Posts filed under 'Furniture'
The Light Bead Curtain is an interactive musical installation that can be freely played by person’s touch. The installation takes the familiar form of a beaded curtain that consists of strings of simple clear beads. Each bead, on a users touch, lights itself and emits a unique sound. People play with the curtain by weaving their hands through it, touching it with their faces, and moving through it with their body. An environment of light and sound is created when people engage with the curtain. Although the curtain is primarily meant to be played with by a person, each bead is controllable and programmable via a computer. In this manner, the curtain can function as an interactive display.
The Light Bead Curtain is currently being developed by Ami Wolf and Jin-Yo Mok
November 1st, 2006
One of my favourite and simplist projects at Ars Electronica was Aram Bartholl ’s Random Screen.
“Random Screen” is a mechanical thermo dynamic display which does not rely on any electricity.
Each of the 12 by 12 cm pixels is an individual entity. A tee candle lights and controls each pixel. The rising heat of the candle turns a modified beer can which turns the pixel on and off. Each pixel has its own frequence. The more bright a candle shines the faster is the rotaion of the can.
His other project presented at Ars Electronica was Paperpixel
Paper Pixels is a 30 inch, 8 x 8 pixel, manually controlled screen. Each of the 64 pixels is illuminated steadily by a light bulb. Apart from the light bulbs, no further electronic parts are used. The display is controlled by a long paper strip – the data medium – into which have been punched holes arranged along 64 rows or “tracks“. As the strip is pulled by hand between the light sources and the pixels, these holes control each of the pixels individually. When a hole passes directly beneath a pixel it allows light through, illuminating the corresponding pixel.
The ends of the paper strip is are joined so it forms an endless loop which passes around two cylindrical rollers fixed to each end of the display unit. In order that the 64 pixels can be controlled individually, and so that a hole in the paper doesn’t spread through each pixel in a pixel row, the light bulbs are arranged in tilted rows along the direction of the paper’s movement. Exactly the same order is used in the accompanying programming board. 64 steel pens as blanking are fixed in an MDF board, through which the strip of paper to be programmed is pulled. The desired pixels can be activated frame for frame, or the holes can be punched in the paper manually. The diameter of a hole is 6mm. For the next frame, the 54 cm wide strip of paper is moved along about 1cm.
The paper strip formed as an endless loop is approximately 3 m long which allows a programmable capacity of approximately 300 frames. The number of frames per second (fps) is determined by the speed at which the paper is pulled through the screen. The duration of the loop for an 8 x 8 pixel display at 10 fps is approximately 30 seconds.
September 24th, 2006
Music for Bodies is a research project linking the sonic mapping of human bodies to architecture, through a practical study of bioresonance and interface building. Its aim is to discover new methods of experimental music making, as well as make new music more accessible to the wider community. It is doing this concentrating on making music to feel rather than just listen to. Currently it is making Sonic Beds around the world; it recently won an Award of Distinction for Digital Music at Prix Ars Electronica
"Kaffe Matthews’ Sonic Bed_London installation consists of a bed equipped with built-in loudspeakers; when installation visitors lie down on it, an endless loop of sounds washes over them. Due to their frequency and intensity, these sounds are perceived not only with the ears but also with the entire body in what is a very pleasant experience. The installation has already been exhibited several times and has proven to be a popular attraction with young and old alike since it harmoniously appeals to several different dimensions of human life. The choice of what is actually a rather intimate object used in everyday life as well as the proximity of other installation visitors opens up a strong social component. On the other hand, the installation also makes it possible to experience sound in a new way and thereby provides access to a new auditory dimension."
September 20th, 2006
At Ars Electronica's Cyber Arts exhibition I got to finally see after seeing a prototype video online last year, Max Sean, Raffaello D'Andrea, and Matt Donovan's 'Robotic Chair' project in action. The robotic chair can break apart and then wondrously re-build itself. A video of the chair in action at Ars Electronica is now online and will give you a much better impression of what the technology does than I could describe. It simultaneously leaves you with a sense of awe and a little creeped out. At the moment the project uses a vision system on the ceiling so it is not entirely autonomous however it is an interesting suggestion of future reconfigurable spaces.
Video
September 13th, 2006
"Re:orient – migrating architectures" explores the local aspects of China ’s global significance and increasing influence. The project seeks to forecast possibilities which are now detectable only along retail channels, but which will, in all likelihood, determine the built environment, which transforms under the pressure of ever cheaper products. The project follows up this train of thought with the presentation of spaces, architectural devices and materials that create new contents, and indicate ways of turning these constraints of the market to our benefit, demonstrating how to infuse the mass products, which are designed to have a short life-span, with lasting cultural values.
The Hungarian entry for this year’s Venice Architecture Biennial is an installation that presents an alternative contemporary architectural experience built from thousands of functioning networked Chinese toys.
Instead of form they focus on the system, as an alternative to authored design they created DIY methods, re-appropriating cheap and ubiquitous technologies.
The website provides growing in-depth information about the different parts to the project as well as the system qualities of their architectural experiment in Venice and all the code used is provided open source. I only wish I could make it to Venice to see it.
Chief co-ordinator is Attila Nemes along with Adam Somlai-Fischer co-ordinating the installation and Samu Szemerey the website. A selection of the research texts are available to read here. A full list of the people involved can be found here. Below are the links to the individual projects that make up the whole installation.
September 8th, 2006
Torbjorn Lundell's new light-emitting textile, GloFab launched at the 2006 Stockholm Furniture Fair uses light directed through fiber optic cables which are weaved together to create a range of effects. Fiber optic cables can only be bent so much before light can no longer pass through them so the knots of GloFab are all kept large, giving the textile a beautiful gossamer look which perfectly suits its ethereal glowing quality
The light source can be anything from a lamp to the sun.
via mocoloco
August 11th, 2006
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