I admire the Forest Friends project because it allows children to have some happy moments during otherwise harrowing times. The children get to pick their own special animal companion which will appear with the scan of their hospital bracelets. The animals interact with the children and distract them from their illnesses. Potion Design collaborated with Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. The project took 2 years to create. To the best of my knowledge, the software could be custom because Potion Design is an innovative company. The project could have been inspired by the joyful way that kids react to phone/video games. This project points to an increase in methods of making patients comfortable and new ways that technology can better the hospital experience for the patients, nurses, and doctors. When the kids are less stressed, it makes it easier to administer their treatments. Link
Wonbin Yang, an artist based South Korea, creates various programmed artworks that are able to move around on their own. An example is Segnisiter continuus, where a piece of newspaper is restructured and programmed to simply move around aimlessly.
I admire both the concept behind the piece, where a mundane item is given life and set to roam around people who don’t even notice the existence of the robot, and the design of the “legs” on the newspaper. The piece itself makes me question what I miss out in life when I don’t fully look at the details.
Although I only know the basics of programming, I am fairly sure Yang programmed his own software to command the ‘low intellegence’ newspaper to roam freely around the city.
Awhile back, I discovered Patatap, an online sound board that generates pieces of music in conjunction with animated shapes, all by tapping the keys on your keyboard. Patatap was created by Jono Brandel (developer/designer), and the Lullatone, who provided the musical sounds for the site. Brandel had initially created the animations separately, (it’s unclear whether he developed his own software or not), but contact with Lullatone, who specializes in innocent, childlike sounds, inspired him to redevelop the idea into a musical sound board instead. Within six months, the trio had composed the sounds and put them together with the animations, creating Patatap.
What I love most about this site is how it connects visual arts with music through user interaction. Without even realizing it, one can create a beautiful animation and simultaneously compose an equally beautiful song, all while happily tapping away on the keyboard. I really admire how they approached this intersection by focusing on user experience, aiming to create something that is easy-to-use and enjoyable. By creating a fun game for the general population to play, Patatap is able to bring art into a population that might not have otherwise been reached, suggesting a step towards familiarizing the general public with fine arts.
Above is one of the many musical creations that users of Patatap have created.
This video of the band Lullatone demonstrates their style, which heavily influenced Brandel when establishing the music for Patatap.
Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
‘Voice Array’ is an interactive intercom system translates an individual’s voice, into flashes of light that are pushed along the horizontal bands on an LED display. The unique blinking pattern is then stored as a loop in the first light array. For each new recording, all previous recordings are pushed down one position. As the installation is fed more sound, one can gradually hear the cumulative sound of up to 288 previous recordings. When one is pushed out of the array, it can then be heard on its own.
I’m really interested in sound design, and its role in architecture, as well as its potential as an artistic installation. The project is an engaging display that combines the auditory and visual to create a multisensory experience for all involved. Voice Array was brought to life using an intercom, 576 white LED lights, a holosonic speaker, and custom-made hardware and software. Not entirely sure of the precise nature of customization involved.
‘Voice Array’ is a sensuous experience that helps push forward the discussion of performative art, architecture, computational design, and interactive media.
The installation partnered with some well-known beat-boxers to perform with the installation like Voice Array – ‘The Art of Noyze’ featuring Rahzel.
A still image of the Voice Array, displaying the sound recorded through LED lights.
Artist Tyler Haywood has been creating GIF art for every day for the past 1583 days. And counting.
What started as a way for him to document his progress with various computer programs eventually turned into a daily creative ritual that has shown no signs of slowing down. Using a blend of Cinema 4D and the Adobe Creative Suite, Haywood diligently creates GIFs that are both hypnotic and satisfying, playing with geometry and light. While the sheer amount of work Haywood has produced is something to be admired, it further opens up the possibilities for a medium born from the internet. Most of his work tends to be non-objective studies, but the medium does seem to have the potential to possess some degree of storytelling.
Meanwhile, Haywood continues to experiment and share his creative journey with the world – have a look for yourself here.
Mirror_SPACE is an interactive installation that was developed from 2004 to 2005 by Brigitta Zics, a German artist whose expertise is in experiential, computational art. With the help of musician Jörg Lindenmaier and graphics programmers Jerome Thoma and Matthias Weber, the artist was able to create an interactive, real-time-scanning space that offers its users a unique experience, rich in senses.
How the Installation Works
What generated this project was “CApsule” that collected and analyzed data and the facial properties of the users, Mirror_SPACE Visualisation, Mirror_SPACE Sound Environment, and an external tracking software called “augenblick 1.o.” When people enter the space in which the project is installed, mirrored images of the participants are transformed, according to physical properties of the individual and different data pertaining to the world. The reflection of people within the environment in which the project is taking place are changed into visual representations that resemble microbes that then float around, interacting with one another. Colors and forms are generated by analysis on the person’s inner and outer states.
User’s Experience CapturedInteraction among Users
The project is an interesting installation for people to engage in and observe. As an architecture student, I was intrigued by the project because it encompasses various senses and is central to human experience and space. I believe that the installation, through sensational interactions, awakens and enables people to view themselves in a different, unique way and further realize that they are part of a bigger world. However, application of the project seems challenging. Perhaps psychological experiments and educational events could be some options. With the advancement of technology and the growth of social media, subjects such as personal and social identities have become much more complex. Installations like these could continue to be used to allow for discussions and reflections on one’s identity and place in the world.
On a side note, although I understand the purpose of the project and its possible mental impact on the users, I was confused as to how individual participants would recognize themselves in the crowd of these “mirror images” or representations of people. If the purpose of this installation is to have people to experience, feel, and understand themselves and their beings through a mirror image reflective of their inner states, it should be easier for the users to follow their image that floats around in the screen, so that more intimate connections can be made. Nonetheless, Mirror_SPACE is a comprehensive work that deserves merit for its power to provoke human senses through the use of computational art.
More information on the project can be found on the official website.
Pipilotti Rist’s Pixel Forest is an exhibition of various works by Rist spanning her entire career. “Looking Through Pixel Forest” is a hanging LED installation that was a collaboration between Rist and Kaori Kuwabara, a lighting designer. This piece consists of 3,000 handmade plastic globes that are irregular in shape. Each LED is controlled by a video signal and represents one pixel from the video that is being played. The lights change at different speeds according to the pace of the video. The entire exhibition showcases Rist’s career as a video artist. “Looking Through Pixel Forest” is one of her most recent pieces. The other installations in the exhibition that were created before this one have a very vintage quality to them. It is almost as if “Looking Through Pixel Forest” is in a way a transition marker in her career where she starts to experiment with new mediums and technology. Despite the use of new techniques, this piece is very much like her past works in that it is extremely immersive and creates a sensual experience.
This project cracks open the door to a future where people may be able to soon be physically immersed within technology. It is probable to say that Rist and Kuwabara were able to find a script that did the basics of what they were trying to do and then added on to the script to make the changes that they needed.
The idea of being physically surrounded by pixels of a video is very intriguing. Walking through such a space is very sensual and calming. I admire Rist’s ability to really think out of the box and present such a spatially experiential project.
Several years ago there was a hotel in Cupertino, California that used a 3-foot-tall robot called A.L.O. Botlr (short for “robot butler”). I really admire how society is starting to slowly try and integrate robots into society, especially in working positions like being a butler or a maid, which would allow the rest of the staff to do more than just have to run around and tend to a customer’s basic need like getting them a bottle of water.
A.L.O. Botlr was created by a start-up company known as Savioke. They used a previous robot, SaviOne, to create the robot butler, so they didn’t have to actually start “from scratch” to make this robot butler but they had to figure out what SaviOne could and couldn’t do that would be necessary in creating a successful robot butler. Although they do not specifically say how long it took to create the robot butler, it could be easily assumed that it took years to develop a working model of the robot and it is still being modified to this day to try and improve it.
There is no talk about how the robot was programmed but I can assume that there had to be some custom software/script because it is known for its “industry-first smart check-in program, “Cool Concierge” program and piloting Apple TV in-room services” to accomadate for the basic skills necessary for a robot butler working in a hotel.
Prior works that inspired A.L.O. Botlr would definitely include the SaviOne, which was a delivery robot that worked in service industries (hotels, hospitals, restaurants, etc.).
This project presents opportunities for more advanced robotics to be incorporated in a person’s everyday life such as Moley. Moley is a kitchen robot that was recently made that is a professional cook with skills equivalent to a master chef.
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