with the eye-tracker (while staring at the bedroom ceiling), 2021
The selected drawings below are the outcome of an exploration that transforms the gaze into a method of doodling with eye-tracking technology. For this specific project, I wore the Pupil Core monocular eye-tracking headset during mundane moments of lying on my bed and looking across my bedroom ceiling.
Some eye-tracking drawings were eventually overlaid on top of a rough 3D scan of the bedroom space.
Eye-tracking drawing while doodling with my eyes across the ceiling (27559 recorded points 284 seconds), December 2020
Digital drawing with eye-tracking
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player, Rhino 3D
Eye-tracking drawing while doodling with my eyes across the ceiling (23412 recorded points 236 seconds), December 2020
Digital drawing with eye-tracking
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player, Rhino 3D
A gradient has been applied to the digital line with the lightest tone being representative of the first captured data and the darkest tone of the last.
Eye-tracking drawing while doodling with my eyes across the ceiling, January 2021
Digital video loop with eye-tracking
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player, Rhino 3D, 3D scan with 3Dim
Four different drawings, stemming from four individual doodling exercises, have been overlayed in this animated representation.
Eye-tracking drawing while doodling with my eyes across the ceiling, January 2021
Digital video loop with eye-tracking
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player, Rhino 3D, 3D scan with 3Dim
Four different drawings, stemming from four individual doodling exercises, have been overlayed in this animated representation.
Eye-tracking drawing while doodling with my eyes across the ceiling, February 2021
Digital drawing with eye-tracking
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player, Rhino 3D, 3D scan with 3Dim
Four different drawings, stemming from four individual doodling exercises, have been overlayed in this animated representation.
Anecdote:
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period, when I had the eye-tracking device at home I began to regard the technology as a drawing ‘companion’. Even during the rather mundane moments, it became very difficult to not think about possible eye-tracking drawing experiments within the walls of my apartment. Mundane moments, viewpoints and spaces started to become perceived as ‘drawable’ with the eye-tracking device. One such particular moment was staring at my bedroom ceiling from my bed, starting from moments of boredom[1].
I asked myself: how many times do I look up at the ceiling while lying on my bed and wander through thoughts and visualisations? This developed into the opportunity to wander through these thoughts and visualisations with the eye-tracking device, as I started a series of drawing experiments where I would wear the Pupil Core monocular device while staring at the bedroom ceiling, transforming the ceiling into a (virtual) metaphorical ‘page’ for doodling
[1] During the COVID-19 pandemic moments of creativity that emerged from boredom evoked a particular attention, for example, see Holmboe and Morris (2021).
Eye-tracking drawing while doodling with my eyes across the ceiling, February 2021
Digital drawing with eye-tracking
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player, Rhino 3D, 3D scan with 3Dim
Four different drawings, stemming from four individual doodling exercises, have been overlayed in this animated representation.
Eye-tracking drawing while doodling with my eyes across the ceiling (20758 recorded points 201 seconds), March 2021
Digital drawing with eye-tracking
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player, Rhino 3D, 3D scan with 3Dim
Eye-tracking drawing while doodling with my eyes across the ceiling (28950 recorded points 298 seconds), March 2021
Digital drawing with eye-tracking
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player, Rhino 3D, 3D scan with 3Dim
Eye-tracking drawing while doodling with my eyes across the ceiling, March 2021
Digital video loop with eye-tracking
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player, Rhino 3D, 3D scan with 3Dim
Documentation of the captured footage and gaze interpretation of the eye-tracker while I doodled across the ceiling with my eyes
Pupil Core monocular eye-tracker, Pupil Player
This footage was captured by the Pupil Core monocular eye-tracking device, and was downloaded from Pupil Player during post-processing. The red cross and green circle are representative of the gaze path estimated by the eye-tracking device.
This eye-tracking drawing project has been:
i) Shortlisted for the Lumen Prize 2021 in September 2021.
ii) Selected for the collective exhibition Art in Metaverse in Seoul, Korea, in January 2022.
iii) Awarded the Best Data Visualisation Prize by The University of Edinburgh Centre for Data, Culture & Society in May 2022.