Archive for September, 2007
Philip Beesley - Implant Matrix
In a couple of weeks, I’m flying of to this years ACADIA Conference held in Nova Scotia, Canada where I will be presenting my recent installation Performative Ecologies as well as taking part in the Metabolic Network sensory workshop which looks like its going to be really interesting. The workshop will accommodate up to 25 participants who are interested in some of the following areas: concept of interactivity, modeling of dynamic systems, software craft, sensors and actuators, fabrication and textile arts. Details of the workshop can be found below and if that sounds of interest to you contact Acadia07workshops@dal.ca
SeaUnSea - Mette Ramsgard Thomsen In collaboration with dance choreographer Carol Brown
Metabolism, in living systems, has two aspects: anabolism (which means building up), and catabolism (or breaking down). These processes, part of all living systems, carry a particular resonance with respect to present-day concerns about sustainable environments. This two-day workshop, on the theme of “Metabolic Network”, brings together five researchers working in the area of electronic sensing in art and design, with a special focus on textiles and architectural-scale applications. The network will be a large installation made from a field of suspended fibers that have different properties: such as elasticity, conductivity, dissolvability, or luminosity. By joining the fibers together, a field of possibilities open up and patterns within the field emerge. The use of sensors and actuators, both electronic and mechanical, will provide dynamic and responsive features in the network. The result will be a metabolic network that emerges, acts and self-destructs over the course of the two-day period.
Loop.pH Sonumbra
The metabolic network will serve as a playground to explore the potentials of sensors and actuators hooked up to a responsive architecture. It will serve as the common medium for the work of the five invited researchers, each expert in some aspect of electronic sensing, textile design or architectural form-making.
Workshop leaders are:
- Philip Beesley (architect and artist, associate professor and co-director, Integrated Centre for Visualization, Design and Manufacturing, University of Waterloo)
- Carole Collet (course director MA Textile Futures, Central Saint Martins College of Art, London)
- Mette Ramsgard Thomsen (architect and researcher, head of Centre for Interactive Technologies and Architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen)
- Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachl (Wingfield is an electronic textile designer and lecturer at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art, London; Gmachl is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher. Together, they form the design research studio Loop.ph, based in London)
September 17th, 2007
At the Tate last saturday Jason Bruges Studio talked about a number of their recent projects including this one called ‘wind to light’ which you may have seen featured in the press earlier in the summer, Jason described how it was created to inspire people to think creatively about the spaces that surround them and explore the sustainable alternatives to developing our built environment.
‘Wind to light’ is a custom built, site-specific installation consisting of 500 miniature wind turbines directly generating the power to illuminate hundreds of integrally mounted LEDs (light-emitting diodes). the effect is to create ‘firefly-like fields of light’ where the wind can be visualized as an ephemeral electronic cloud in the atmosphere. the turbine and LED modules are attached to their base by flexible poles which allow them to slightly sway in the wind, animating the movement of the wind by a digital, electronic means.
The self-powered, autonomous installation illustrates the simplicity and directness of wind power and its potential, literally and symbolically closing the gap between power generation and consumption. wind to light presents wind power in a visually tangible way and one that is characterised primarily by its resultant output rather than process. it eloquently illustrates the silent power of wind. Wind to light presents the perspective that wind power can be an attractive or even potentially beautiful addition to the landscape, contrary to many widespread opinions that wind turbines are a man-made, visual and physical intrusion upon scenery and its natural beauty.
The relocation of wind power from the rural environment to urban surroundings literally brings it closer to us and suggests that as our requirements from wind power have evolved since the use of windmills so should our attitudes towards its application and location. perhaps wind turbines are more suited within the man made environment than nature where they are alien and their need is divorced from them.
September 16th, 2007
Burble London: September 16, 2007, Holland Park, London
details
If your in London, make sure you don’t miss this. I’ve heard from the guys working on this, that its even better than Usmans 1st flight of Burble at the Singapore Biennale in 2006 (See picture above)
September 14th, 2007
Its been a busy past week in London with events at the Tate and the very interesting 2 day conference on Media Architecture held at Central Saint Martins. I”ll cover these in detail over the coming days. Meanwhile, on Sunday I managed to catch up with Daan Roosegaarde for a few drinks and talk about his most recent interactive installations including Flow 5.0 (pictured above). Daan describes Flow as "An interactive sculpture made out of hundreds of ventilators which are reacting to your sound and motion. By walking and interacting an illusive landscape of transparancies and ‘artificial wind’ is created. Moving through Flow 5.0 the visitor becomes conscious of himself as a body, in a dynamic relation with space and technology. Currently Flow 5.0 is further developed as a large architectural intervention commissioned by TodaysArt.”
What I find interesting about Daan’s approach is that his installations are not simply built and shipped off to various exibitions so that everyone sees the same work. Instead, he is continually developing his existing installations adapting the software and materials to new contexts, and strategies of interaction. He’s also open about how his work is very much a team effort with the support of programmers, engineers and production assistants who are all given the freedom to push their interests within the work which he conceives of, and creatively directs. I look forward to seeing what Flow 6.0 looks like soon.
September 14th, 2007
Commissioned for the Art Center presentation of “Open House,” House Swarming is a site-specific installation that operates as both a complex light pattern that greets visitors and as an environment-sensing device. During the day, the “swarm” of green ambiguous forms, both biomorphic and geometric, accentuates the South Campus’s main entry. At twilight, the swarm comes to life, telling visitors and passersby about the current air quality around the building. Electronic sensors perceive air contaminants – such as tobacco, benzene, carbon monoxide, even perfume – and separately inform the outside and inside swarms, which sets off signals. These signals are interpreted as changes to the natural rhythm that the network has established based on the number and distribution of nodes connected to the cable net. Flashing cells on the exterior faÁade indicate air quality inside the building. Conversely, pulsating effects in the interior entry inform visitors about the outside air quality. The flashing lights become indicators of the environment like dramatic clouds at sunset that forewarnings of storms at night.
HouseSwarming is an example of how architects and designers are using technology that mimics biological systems. These patterns look like those structures found in nature, such as the patterns made by schools of fish, flocks of birds, and swarms of locusts. Used in the home, this type of sensor-node technology could enable us to extend our nervous system into the environment and alter our sense of boundaries. Designed by Jenna Didier, Oliver Hess and Marcos Lutyens of Infranatural
September 7th, 2007
left Usman Haque - Open Burble , right Despina Papadopoulos’ day-for-night
Another upcoming event in London I intend to cover is ‘Softspace - Contemporary Interactive Environments’ this coming saturday at the Tate Modern. Speakers include Usman Haque, Jason Bruges, Daan Roosegaarde, Despina Papadopoulos, Jane Burton and Lucy Bullivant, . Lev Manovich, is a keynote speaker. More details can be found here
"The physically permanent identity of architecture has helped to define society for centuries. Now some practitioners have disengaged from tectonics as we traditionally understand it and are taking their discipline into the realms of ‘softspace’, a more fluid, ephemeral form of digitally-enabled design based on personalised experiences and responses. Softspace deploys new spatial systems including wearable computing, wifi, RFID and custom-designed digital software incorporating light, heat, sound and electromagnetic fields. These not only rely on people’s individual ways of interacting with them, but are enriched by narratives people contribute, creating new metaphors of use. Responsive environmental strategies of this kind have increasingly colonised museums and galleries like Tate, the Science Museum and the V&A While the notion of a fantasy world made possible ‘on demand’ by new technologies is the theme of films like Minority Report and ExistenZ, contemporary softspace projects play a more subtle and open-ended influence on contemporary socio-spatial dynamics and our sensing abilities."
left Daan Roosegaarde - Dune , right Jason Bruges Studio - Wind to Light
September 3rd, 2007
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