V-FEED [06]_

[ FAIL CASE #01 ] 60 FPS WebGL CRT simulator & AI body-tracking spaceship vs. 6 physical TVs and $4 RCA adapters.

// SECTION 00 :: CASE DOSSIER & METADATA SPEC SHEETCASE_ID: FAIL-01 // REV_2026.10

PROJECTV-FEED [06]

CLASSIFICATIONFAIL CASE #01 — Interactive Transmedia CRT Installation

TL;DR METRIC2,839 LOC Calibration GUI vs. 1 Loose Composite Cable

REPOSITORY

$github.com/felipeallmountain/v-feed-06

STACK

[TypeScript]
[Three.js / WebGL]
[Custom GLSL]
[@mediapipe/tasks-vision]
[Web Audio API]
[Express]
[yt-dlp]
[6x CRT Matrix]

OFFICIAL AUTOPSY VERDICT ::

"Wrote closed-form inverse bilinear quad-warping shaders and a 2,839-line calibration deck to fix problems that belonged to physics."

// SECTION 01 :: EXPECTATION VS. EXHIBITION TELEMETRY

THE PITCH VS. THE REALITY_

An interactive transmedia art installation projecting vertical YouTube Shorts across a vertical totem of 6 vintage Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) televisions arranged in a 2×3 matrix—conceived as a cybernetic tribute to video artist Joshua Ellingson.

"Six cathode ray tubes, a YouTube feed, and a motion sensor: the user is the only missing wire in the system."

Spectators act as a "Human Antenna"—their physical distance (3m to 1m), movement velocity, and body postures tuning or corrupting the analog broadcast in real time like human dipole antennas.

Me crouched in the dark hitting Ctrl+Shift+C to tweak poseGuideOffsetX: 0.29 and rgbSplit: 1.269 because the camera couldn't tell a gallery visitor from a shadow, while yt-dlp downloaded 313 videos of boats sinking.

Instead of a seamless human-machine symbiosis, I built a 60 FPS WebGL spaceship to fight $4 plastic HDMI-to-RCA composite adapters, ambient gallery floodlights glaring off curved leaded glass, a webcam held to a steel shelf with a binder clip, and strangers who understandably refused to hold a "Rabbit Ears" pose in public for 1.8 seconds.

// SECTION 02 :: PHOTOGRAPHIC FIELD EVIDENCE (/PUBLIC/ASSETS/V-FEED-06)

PHOTO & MEDIA EVIDENCE_

Click any evidence frame to launch the full-resolution blueprint inspection view. Includes 16:9 exhibition captures, vertical totem shots, and direct captures of the 2,839-line Calibration Console & WebGL CRT stage.

V-FEED [06] physical setup showing 6 vintage CRT televisions stacked in a 2x3 steel rack matrix with purple floor tape markers and cable spaghetti — The Physical Setup / Totem in Situ
6 screens, miles of composite cabling, a webcam binder-clipped to a steel rack, and the gap between CAD diagrams and gravity.
/assets/v-feed-06/DSC_3270.webp

Gallery visitor raising an arm in front of the 6-CRT matrix to trigger pose recognition while green wireframe telemetry renders on screen — The "Human Antenna" in Action
Trying to convince real humans to hold "UHF Loop Halo" and "Yagi Point" poses in public while MediaPipe tracks 33 joints at 60 FPS.
/assets/v-feed-06/Pabellon-2026-JUEVES-288.webp

Close-up of the CRT screens displaying per-screen calibration HUD overlays, antenna lock percentages, and the CRT [01} label typo — The 2,839-Line Calibration HUD (CalibrationConsole.ts)
When you refuse to move a physical screen 2 centimeters to the left, so you write an inverse bilinear keystone solver in GLSL instead—complete with the "CRT [01}" typo on the top-left tube.
/assets/v-feed-06/Pabellon-2026-JUEVES-287.webp

Close-up of CRT [01} and CRT [03] showing the ZAP NEXT VID trigger overlay, simulated scanlines, and live query synthesis telemetry — The Shader Matrix & Skeleton Overlay
Simulated CRT phosphor masks, scanlines, and green phosphor MediaPipe skeletons rendered at 60 FPS on top of real leaded CRT glass.
/assets/v-feed-06/Pabellon-2026-JUEVES-289.webp

Vertical shot of a visitor holding an octagonal sign paddle in front of the 6-CRT totem on the gallery floor — Improvised Dipole Hardware
A visitor discovering that waving an octagonal event sign confuses the wrist-velocity zero-crossing classifier into thinking she is dancing at 1.8 Hz.
/assets/v-feed-06/Pabellon-2026-JUEVES-285.webp

Vertical full-height view of the 6-CRT installation rack and visitor standing on the purple floor distance markers — The 2×3 Totem vs. Gallery Scale
Standing on purple gaffer-tape rangefinder marks (1m–3m) while six 15,734 Hz flyback transformers and a Bose subwoofer hum in unison.
/assets/v-feed-06/Pabellon-2026-JUEVES-286.webp

A woman and a young child inspecting the 6-CRT totem at close range in the exhibition space — Edge-Case Rangefinder Testing (Height < 1.1m)
My inverse-square shoulder-span distance estimator (landmarks 11 and 12) immediately assuming a child standing 30cm away is a full-grown adult standing 2.8 meters back.
/assets/v-feed-06/Pabellon-2026-JUEVES-225.webp

Gallery visitor looking down at her smartphone while standing on the purple antenna floor markers in front of the glowing CRT array — Zero-Engagement Telemetry
A spectator ignoring 2,839 lines of calibration code to check her actual phone—ironically the exact behavior the installation was supposed to critique.
/assets/v-feed-06/Pabellon-2026-JUEVES-230.webp

Wide gallery view showing the 6-CRT totem alongside another bright projection installation and visitors walking through the venue — Ambient Glare & Exhibition Physics
Competing with adjacent wall projections and gallery floodlights that turned carefully tuned 48×48 HSV torso-color sampling into a random number generator.
/assets/v-feed-06/Pabellon-2026-JUEVES-228.webp

Screenshot of the V-FEED [06] Parallel Calibration Console showing the 2x3 CRT keystone grid visualizer on the left and lil-gui parameter folders on the right — Parallel Calibration Console & 24-Point Keystone Matrix
The 2,839-line lil-gui operator deck (CalibrationConsole.ts): interactive TL/TR/BL/BR corner-pinning handles, per-tube bezel compensation, and the infamous "CRT [01}" typo in its native habitat.
/assets/v-feed-06/calibration.webp

Split-screen view of the V-FEED [06] Calibration Console with live MediaPipe debug overlay on the left and the 6-CRT WebGL shader stage on the right — Dual-Window BroadcastChannel Sync & Live Debug Telemetry
Running the Calibration Console alongside the live 60 FPS WebGL stage—complete with the split Debug Overlay window, 15.7 kHz flyback hum synth controls, and V-Hold vertical roll on CRT [04].
/assets/v-feed-06/calibration_view.webp

Split-screen capture showing live pose tracking telemetry at 0.9m distance on the left console and phosphor skeleton overlays across the 2x3 CRT matrix on the right — Live Query Synthesis, Quota Guard & Pose Zapping
Tracking a solo spectator at 0.9m (HIGH_MOTION 88%, DARK_NEUTRAL chroma) during a 10s query cooldown while green phosphor MediaPipe skeletons and pose reticles overlay all 6 virtual tubes.
/assets/v-feed-06/calibration_view2.webp

Full vertical 2x3 matrix output of the V-FEED [06] WebGL stage showing chromatic aberration, scanlines, RF static, green phosphor skeleton lines, and pose guide icons — The 2×3 WebGL CRT Stage (CompositeShader.ts Output)
Direct capture of the 38-uniform fragment shader simulating barrel curvature, RGB shadow-mask triads, chromatic aberration, RF static snow, and all 6 antenna pose guides from "Rabbit Ears" to "Signal Lock."
/assets/v-feed-06/view.webp

// SECTION 03 :: HOW I BUILT A SPACESHIP FOR A TOASTER PROBLEM

ANATOMY OF THE OVER-ENGINEERING (THE 4 PILLARS OF DOOM)_

The installation was designed for six physical 14"–20" CRT televisions—literal vacuum tubes with real curved leaded glass, real shadow-mask phosphor triads, real plastic bezels, and real 15.734 kHz flyback transformers.

Instead of just sending video to the TVs, I wrote a 346-line single-pass GLSL fragment shader (CompositeShader.ts) that mathematically simulates barrel glass curvature (uCurvature, uTubeCurve), RGB shadow-mask phosphor triads and horizontal scanlines (CRTShader.ts), a 3D beveled dark plastic monitor chassis with specular highlights (uBezelChassis), chromatic aberration (uRgbSplit), V-Hold vertical frame roll (uVHold), horizontal sync jitter (uHJitter), and Gaussian RF snow (NoiseShader.ts).

On top of that, I built a Web Audio API synthesizer (AudioEngine.ts) with pink/white noise buffers and a sine oscillator locked to 15,734 Hz to emulate the NTSC CRT flyback transformer whine—for a room meant to have six real flyback transformers already screaming at 15,734 Hz. And when physical hardware and projection realities hit, the software ended up having to pretend to be the hardware it was supposed to feed.

// FILE: src/shaders/CompositeShader.ts (Closed-Form Inverse Bilinear Quad-Warping)GLSL FRAGMENT SHADER :: 38 UNIFORMS

float cross2d(vec2 a, vec2 b) {
  return a.x * b.y - a.y * b.x;
}

// Closed-form inverse bilinear interpolation for 24-point keystone pinning
vec2 invBilinear(vec2 p, vec2 p0, vec2 p1, vec2 p2, vec2 p3) {
  vec2 e = p1 - p0;
  vec2 f = p3 - p0;
  vec2 g = p0 - p1 + p2 - p3;
  vec2 h = p - p0;

  float k2 = cross2d(g, f);
  float k1 = cross2d(e, f) + cross2d(h, g);
  float k0 = cross2d(h, e);

  if (abs(k2) < 0.0001) {
    float u = (h.x * k1 + f.x * k0) / (e.x * k1 - g.x * k0 + 0.00001);
    float v = -k0 / (k1 + 0.00001);
    return vec2(u, v);
  }

  float w = k1 * k1 - 4.0 * k0 * k2;
  if (w < 0.0) return vec2(-1.0);
  w = sqrt(w);

  float v1 = (-k1 - w) / (2.0 * k2);
  float u1 = (h.x - f.x * v1) / (e.x + g.x * v1 + 0.00001);
  return vec2(u1, v1);
}

Mounting and aligning 6 displays in a real physical space is messy. Instead of solving alignment with a wrench, a shim, or a spirit level, I tried to solve carpentry in WebGL.

I built CalibrationConsole.ts—a 2,839-line lil-gui mission control deck synced across browser windows via BroadcastChannel (SyncChannel.ts) and backed by a 351-line JSON config (config/calibration.json). It featured 24-point 4-corner perspective keystone pinning (uCorners[24]) solved per-pixel in GLSL, per-screen discrete 90° rotations, fine continuous angle rotation (-180° to +180°), X/Y sub-pixel offsets, individual horizontal/vertical flips for all 6 screens, per-screen signal lock and noise gain overrides, plus custom SMPTE color bars, crosshatch patterns, and focus reticles.

// FILE: config/calibration.json (Actual Committed Production Battle Scars)IEEE-754 DESPERATION & TYPO IMMORTALITY

{
  "shader": {
    "curvature": 2.6,
    "rgbSplit": 1.269,
    "vHold": 0,
    "bezelChassis": true
  },
  "tracking": {
    "zapHoldDurationMs": 400,
    "poseGuideOffsetX": 0.29
  },
  "frames": [
    {
      "id": 0,
      "label": "CRT [01}",
      "offsetX": -0.00600000000000001,
      "offsetY": 0.014,
      "fineAngle": -1.4,
      "rotation": 0,
      "flipX": false,
      "flipY": false
    }
  ]
}

Using @mediapipe/tasks-vision (running PoseLandmarker with 33 3D body joints + HandLandmarker with 21 hand joints in Wasm/GPU at 60 FPS), I refused to simply map proximity to static noise. Instead, I engineered a full semantic classifier that:

1. Optical Inverse-Square Rangefinder: Estimates physical distance in meters using the Euclidean span between shoulder landmarks 11 and 12 (which immediately hallucinated whenever a child walked into the frame).

2. Harmonic Wrist Zero-Crossing Dance Detector: Analyzes a 1,800 ms rolling window of vertical wrist velocity zero-crossings (1.2 Hz–2.5 Hz) to classify whether the spectator is dancing rhythmically (RHYTHMIC) versus flailing erratically (HIGH_MOTION).

3. Torso HSV Clothing Color Sampler: Samples a 48×48 offscreen canvas across the user's torso, converts RGB to HSV, and classifies their outfit (WARM_RED, COOL_BLUE, DARK_NEUTRAL, NEUTRAL) to tint the YouTube search query mood.

4. Six Antenna Postures & The 1.8s Panic Patch: Mapped 6 specific body postures 1:1 to the 6 CRT screens—originally requiring visitors to hold a pose for 1.8 seconds (1,800 ms), which had to be panic-tuned down to zapHoldDurationMs: 400 because no human being in an art gallery will hold a T-pose for 1.8 seconds in front of strangers without feeling ridiculous.

CRT [01} :: POSE_ANTENNA"Rabbit Ears"

CRT [02] :: POSE_DIAL_TUNER"Yagi Point"

CRT [03] :: POSE_SURPRISE"TV Shock"

CRT [04] :: POSE_WINGSUIT"Horizontal Dipole"

CRT [05] :: POSE_LOOP_HALO"UHF Loop"

CRT [06] :: POSE_SIGNAL_LOCK"Human Capacitor"

Every synthesized body query hit the YouTube Data API v3 (search.list) at 100 quota units per call, spawning yt-dlp and ffmpeg on an Express backend to transcode vertical MP4s on the fly.

During a 4.5-hour soak test (reports/perf-report-latest.md), the installation downloaded 313 bizarre vintage Shorts—ranging from 1950s TV test patterns and Max Headroom to SpongeBob lost episodes and pontoon boats hitting rocks—burning 4,140 quota units at 919.9 units/hr. That meant the 10,000-unit daily Google Cloud quota would die 5.3 hours into an 8-hour gallery day, forcing me to emergency-engineer a QuotaGuard.ts circuit breaker and an LRU disk cache pruner.

Meanwhile, in the physical venue: camera angles, portrait webcam rotation matrices (0°/90°/180°/270°), ambient glare on glass, cable spaghetti, and real human behavior proved that no amount of TypeScript architecture diagrams (I wrote 8 full architecture manuals—12 markdown files total—for a 1-person project) survives first contact with an exhibition space.

// SECTION 04 :: THE OVER-ENGINEERING RECEIPT

"BY THE NUMBERS" RECEIPT TABLE_

METRIC / SUBSYSTEM	RECORDED VALUE	FIELD AUDIT NOTES
Calibration Console (CalibrationConsole.ts)	2,839 lines	More code to calibrate the screens than to render them
Architecture Documentation Suite	12 markdown files	Written for a team of 1 (me), including 8 full architecture manuals
GLSL Uniforms in CompositeShader.ts	38 uniforms	Including uCorners[24] for 24-point quad warping
NTSC Flyback Sine Oscillator	15,734 Hz	Synthesizing a sound that CRT hardware makes for free
Initial Pose Hold Debounce	1,800 ms	Panic-reduced to 400 ms (zapHoldDurationMs) in production
YouTube API Quota Runway	5.3 hours	For an 8-hour exhibition day (919.9 units/hr burn rate)
Floating-Point Calibration Scars	-0.00600000000000001	Actual frames.offsetX committed to config/calibration.json

// SECTION 05 :: AUTOPSY SUMMARY & LESSONS LEARNED

WHY IT'S IN /FAIL-CASES_

[01] ATOMS ARE UNDEFEATED

Software is frictionless; atoms are undefeated. No shader uniform can fix a loose RCA composite plug or a $4 plastic signal converter overheating behind a steel shelf.

[02] PUT DOWN THE KEYBOARD, PICK UP A SCREWDRIVER

If you find yourself writing a 2D cross-product quadratic solver in a fragment shader because a display is crooked, put down the keyboard and pick up a screwdriver.

[03] HUMANS ARE NOT DETERMINISTIC STATE MACHINES

Twelve architecture markdown files and a 4.5-hour soak test won't save you when your entire interactive loop depends on strangers doing "Rabbit Ears" poses for 1.8 seconds in front of a binder-clipped webcam.

V-FEED [06]_

THE PITCH VS. THE REALITY_

PHOTO & MEDIA EVIDENCE_

ANATOMY OF THE OVER-ENGINEERING (THE 4 PILLARS OF DOOM)_

SIMULATING CRTS IN SOFTWARE... FOR REAL ANALOG CRTS

SOLVING CARPENTRY WITH LIL-GUI: THE 2,839-LINE CALIBRATION CONSOLE

THE OVER-THINKER'S COMPUTER VISION PIPELINE: HUMAN WALKIE-TALKIES

THE 4.5-HOUR SOAK TEST, YOUTUBE QUOTA BURN & EXHIBITION PHYSICS

"BY THE NUMBERS" RECEIPT TABLE_

WHY IT'S IN /FAIL-CASES_