Archive for October, 2005
2 really nice pieces that are interested in the visualisation of invisible flows of information. These two aesthetic and sensory observatories for the perception of this parallel reality have been developed by Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman in collaboration with the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz, Austria.
The Hidden Worlds of Noise and Voice is an interactive audiovisual installation, or, alternatively, an augmented-reality speech-visualization system. Its central theme is the magical relationship of speech to the ethereal medium which conveys it. Participants in Hidden Worlds are able to “see” each others’ voices, which are made visible in the form of animated graphic figurations that appear to emerge from the participants’ mouths while they speak. In the installation, visitors wear special see-through data glasses, which register and superimpose 3D graphics into the real world. When one of the users speaks or sings, colorful abstract forms appear to emerge from his or her mouth. The graphics representing these utterances assume a wide variety of shapes and behaviors that are tightly coupled to the unique qualities of the vocalist’s volume, pitch and timbre.
RE:MARK is an installation for two participants which likewise presents an interactive visualization of its users’ speech. Unlike Hidden Worlds, which primarily attends to the noiselike aspects of vocal sounds, RE:MARK shifts this inquiry towards the more symbolic domain of the spoken and written word.
In RE:MARK, sounds spoken into a pair of microphones are analyzed and classified by a phoneme recognition system. When a phoneme is recognized with sufficient confidence, the written name of the phoneme (for example, oh, ee, ah, etc.) is projected on the installation’s display. If the user’s sound is not recognized by the system’s classifier, then an abstract shape is generated instead, based directly on the timbral characteristics of the vocalization.
As the visitor speaks, the corresponding written phonemes and abstract forms are rendered as silhouettes, and appear to emerge from the shadow of the speaker’s head. A computer-vision system permits the visitors to sweep these forms across the screen with the shadow of their body. The result is a playful and revelatory illusion, in which the installation’s visitors become actors in a shadow world of reactive cartoon language.
October 20th, 2005
CEDRIC PRICE (1934-2003) was one of the most visionary architects of the late 20th century. Although he built very little, his lateral approach to architecture and to time-based urban interventions, has ensured that his work has an enduring influence on contemporary architects and artists, from Richard Rogers and Rem Koolhaas, to Rachel Whiteread.
The Fun Palace was one of his most influential projects and inspired Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano’s early 1970s project, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
Centre Georges Pompidou
Initiated with Joan Littlewood, the theatre director and founder of the innovative Theatre Workshop in east London, the idea was to build a ‘laboratory of fun’ with facilities for dancing, music, drama and fireworks. Central to Price’s practice was the belief that through the correct use of new technology the public could have unprecedented control over their environment, resulting in a building which could be responsive to visitors’ needs and the many activities intended to take place there.
As the marketing material suggested, there was a wide choice of activities: “Choose what you want to do – or watch someone else doing it. Learn how to handle tools, paint, babies, machinery, or just listen to your favourite tune. Dance, talk or be lifted up to where you can see how other people make things work. Sit out over space with a drink and tune in to what’s happening elsewhere in the city. Try starting a riot or beginning a painting – or just lie back and stare at the sky.”
Using an unenclosed steel structure, fully serviced by travelling gantry cranes the building comprised a ‘kit of parts’: pre-fabricated walls, platforms, floors, stairs, and ceiling modules that could be moved and assembled by the cranes. Virtually every part of the structure was variable. “Its form and structure, resembling a large shipyard in which enclosures such as theatres, cinemas, restaurants, workshops, rally areas, can be assembled, moved, re-arranged and scrapped continuously,” promised Price.
he died in London aged 68 in 2003.
October 19th, 2005
Remember the scene from Star Trek IV where Scotty barters the formula for transparent aluminum for a small run. It now appears that we can now add transparent aluminum to the science fact column.
See Article
October 18th, 2005
TABLEPORTATION is a local media system designed to fuse mediated and physical space, to experiment and play with social boundaries, to encourage and allow new forms of interplay between people at different tables in the café.
Video cameras monitor the table surfaces, transforming the originally semi-private space into a stage upon which are played out performances of shifting proximities. This unobstusive system ab/uses the technology of surveillance to allow patrons from different tables observe each other, be observed and get in touch.
Interactive light table surfaces enhance, stimulate and provoke self-expression, collective creations and playful communication.
The café becomes a collective playground where the user is participant and producer rather than merely consumer of space and time.
October 17th, 2005
InterMap is a 1:1 scale model of an interactive maze. This prototype, built of hardware scraps and lumberyard detritus, is the first iteration of a childhood vision to design a human-scale navigable maze.
As the participant enters the space, overhead cameras track movement and relay the participant’s co-ordinates to a computer program that activates the space by opening and closing a series of doors. The 11′ x 13′ space is thus rendered infinitely complex.
As the path changes before the participant, he or she is forced to re-evaluate their immediate relationship to changing space.
With this exercise, North explores the different ways people navigate space and at what threshold they lose their bearings.
North Pitney, the artist, is engaged in creating performance pieces that are kinesmatic, making the person a part of the piece. North’s form of expression is a meld of programming, electronics, activators, motors, sensors, image processing, bulding materials and textiles. A man after my own Heart.
October 16th, 2005
Griffin Enright Architects assisted the artist Hiro Yamagata with the infrastructure for his laser installation.
October 14th, 2005
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