Pick a piece of interactive technology in public, used by multiple people. Write down your assumptions as to how it’s used, and describe the context in which it’s being used. Watch people use it, preferably without them knowing they’re being observed. Take notes on how they use it, what they do differently, what appear to be the difficulties, what appear to be the easiest parts. Record what takes the longest, what takes the least amount of time, and how long the whole transaction takes. Consider how the readings from Norman and Crawford reflect on what you see.
Everybody loves water fountains. They’re the one example of public art that works but in some ways they’re lacking. This photo was taken outside of Lincoln Center and although it isn’t “interactive” the modern sense of the word, it demonstrates the underlying need for more interactive water falls, fountains or installations. ”Hmm”, you might be asking yourself, “I don’t really know of any interactive water falls” and I guess that’s my point. How immersive cool would it be to play with an installation that’s reactive to your presence rather than just running off a predetermined timer controlling lighting and fountain size? Imagine you’re on a big date, you’ve both run out of things to say but you’re feeling the sparks. If only you had some really wondrous water fountain to play with to break the ackward silence, wouldn’t that be dreamy? Ok, by now I’ve veered way off onto a tangent of my personal fantasies but hey that’s what we’re here for right?
My first fantasies are ruminations of an unfinished thought exercise. I’m veering for the unpractical. They include:
A USB/memory stick lighter
A magical button that temporarily lobotomizes me for socially awkward moments or when I want to get my crazy on.
A magical button that lobotomizes all republicans on Earth.
A telephone that you can call in your dreams.
A way to record your previous night’s dreams into a soundtrack.
Glasses that let you see a person at their past, most intense, emotional states (e.g. rage, joy, climax, sorrow, etc…)
iSpan – augmented reality iPhone device allows you to peer through time giving the user a perspective on the scope of geologic time. When you hold the phone up, you see a split image of the current landscape juxtaposed with one from past or future. The camera’s “zoom” controls where you see in the future, e.g. +10 years forward or -1000 years back. The further into time you go, the greater the loss of resolution(color to grayscale, etc..). This device was inspired by Maya Lin’s Map of Memory and the Mannahatta Project.
Famed architect Maya Lin spoke in our seminar today! You may know her work because she designed the Vietnam Memorial when she was only a 21 year old architecture student. Her fifth and final memorial is a kinda new media tone poem focusing on endangered and extinct species caused by human destruction of their habitats.
So, my first week of grad school at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program has whizzed by in a blur of introductions, classes and late nights. I feel totally overwhelmed and know I’m way behind in all my classes even though its only the second week. This is an awesome program.
I just returned from Sweden where I participated in a seminar titled, Reclaim the Data: using Digital Footprints and Hidden Data to Empower Reflective Consumption. It was part of an amazing electronic arts festival called New Media Meeting, held in the college town of Norrköping, a bit south of Stockholm. I saw artists from all over the world utilizing new technologies to tackles global issues such as privacy, waste, consumption and of course environmentalism with a sense of humor and sophistication. It’ll take weeks for my head to decompress it all. http://www.newmediameeting.se/
I do love when I get a random IM like this:
Here is what The Motoman Project plans to bring….
* RC mobile robot arm with 15ft burst flamethrower
* RC mobile robot arm with air cannon
* Double pumper vertical flamethrower – 30ft bursts
* Rotating pulse jet
* 50,000 volt spark gap
* 50,000 volt Tesla coil
+ Anism will be doing Motoman visuals
hope to see you there…
How can it not tickle my pyro instincts? And for once I get to leave my flamethrower at home.
EPIPHYTE (borrowed from a botanical term) is a bi-pedal powered, interactive video installation that seeks to explore notions of sustainability and infosthetics by revealing the hidden history of products. Basically, its what happens when you take a stationary exercise bicycle and hook it up to Max/MSP & Jitter software to manipulate video playback of a product’s mini-narrative. The user is helping to spin a narrative infographic – such that(for instance) a iPod map backwards from Boulder-to-Cupertino-to-Taiwan and India, as it follows the production chain back to its beginnings – the path extrapolates to visualize the many outsourced or subcontracted geospatial components. The end result (hopefully) allows for reflection as the EPIPHYTE installation reveals the hidden social & environmental impact and the often counter-intuitive costs of our everyday consumption on a global scale.
Epiphyte was at the ATLAS Institute for Art, Media and Performance at CU Boulder during the month of April. The interactive installation is now at the Object+Thought gallery, 3559 Larimer Street, downtown Denver for the month of May. Epiphyte is a joint project of the Sustainable Media Lab, comprised of Sarah Chung, Robert Fitzgerald, Paul Gerhardt and Marko Manriquez.
CUBO (Cube) – is an interactive sound sculpture comprised of reclaimed materials and exploring notions of social architecture via a site-specific, locative sound track. Its literally a giant cube with a set a speakers and motion sensors on each of its 5 sides. CUBO’s outside layer is made from live, edible micro-greens. The interior houses a multi-channel, surround sound, speaker system. The sculpture is motion activated: using Max/MSP/Jitter software. The samples are programmed to play indepentent of each other using Max/MSP to play the samles – on/off/random/louder/softer -on each its 4 audio channels. User movement around physical hotspots triggers CUBO to play from over 1600 audio samples taken from around the Boulder area. The locative samples were provided by TheSilence.org, out of CU Boulder, which is a very cool mobile sonic mapping of the Boulder area. I’d like to thank Elisa and Marco and everyone else over at the Silence for their generous contribution of these audio samples. I also encourage everyone to check out TheSilence.org and even contribute their own samples using their mobile phone to make an audio field recording and uploading it to their website soundscape.
CUBO has been exhibited in Tijuana- Mexico, San Diego, Los Angeles and now Boulder on its evolving journey. After a short stint at BMoCA, CUBO is now on display at Object+Thought Gallery, 3559 Larimer Street, Downtown Denver until the end of May. CUBO is a joint project of the Sustainable Media Lab, comprised of Sarah Chung, Robert Fitzgerald and Marko Manriquez.
More info on TheSilence.org
The Silence of the Lands enables participants to map and annotate the soundscape of urban and natural environments. Participants can record and collect ambient sounds, create and share acoustic cartographies, and use them as conversation pieces of a social dialogue about the places and communities in which they live. The result is an affective geography that changes over time according to participants’ perceptions and interpretations of their environmental settings.
Exchange/Alteration was a total success during its 3 days in Boulder. The sewing intervention set up on CU, the Boulder Farmer’s Market and the Civic Park during Earth Day weekend. E/A invited participants to surrender their clothing to be altered on the spot from the bits-and-pieces of other participants’ clothes and from fabrics collected beforehand. The catch was that the E/A seamstress/artist could alter a participant’s clothing however they wanted – with some interesting results. At first, people came up to us making alterations requests, but once we explain how E/A was an art intevention and not a sewing service, people immediately got it and gave us their clothes eagerly. It was lo-tech arts activism at its finest- reappropriating traditional crafts as tools for social interaction, upcycling and breathing new life to old clothes. I can’t wait to bring E/A co-creators, Mélanie Badalato and Camilo Ontiveros, back to Boulder soon for another fun sew-off. Special thanks to them and Lola Griffin, Mark Gosbee, Rachel Murray, Meghan and H.dot for braving the hot sun all day with good humor.
