elen.xynogala@gmail.com bio

PLASTICITY

film, interactive installation, machine learning

This project was developed during a 6-month residency programme HIVE#03 at thecamp.
In collaboration with: Dian Song , Dongmei Lu and Myroslava Kuts.

Plastic pollution results in physical, chemical and biological harm of the whole ecosystem. We produce a lot of plastic and in some cases, it is not possible to replace it as a material. The separation of recyclable from non-recyclable plastic is difficult and requires time, effort and money.
Governments, in some cases, are taking action. There are certain industries, recycling factories, which are sorting plastic waste in predefined categories, but the ratio of sorting this plastic waste in contrast with the speed in which people produce plastic trash is too low.
Most people feel that the relationship between them and plastic objects stops immediately when the trash leaves from their hand. But is this the end? The ocean is full of plastic. Fish is living in the ocean with plastics. Fish is eating plastic. We are eating fish. So, what do we eat, exactly?
We take action as individuals or as a unified community instead of waiting for the “big companies” to manage the problem.
We believe that through social awareness, and by promoting environmental empathetic actions, we can affect people’s subconsciousness on taking action and make a positive change, maximizing the environmental impact.

PLASTICITY was exhibited in Prototype Showcase: HIVE#03 - Collaborative Residency on September 2019.

Film

A performer creates a dialogue with different plastic objects, using dancing and body expressions.
A symbolic performance that open up discussion and guide us to rethink about plastic usage and its destination.
What is plastic?
How is our relationship with it?
Can we start over again?

Script: Dongmei Lu
Art Direction: Eleni Xynogala & Dongmei Lu
Filmmaker: Francesco Garbo
Choreography & Dance: Mimi Jeong
Sound Design: Myroslava Kuts
Costume Design: Audrey Jaillard
Light Design: Pascal Baltazar
Set up: Dian Song

Film's Poster designed by Florian Tiphoteau.
The film was presented at Athens Video Dance Project in January 2020.

Interactive Installation

Artistic 3D Model made by Soliman Lopez in Blender. / Realistic 3D Model made by Xinwei Liu in V-ray and 3ds Max.

PLASTICITY is an interactive installation - a creature- made of plastic waste, that will positively or negatively correspond to how people recycle. A smart bin is integrated with the installation, therefore the “creature” has the ability to properly recognize trash and classify them into recycling categories. When people sort their trash correctly, the creature will be activated, moving and creating joyful sound. On the other hand, when you don’t recycle properly, the creature will act aggressively.

Animation of the different states of the installation in Cinema 4D.

Smart Bin

Multi Label Classification (MLC) model developed by the machine learning enginner Israel Goytom.
The MLC model is used to classify the material of the waste as plastic or other types. Using a pre-trained model which is trained on ImageNet with 1.2 million images as a feature extractor and then a dataset of plastic waste consists of 1000 images (open source), we trained a deep learning model for classification and detection. The model was trained on NVIDIA V1000 GPU for 6 hrs and it has 91% accuracy.

Animation of the interaction of people with the bin and the reaction of the installation and the sound in Cinema 4D.