Diana Connolly – Looking Outwards – 1

Temperamental Stairs @ The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh from Agnes Bolt on Vimeo.

Temperamental Stairs is an interactive art piece at the Children’s Museum here in Pittsburgh, PA. The staircase that takes patrons from the first floor to the second floor of the museum emits recordings of people’s voices (mostly children’s) when patrons step on each of the steps on the staircase. Different recordings play per step, and the recordings have been taken from different interactions in the museum itself. The artists created this art piece using “Sensor pad system, VCT, speakers, Midi controller, computer, and 330 audio clips”

This project inspires me because I love interactive art that anyone can approach. When I’ve visited the museum, very young children up through their older grandparents all enjoy this piece. It grants the staircase a fun element that it would not have had before. I think that the creators accomplished a playful aspect in the stairs, but I would have liked to have had a bit more of a story involved in the progression of the stairs. In addition, although this piece is fun and playful, some people find the tone of the voices a bit creepy sometimes. Perhaps a bit more selectivity in choosing the audio clips would benefit this project. I wasn’t able to find the artist’s exact thought process or inspiration for this project, but this piece does relate to the idea of interactive staircases in general. For example, an interactive staircase mimicking a piano was installed in a train station in Stockholm, Sweden in 2009 to encourage people to take the stairs over the escalator (below).