The EyeWriter is a low-cast eyetracking system originally designed for paralyzed graffiti

Graffiti

Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....

 artist TEMPT1

Tempt One

Tony Quan, tag name Tempt One or Tempt1, is an American graffiti artist who began writing in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. His style fused the city's indigenous cholo writing culture with New York stylewriting to create a uniquely Los Angeles style....

. The EyeWriter system uses inexpensive cameras and open-source computer vision

Computer vision

Computer vision is a field that includes methods for acquiring, processing, analysing, and understanding images and, in general, high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions...

 software to track the wearer's eye movements.

EyeWriter was developed by artists and engineers from the Free Art & Technology Lab, Graffiti Research Lab

Graffiti Research Lab

Graffiti Research Lab, founded by Evan Roth and James Powderly during their fellowships at the Eyebeam OpenLab, is an art group dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artists and protesters with open source technologies for urban communication. The members of the group experiment in a lab and in...

 and OpenFrameworks

OpenFrameworks

openFrameworks is an open source toolkit designed for "creative coding". OpenFrameworks is written in C++ and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux...

 teams, including Zachary Lieberman

Zachary Lieberman

Zachary Lieberman is an American artist and computer programmer. His art work focuses around computer graphics, human-computer interaction, and computer vision....

, Evan Roth

Evan Roth

Evan Roth is an artist whose work focuses on tools of empowerment, open source and popular culture. He has previously released work under the name "fi5e".-Biography:...

, James Powderly

James Powderly

James Powderly is an artist and engineer whose work has focused on creating tools for graffiti artists and political activists, designing robots and promoting open source culture.- Biography :...

, Theo Watson

Theo Watson

Theo Watson is a British artist and programmer. His art work includes interactive video, large-scale public projections, computer vision projects, and interactive sound recordings...

 and Chris Sugrue.

The project has been recognized with numerous awards including the 2010 Prix Ars Electronica

Prix Ars Electronica

The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music...

, the 2010 FutureEverything Award and featured on NPR

NPR

NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

 and TED

TED (conference)

TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....

EyeWriter was featured in 2009 at the CREAM International Festival for Arts & Media in Yokohama . TEMPT1 was also featured in 2009 projected on Kyoto City Hall . EyeWriter is a part of the Talk to Me

Talk to Me

Talk to Me is a 1996 made-for-TV drama film that features Yasmine Bleeth and Ricky Paull Goldin.-Plot:The movie involves Diane Shepherd who is an idealistic talk-showproducer who is conscience-stricken when she clashes with her...

 exhibit at MoMA

Moma

Moma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...

 on display from July 24 until November 7, 2011 .

Funding

The project received almost $18,000 as a kickstarter project, which surpassed its $15,000 goal . It also received funding support from The Ebeling Group and from Parsons School of Design.

Software and development

The EyeWriter software consist of eye-tracking software, and a drawing software that allows a user to draw with the movment of their eye. The source code for the EyeWriter software is an open source code with a Artistic/GPL License. The software for both parts has been developed using openframeworks, a cross platform c++ library for creative development. Eyewriter 2.0 led to the development of Livewriter to be used in the 2010 Cinekid festival. In addition to Eyewriter's original parameters, a robot arm was integrated allowing the physical recording of visually created content .

PrintBall, a paintball shooting robot, was developed by Benjamin Gaulon

Benjamin Gaulon

Benjamin Gaulon is an artist whose work focuses on planned obsolescence, consumerism and disposable society. He has previously released work under the name "recyclism".-Biography:...

in Dublin .