Kyle McDonald

McDonald’s practice includes installations, interventions and workshops. His earlier appointments include teaching at NYU’s ITP, supporting openFrameworks and residencies at Carnegie Mellon and YCAM. His first-person account describes moving from undergraduate AI research toward an MFA and an art practice.[1][5]

Treat unusual aircraft activity as a noisy signal

His Early Warning System compares business-jet activity with weekly and calendar-learned baselines. It imports public aircraft metadata, processes historical ADS-B heatmaps and publishes dashboard snapshots. The repository describes half-hour updates and distinguishes business jets from other aircraft categories. Without an imported cohort, it serves synthetic review data. The artwork asks whether unusual elite travel might reveal a larger event; aircraft activity alone does not establish an impending nuclear emergency.[6]

Make projector-camera calibration reusable

At YCAM, McDonald developed ProCamToolkit with the institution’s researchers. Its modular openFrameworks code helps align projectors and cameras and calibrate their geometry and color. One demonstration uses aligned projectors showing inverse images: the surface appears white until an object reveals a pattern through its shadow. The toolkit makes that calibration work available for other installations.[4]

Fill a room with small reflections

Light Leaks, made with Jonas Jongejan, uses fifty mirror balls and three projectors. Reflected patterns fill the visitor’s peripheral vision, producing a space that can feel meditative or unsteady. The work joins precise calibration with an experience that surrounds the viewer.[1]