Posts filed under 'Visual'
‘Touch’ is a project by the Belgian digital design and art lab, LAb[au], Laboratory for Architecture and Urbanism. The project takes as a starting point Brussels’ 145 m high Dexia Tower, from which 4200 windows can be individually colour-enlightened, by RGB-led bars, turning the façade into an immense display.
See the Live Video Feed
Instead of considering this infrastructure as a flat screen (surface) displaying pre-rendered video loops, the project is working on the architectural characteristics of the tower and its urban context. The characteristics of the building; orientation, volume, scale… are used as parameters to set up a spatial, temporal and luminous concept, which moreover allows people to directly interact with the tower.
On Place Rogier, at the bottom of the tower, a station is mounted where people can interact either individually or collectively with the visual and luminous display (= the tower) through a multi touch screen. Both static (touch) as dynamic input (gesture) is recognized to generate an elementary graphical language of points, lines and surfaces combined with physical behaviours (growth, weight, …) taking a monochromatic colour palette (background) combined with black and white (graphical elements).
Once a composition is created, it can be sent as an electronic postcard with a snapshot from the tower, taken from a distant location. It is also uploaded on the specific project website ( www.dexia-tower.com ) where people can retrieve their postcard, as electronic and printable format, with Christmas and New Year’s wishes from Brussels. Artists: LAB[au] – Architects: Philippe Samyn & Partners, M & J.M. Jaspers – J. Eyers & Partners – Lightning engineer: Barbara Hediger
January 3rd, 2007
During my current work research (see previous post) I came accross the beautiful work of Anthony McCall and thought I’d post it as my second post in a series on kinetic art and architecture. He used film to explore ideas of space, architecture and duration – in his piece Long Film for Four Projectors (1974) see below he conjured up four walls of intersecting light. The actual work occurs in the space between the film projector and the screen.
As with his earlier work, Line Describing a Cone (1973) see below, McCall encourages a heightened sense of relational involvement with his audience as the solidity of the light is enhanced through the use of fog machines.
December 1st, 2006
I haven’t been posting much in the last 3 weeks because of my current project. There’s a long way to go but I thought I’d put a little image of the 2nd prototype online and some images of it in action. I’ll have to set up a project blog soon to start documenting it. These are only small prototypes to explore potential behaviors and gestures my work could perform. The 3rd Prototype is currently getting built and should be able to not just draw but also observe Prototype 2′s drawings as gestures and maybe even messages.
Obviously the work of Conrad Shawcross has some aesthetic comparisons and so too the photography of Gjon Mili (see below) but the intentions of my work are quite different. Within an architectural context I am using robotics and spatial light drawings to explore ideas of architectures potential to communicate, respond and perform for its inhabitants. I’m simultaniously working on methods of live interactive notation techniques implanted into traditional plan and section projections to explore the idea of turning the traditional architectural drawing into an interactive interface to choreograph my architectural perfomers.
While ideas of using light to draw are almost as old as photography itself. Artists such as László Moholy-Nagy and the Lucio Fontana explored these ideas in the mid-20th Century. Recent developments in computation have led to new work such of Swedish design firm Front’s 3D tracking and rapid prototyping project, Karl Willis’ Light Tracer and PIPS:lab’s Luma2solator and graf. There are also a number of recent music videos and experimental films using this techniques such pikapika‘s light animations.
November 30th, 2006
SandScape is a tangible interface for designing and understanding landscapes through a variety of computational simulations using sand. Users view these simulations as they are projected on the surface of a sand model that represents the terrain. The users can choose from a variety of different simulations that highlight either the height, slope, contours, shadows, drainage or aspect of the landscape model.
See Video
The users can alter the form of the landscape model by manipulating sand while seeing the resultant effects of computational analysis generated and projected on the surface of sand in real-time. The project demonstrates an alternative form of computer interface (tangible user interface) that takes advantage of our natural ability to understand and manipulate physical forms while still harnessing the power of computational simulation to help in our understanding of a model representation. via WMMNA
November 16th, 2006
I’m going to spend a couple of weeks looking at ideas around movement, in art and architecture, If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear from you. I’m going to start with some images from early works and lead up to whats been happening more recently.
above left – Naum Gabo’s Standing Wave, above right – an Alexander Calder Mobile
Kinetic art depends on motion for its effects. Since the early twentieth century artists have been incorporating movement into art partly to explore the possibilities of movement, partly to introduce the element of time, partly to reflect the importance of the machine and technology in the modern world, partly to explore the nature of vision. Movement has either been produced mechanically by motors or by exploiting the movements of people, air, water, and other kinetic forces in space. A pioneer of Kinetic art was Naum Gabo with his motorised Standing Wave of 1919-20. Mobiles were pioneered by Alexander Calder from about 1930. Kinetic art became a major phenomenon of the late 1950s and the 1960s.
Marcel Duchamp was the first artist in modern times to use actual movement to explore the mechanics of seeing. The above image is Rotary Glass Plates (Precision Optics), propellerlike pieces of glass painted with black and white lines and mounted on a sturdy metal rotating axle, made in 1920 with the help of his Man Ray. As the motor-driven axle turns, the lines on the separate pieces of glass appear to join up and form complete circles. The Rotary Glass Plates, however, set something of an aesthetic standard. Improvised from an unlikely assortment of materials, motorized, the movement cumbersome and somewhat alarming to watch (one dreads that a glass fragment will detach and become airborne), the overall effect remarkable–this was to become the pattern for many kinetic works over the next five decades.
Above Laszlo Moholy-Nagy‘s Light-Space Modulator (1922-30), assembled from what looks like a selection of kitchen utensils, is a classic early successor, its collection of metal plates, wires and wooden balls revolving in the beam of two powerful spotlights to create a shadow dance on the adjacent walls.
November 13th, 2006
The ‘Power Aware Cord‘ transports electrical power while simultaneously visualizing energy usage. Electricial transfer is represented through glowing pulses, flow, and intensity of light.
The Power Aware Cord was developed by Anton Gustafsson and Magnus Gyllenswärd at Static!, a joint project between the Swedish Interactive Institute’s POWER and RE:FORM studios investigating interaction design as a means of increasing our awareness of how energy is used and for stimulating changes in energy behavior They believe that expressing the presence of energy through light can inspire people to explore and reflect upon the energy consumption of electrical devices in their home. The Power Aware Cord represents a different approach to green design- one not necessarily rooted in materiality, but focused on user experience and the visual representation of relevant issues. via inhabitat
November 8th, 2006
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