Category: LookingOutwards-09

For this week’s Looking Outwards I looked at Emily Gobeille. According to her website she is an “an award-winning designer” and is cofounder of  Design I/O “a creative studio specializing in the design and development of cutting-edge, immersive, interactive installations and new forms of storytelling”. I picked her to look into her because a friend of mine had suggested it would fit my interests. I am currently in a class about designing environments and toy design was something that got me into design in the first place. 

From her personal site I was then drawn to the Design I/O site to learn more about the projects she has worked on. I was drawn to the “Funky Forest” project done in the Singapore Art Museum, simply because I liked the visuals. Learning more, this project was a visual learning tool to show children how forest ecosystems work. The interactive display was through a projected system that reacted to the children’s movements and positioning of objects. I personally was inspired by this project because of the use of projected digital graphics to create an entire immersive and interactive environment, that both looked cool and provided a fun purpose. My favorite part of the project is when the kids kind of go crazy and are sending water all over the forest. I think Gobeille’s own sense of storytelling and imagination is reflected in the projects she works on.

http://zanyparade.com/

I found Chris Sugrue’s Delicate Boundaries compelling because of its interactive and creative nature. Chris is an artist who specializes in interactive new media installations. She earned a Master’s of Fine Arts in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design, and now is based in Paris, where she teaches at Parson’s campus there.

This piece allows users to watch as small bug-like creatures scuttle across a darkness, and come to life when hands touch the screen. The artist definitely knows how to make bugs look appealing; even though their movement and legs clearly indicate that they are creepy crawlers, their shapes are approachable and cute. I am curious as to why these critters were chosen to be the subjects of this project. It is remarkable how well the software is able to read the locations of hands, as well as the paths to follow along the arms, and I admire its blending of virtual and physical worlds (hence the title). Since it reacts to touch and is projected from above, I assume this effect is achieved through infrared/heat sensors.

The artist I looked into was one Marina Zurkow, who I became interested in because I saw that she does interactive cartoons. I’ve always wanted to experiment with interactive cartoons, ever since I started becoming interested in animation. So it felt like a good fit.

Marina Zurkow is a media artist who likes delving into issues that are typically controversial and often have a sort of activist bent, but takes a wildly different approach. I couldn’t see where she went to school or anything, but she appears to have worked with a number of universities. She is based out of the United States.

The project of hers I focused on was the animation Mesocosm, which depicts a large man and a number of animals, people, and other paraphernalia all moving around. According to her website, it is an algorithmic work, meaning that “One hour of world time elapses in each minute of screen time, so that one year lasts 146 hours. No cycle is identical to the last, as the appearance and behavior of the human and non-human characters, as well as changes in the weather, are determined by a code using a simple probability equation” I found this fascinating, and it reminds me of the clock project I had worked on earlier this year. At certain parts of the animation the man does get eaten, (by birds, but only nibbles I think, not sure. No way to completely tell how far it gets) which is kinda graphic, but that’s okay its not horrid.

*NOTE, the animation requires Adobe Flash Player to view