Category: LookingOutwards-01

The Moment We Meet is a piece of kinetic installation art by Taiwanese artist Hsin-Chien Huang. It is installed in a subway station in Taipei. This project is a panel system of 10×10 matrix of faces, controlled by PLC. The faces are printed on PVC panels. Each panel can be controlled by the computer to create different combinations of faces. In term of the main idea, this project aimed to express that when we meet, our emotions will spread out to others. This project took about two years to complete.

I visited Taip a few summers ago, and as soon as I walked out of the subway station, this piece caught my attention — I was astonished. I stood there for few minutes staring at the installation. I felt like I was making eye contact with different people as the panels flipped through. It was just so fascinating. The fact that they made so many variations using just 10 panels is magical. The panels also flipped in various ways! As I was a tourist, this piece made me feel like everyone in Taipei was greeting me. This project can also be used for advertisements since it captures people’s attention.

This is the new Nunu rework in League of Legends.

League of Legends is an incredibly popular multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. I’ve been playing League for about 4 years, and I’ve always been excited to see new updates for the game, as new elements make the game more interesting. For their most recent patch, Riot Games had updated Nunu, one of their oldest characters in the game (had first been released on February 21, 2009)! In a rework, the character gets a new visual model, as well as new abilities in the game.

There are a ton of teams that work on new characters (the design team, the gameplay team, the software team, etc), so I’d say its safe to assume that there were hundreds of people working on this project (and usually takes a few months to complete).  (I also have no idea what software they use).

I’d definitely say this project was inspired by their previous character updates. Every couple months, Riot chooses to update old characters to make them feel new and fresh. Just like the previous character reworks they’ve done, I feel as though Riot is aiming towards making their boring characters more interesting by adding new skills that make them feel more fun to play. Nunu is an excellent example of this, as they’ve incorporated his background into his abilities (one of his new abilities allows him to roll a snowball into enemies).

As a huge gamer (and a game design minor), I feel inspired by this new character design. This rework proves that you can turn any boring, dull character and make it feel new and fun again!

For those curious, this is what he used to look like:

 

Japan’s first digital art museum, MORI Building Digital Art Museum by teamLab Borderless in Tokyo, combines human interaction with psychedelic wonder to fabricate an expansive, experiential exhibit. teamLab is a group of ultratechnologists who combine art, science, technology, design and the natural world through a team of designers, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects from all around the world. This team produced this museum of digital artworks, which are powered by approximately 520 computers and 470 projectors that completely immerse the viewer into the surrounding physical space. There are five different spaces and fifty interactive displays, including “Borderless World,” “En Tea House,” “Athletics Forest,” and “Forest of Resonating Lamps,” pictured below.

Technological art like this has inspired me to step into the world of technology and coding, working through a hybrid of mediums that interest me and that are changing the world at an exponential rate. To contribute to this progress would be life-changing, and I hope to do so one day!

I have always been interested in creative computation in the context of wearables, but I feel like so often that means just putting rope leds or sensors on the body. Thus after some extensive some research I found this project by Pauline Van Dongen where she takes a much more sensitive and thoughtful approach to the entire concept of wearable technology.

This was a collaboration between her studio and ItalDenim where the two created a more intimate computational interaction. This was very interesting to me because it requires no interface or phone app for it to be considered wearable tech.

In fact, it does the opposite and keeps the tech within the closed system of the jacket.  Conductive fibres are woven into the fabric of the Issho jacket, connecting a series of sensors with motorised parts. When the sensors register touch on various parts of the garment, an integrated component reacts to give the wearer a “gentle stroke” on their upper back. It’s controlled by a microcontroller that senses the jacket is being worn.

The Denim Jacket embraces denim’s characteristics to hold a unique dialogue with its wearer. Based on the wearer’s behaviour, the jacket responds to intimate touches to become a mediator of revived experiences in daily life.

I like this project alot because even though it is rather complex when it comes to it’s included tech, the focus is very much on the physical interaction and its relationship with the wearer.

Through bodily sensations, this jacket encourages you to be present in an increasing accelerating world in which our mind is often focused on future events.

Studio Van Dongen’s past work includes some rather futuristic looking generated clothing so adding a computational element to this denim garment wasn’t too far off from the brand.

 

Issho | An Intelligent Denim Jacket by Pauline van Dongen from Pauline van Dongen on Vimeo.

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Caption: Music and technology has been advancing and merging recently to the point where robots can perform music live now.

 

“The robot that can play the violin” is essentially a machine that has been built and programmed  to play all, if not most, of the notes on the violin.  Being a music major with a love for the sciences, being in the know of the advancements of music is a must. I admire this project a lot as music is a way of expression from many mediums.  But also, this project inspires me to work harder to achieve my musical goals.  What I mean by this is that nowadays, anyone can just hit the correct notes in any order or time, but the ability to play with meaning and humanity is still something that a robot cannot do and is hard to achieve.

GPS BeatMap
https://vimeo.com/6402527

In my concepts systems and processes class our teacher showed us the project GPS BeatMap. GPS BeatMap was a collaborative work by Rich Pell and Jesse Stiles created in 2006. It is a GPS music instrument that acts as a DJ booth for the whole planet. This can be accessed on foot, by plane, boat, car or train. They have musical phrases that are represented on a map as overlapping circular territories and where the territories overlap the BeatMap creates mash ups. Although I am interested in more visual topics rather than audio, I admire the fact that through computing an artist can create a dynamic interactive work where the possibilities are endless.

Pinterest shows an example of a man walking and how the aperture holes reflect his movement.

This Aperture project was created by interactive designers, Gunner Green and Frederic Eyl. It is essentially the visual aftermath of having tiny light sensitive holes become larger with less light and smaller with more. Thus, it is an interactive piece as silhouettes and shapes form from those who pass by. Although this particular design is very unique, the programming and technology behind the light exposure itself is easily accessible. Practical uses of aperture are extremely popular in photography and could have easily served as inspiration for the creators of the project. I really appreciate this project as a whole. This was an extremely laborious project to create, and I thought the dedication to this type of medium was impressive. They took one function of something and then gave it a completely different and interactive use as modern art. I also think it is admirable to use a more science based tool and turn it into an exhibit. This could also point to a new artistic idea of using aperture as a medium, which could change the face of contemporary art.

 

A video of their project can be found here.

“Monument Valley” is an extremely popular tablet-focused game created by UsTwo Games, a digital design firm. The storyline of this game follows a Princess Ida through labyrinths and mazes. This game stands out to me because of its illusory effect and philosophy of each frame being a public display. This project was developed over a ten-month span using Unity, a game engine and tool suite responsible for the operation of the game.

UsTwo Games described their inspiration of the development of this game from artist M.C. Escher, who implements impossibility into architecture, and one of the challenges of that stage was how to tell the computer to recognize these impossibilities in a gameplay setting.

One of the breakthroughs of this game that does not show in other popular games is the length. This focuses so much on visual quality and sound tranquility and focuses less on the number of levels or the difficulty. This allows the users for a condensed experience that would eliminate frustration and stress and create a less-anxious peaceful experience for the user.

I have no doubt because of its recognition and major accolades in the gaming and design industry, future games developers will be able to look at this game and see the visual and auditory stimulation of the user that is necessary for the overall experience of gaming. This is where the hard, pressing work of completing a game is eliminated and a condensed but artistically beautiful representation is laid right before your eyes.

Monument Valley – Behind the Scenes

 

This video shows highlights from the AURA project.

The Moment Factory is an international company that specializes in interactive and media-based spaces and art. Their AURA project is a multimedia show located in the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal, which uses technology to completely alter the space through extensive projection-mapping.

I am unsure of all of the programs they used to create the content, but some of the in-process photos on their website show the program Cinema 4D. I can tell by looking through their in-process photos on their website that it was a very intensive and laborious process. I find this project inspiring in how the artists used the existing architecture and meaning of the space to create something transcendent, despite the many technological problems the space provided. They also combined visuals and sound in a very compelling way. Even though I am unsure how much coding was used throughout this project, I would be interested in learning more how code can be used in conjunction with programs such as Cinema 4D and other media creation programs.