Blog Archive

Showing posts with label interaction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interaction. Show all posts

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's work has been really relevant and inspirational on our group's project. I would like to briefly share a couple of his project's we've found interesting.




"Voz Alta" (Loud Voice) is a memorial commissioned for the 40th anniversary of the student massacre in Tlatelolco. Participants who speak into a megaphone automatically control the brightness of four searchlights that relay their voice over Mexico City as quiet light flashes; tuning into 96.1FM radio allows people anywhere in the city to listen in live to what the lights are saying.




"Pulse Park" is comprised of a matrix of light beams that graze the central oval field of Madison Square Park. Their intensity is entirely modulated by a sensor that measures the heart rate of participants and the resulting effect is the visualization of vital signs, arguably our most symbolic biometric, in an urban scale.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Dead Media



I thought you might be interested in the below quote from Bruce Sterling:
Media is an extension of the senses.
Media is a mode of consciousness.
Media is extrasomatic memory; a crystallisation of human thought that survives the death of the individual
Media is a means of social interaction.
Media is a means of command and control.
Media is statistics, knowledge that is gathered and genrated by the state.
Media is economics, transactions, records, contracts, money, and the records of money.
Media is the meas of civil society and public opinion.
Media is a means of debate and decision and agitpropaganda.

Its interesting to think about the story of media objects themselves. Their history. As new media replaces 'old' media, these old 'bodies'; objects become obsolete. They die and go to media heaven.

Read Bruce Sterling's manifesto here
And the Lost Formats project by Experimental Jetset might also be of interest.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Plasma Sphere

Might inspire the dome idea at the ring in the central station:

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

An embedded "citizen's corner" in central station

One of the ideas discussed today was to have an embedded digital "citizen's corner"(public platform where people voice their opinions on current affairs) in central station.

The following video is an excellent example from Stockholm, where citizens voice their problems and raising issues, through music, in a humorous way. This group is called the Complaints Choir of Sundbyberg. Since they use music as a tool, this might resonate with our idea of employing different channels of sound in our embedded media intervention in the central station.


Complaints Choir of Sundbyberg from Marabouparken on Vimeo.

Monday, February 2, 2009

The Interactive Rainbow






Keywords: Landmarking togetherness, shared stories, urban culture, site-specificness

I chose the Central Station as the main site for my idea.
What I would like to work with and get inspired by was the urban culture that is unique to the city of Stockholm. I would like this uniqueness to translate itself into practice too, as a site-specific embedded media intervention.

The Ring in the main hall of the station is one of the most commonly used meeting points in Stockholm. It is also known by many Stockholmers as the "gay ring" (bögringen). This is a famous urban myth that has inspired me. My intent is to generate ideas towards an intervention that would indirectly magnify this myth and at the same time, create the "stop a second, and open your eyes" feel Nina from Jernhusen was looking for.

Basically, I am planning to use the rainbow colors that are known as a symbolism for the queer movement but also symbolize many other things like peace and respect for diversity, etc. They also have positive psychological effects, and the rainbow has a dome feeling which would clearly landmark this urban meeting point.

I am also planning to incorporate sound along with light, probably by using this technology in a previous blog entry, to help passers-by activate or deactivate different tracks of sound as they walk by. These tracks of sound could have voices of different people singing a song or people telling little urban myths, etc.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Interactive Music Playing

Playing music by 'breaking' the omi-beams of light:

Happy Ending Machine

"'Happy Ending Machine' enables viewers to rearrange the instrumentation by breaking laser beams. Each laser beam corresponds to a different instrument (saxophone, bass/piano, drums, and guitar), which starts and stops by hand movement. The participant is the Conductor with full control."

Living Surfaces by Vertigo Systems

Might be interesting for some of you. Interactive surfaces:



Proper name is "Living Surfaces". Developed by Vertigo Systems.