Posts filed under 'Visual'
As part of the Interactive Architecture event at Eyebeam in January, Marek Walczak spoke about his own work and collaborations with Martin Wattenberg who together make up MW2MW and his collaborations with Jakub Segen and Michael McAllister who together make up Kinecity.
Marek’s collaborations span between physical and virtual spaces. Larges scale responsive architectural facades, interactive tables, new forms of data visualizations and virtual environments are within their combined repertoire but for the purposes of this post I’m just going to show a few pieces of work off that Marek presented at Eyebeam.
The Podium Light Wall
currently in construction check out this interactive demo
The Podium Light Wall is located on the South and North facades of 7 World Trade Center. As people wander on the pavement below a strip of blue light gracefully follows them. This strip of blue light is 7 floors tall and is visible from Freedom Park.
The Podium Wall accentuates the individual, and the patterns that are created as many pass by together. Kinecity designed the interactive element of the design for James Carpenter Design Assoc. who were the responsible for the wall as an art piece.
Shimmer Wall
The Shimmer Wall is located in the link between the two buildings of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. A place of contemplation designed by James Carpenter Design Associates, the wall projects the subtle shimmering light as the sun plays with the Hudson River.
Kinecity have designed the camera recognition system that recognizes the shimmer on the water. Moving and zooming throughout the day on a very slow orbit, the artificial intelligence system tracks the beauty of light reflecting off water, through which on occasion a ferry or yacht passes by.
Dialog Table
Dialog Table is a shared interface where you use hand gestures to discover more about any dynamic information. Several people can gather around and together explore the table’s movies, narratives and 3D journeys. The table provides an opportunity for people to discuss with each other their thoughts on what they have seen, whether it be an artwork. a game or a service. The first Dialog Table was commissioned by the Walker Art Center as a permanent installation in their museum. The table won an international design competition to promote social interactions among visitors, to provide access to the Walker’s multidisciplinary collections, and to facilitate learning about art.
March 5th, 2007
David Benjamin and Soo-in Yang of ‘The Living’ Architects presented their recent work at the Interactive Architecture event I organised at Eyebeam last month. They have just released 2 lovely little books called ‘Life Size‘ 1 & 2 which explore the possibility of creating open source design processes. The first volume of Life Size includes ‘DIY directions for making a responsive kinetic system, an energy self-sufficient display, and a collapsible framing structure out of weak materials.’ & the second volume of this series includes essays by Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Livia Corona, Holly Kretschmar, Seth Mnookin, William Wu and SISYPHUS.
Whats most interesting for me about David and Soo-ins work is their methodology they call "flash research," which they define as an architectural research project with a budget under $1000 and a ninety-day timeline, expected to result in a fully functioning, 1:1 scale prototype. To me this seems a challenging approach that forces you to consider low tech solutions rather than spending a fortune on answering problems often with unsustainable answers.
When interviewed by Metropolis Magazine David discussed how each Flash Research project is driven by a specific query. “The initial question for Living Glass was: What if architecture responded to you?” Benjamin says. “ We asked, What if good architecture and bottom-line development were the same thing?” Rather than simply creating computer models, they decided that to prove their solution they would need to test it, down to the exact thickness of the plywood or joint necessary for a design to be successful.
David and Soo-in run a graduate class at Columbia Architecture school where with their students, they continue to experiment with these ideas of rapid experimentation often in the context of responsive & kinetic spatial design. Check out their website where you can find out more about their projects such as living River Glow, a network of pods that act as an interface between the water quality of the river and local inhabitants awareness of environmental conditions and Living Glass, a silent transforming and transparent surface that responds to inhabitants proximity.
Also check out his video interview with David and Soo-in
February 28th, 2007
“In the world of surveillance, the architecture of systems has effectively replaced architecture.” Eric Schuldenfrei
I was introduced to the work of Eric Schuldenfrei recently by Eyebeam Resident Jennifer Broutin. Schuldenfrei’s work focuses on the evolving relationship between animation, architecture, and art and has a diverse portfolio of projects that I couldn’t hope to all cover. Instead I will just cover one of his video pieces ‘Reciprocity‘ because of my own personal interest in reciprocal environments which I explored with my installation ‘Reciprocal Space‘. To look at more of Eric’s work visit his portfolio website.
Eric describes how “Theories of reciprocity… are used to describe relationships, mutually beneficial actions, situations of give and take, influence, correspondence, cause and effects within social structures. In reciprocity a relationship forms between those who operate and develop surveillance systems and those under surveillance.”
“Automatic digital collection systems and linked databases create highly contested spaces, raising questions of both security and privacy. Control is no longer conceived through building sections, plans, or perspectives, instead it is envisioned as a spatial construct in real-time, fully automated systems happening ubiquitously.”
February 25th, 2007
Graffiti Writing to Guerrilla Lighting, yes it seems everyones a rebel these days, even the director of BDP lighting, Martin Luptn who has assembled a crack team of local lighting designers, architects, interior designers and manufacturers, all of whom are keen to draw attention to the possibilities, and importance of, lighting in the urban environment.
Under the guidance of a team leader, each member will take part in creating transient lighting designs by using high powered torches, battery powered LED projectors, luminous dot lights and an array of gels and filters. Instructed to be in a specific position and at a given distance from their target, the teams will simultaneously light up various aspects of the Pool of London’s architecture on cue at the sound of an air horn, creating a dramatic spectacle. The installation will photographed, the lighting turned off and then the team move on to the next site. It has been organised as part of Switched ON London which is a seven night celebration of the relationship between light, architecture and the city consisting of temporary lighting installations and a series of light related events with an overall concept theme of ‘theatre’. London’s first festival of light is currently running from the 8th to the 16th February. More details on the other installations to come…
February 10th, 2007
If your in Rotterdam at the moment, get down to the Graffiti Research Lab’s most recent offering. I got to see a sneak peak while I was at Eyebeam in New York a few weeks ago and I’m really pleased to see it working so well at its current venue, the ‘KPN building’ which incidentally was designed by Renzo Piano. Saturday 10th (tomorrow) is its last showing so if you can make it, be there for around 2200 hours.
KPN Telecom Building
Wilhelminakade 123
Rotterdam
February 9th, 2007
Dune 4.0 by Daan Roosegaarde is an interactive landscape which physically changes its appearance in accordance to human presence. Placed in the main corridor of Montevideo, Dune 4.0 is composed of hundreds of fibers which react in correspondence to the movements and sounds of the visitors. Daan described this as a "hybrid of nature and technology " which "functions as a platform on which the relationship between visitor and the existing architecture is enhanced. By means of looking, walking and interacting, visitor and space merge into one coherent environment which could be best interpreted as a kind of Alice in Technoland”.
Dune 4.0 is part of a series interactive installations I make called ‘Liquid constructions’. There is Liquid Space, 4D-Pixel, Liquid 2.0, Wind 3.0, Dune 4.0 and for the U3 Triennale in Slovenia his is building Flow 5.0. Check out Regine’s recent interview with Daan about Dune 4.0 on wmmna.
January 5th, 2007
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