Interactive Architecture has a lengthy article on Marek Walczak’s recent work
The article touches on the Podium Light Wall made for 7 World Trade Center and the Shimmer Wall, a video wall that represents sunlight shimmering off the Hudson River for the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. Don’t miss the Dialog Table which makes an appearance at the end of the article.
I just saw Botanicalls at the ITP Winter Show. It is a cell phone information system that connects people and plants. A person can call a plant on their phone and get information about the species of plant and check if the plant needs watering. On the other hand a plant that needs watering or more sun can call a person up and ask for help. When the plant gets successfully watered it calls again to say thanks.
While i was digging through old video for my last post i found these. I usually pay attention to the signage in museum lobbies and entrances, especially when it involves some sort of media presentation. I was pretty excited to see what the Mori Art Museum would do with their lobby. As you can see from this video it is straight forward and dull at the desk. I was expecting something a more experimental and fun like the MoMA did with their desk. They did have a large back projected screen in the corner of their lobby that was integrated into the architecture, it was just showing a still slide show and when I tried to take video of it their very attentive gaurd shooed me away (but you can still see it a little).
Omotesando Hills, an upscale shopping mall in the Aoyama district of Tokyo has an integrated media component called Notion Organization Project. I’ve been meaning to write something about it since my visit to Tokyo earlier this year unfortunately I could not find many articles written in English so I’m relying heavily on my poor Japanese skills and translation programs.The project consists of LED screens on the outside facing Omotesando Street. The LED wall is low resolution but large scale so close up it image seems like a rather disconcerting jumble of flashing screens. From across the street or down the block however the illuminated wall is quite striking. Legs in sillouette are the most interesting video, the display alternates between that and an abstract color wash. At first I thought the pedestrians walking by on the side walk were creating the visuals above. That proved to be an illusion but brought to mind the Podium Lights or Memory Wall projects which would be very interesting to see in a busy space like this.
Video taken from a pedestrian bridge over Omotesando Street.
This is a close up view of the LED wall, you can see it is quite low resolution but very large.
Inside the project continues as a projection of light and image from the ceiling. There are directional speakers playing layers of music and natural sound effects, which i suppose is soothing and condusive to shopping. Both the projection and directional speakers are on motors which allow them to trace a path up and down the malls long stairs creating an effect of water cascading down. The imagery on the interior projections is close up video of the famous trees lining Omotesando Street and nearby rivers. Theatrical lights provide color which changes to reflect the current season. Unfortunately they wouldn’t let me take any video of the inside but there are some photos of it on their site. The effect indoors is less spectacular than the outside but it is mesmerizing if your walking down the long stairs.
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New Media had a mini-renunion last weekend to celebrate a very special occasion. Brent got married. That alone is big news for us but imagine our surprise to see his wedding cake all over the internet the next morning. In case you missed it (already posted on Boing Boing, Joystiq, Flickr, etc) here are some pictures of their amazing Mario & Princess cake. Congratulations Brent and Annette!
I recently visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the nearby Hall of Atomic Bomb Victims, on a whole it was an emotionally powerful experience but I’ll limit my writing to the technology used throughout to enhance the experience.
The Peace Memorial Museum and the Hall of Atomic Bomb Victims serve two different missions and thus have very different exhibits and feelings which understandably carry through in their approaches to technology. The Peace Memorial Museum uses technology now considered traditional in many museums (audio guides, push button AV, animatronics, creative lighting etc.) to tell stories of people and the city. In contrast The Hall of Atomic Bomb Victims is a venue to research and document the experiences of individual bombing victims. There are dozens of interactive research stations which visitors to search databases audio, video, text, journals, official documents, news reports in many different languages. The stations serve a scholarly research oriented function which is a refreshing change of pace from the high tech edutainment found in many contemporary museums. In fact these study stations have about zero entertainment value on their own but are incredibly useful to the serious researcher and the casual visitor.
When you enter the hall (free admittance) they hand you a brochure and ask you which language you prefer. Extra brochures are available on stands throughout the hall.
You may notice the small barcode on the brochure. Similar to the QR codes seen on ads and in magazines throughout Japan. Unfortunately I didn’t have a phone equipped to read QR codes so I couldn’t find out if there was a phone/internet tie in.
The brochure is inserted into one of the many study stations like this.
The brochure opens the content up in your chosen language.
There are stand up study stations in the lobbies and open areas:
The main lobby has a video wall showing abbreviated records that are also available on the study stations.
Sit down stations are set up for longer more in depth video viewing and reading.
These sit down stations have pages of Japanese text on the table which is translated on the screens above. Visitors can be turn the physical pages which advances the on screen translation or they can use a simple set of buttons on the table. Related audio and video or other documents can be accessed with the buttons.
(I apologize for the poor quality of these photos but I couldn’t find anything better online)
Unfortunately I was left wanting a way to save the research I had done. Possibly onto a webpage accessible through the barcode or other access code on my brochure. Or at the very least a way to search all this content away from the museum in an online format. That said it’s certainly a site worth visiting if your anywhere nearby.
There are going to be some changes in the New Media department coming up. After 4 years of working here as a New Media Designer I’m off to New York to try my hand at freelance interaction design. My position is being filled by the very talented and capable Justin Heideman who is a fellow MCAD alum, member of the Revolutionary Party and an all around good guy. I’m sure he’ll start blogging soon.
This is my last day in One Groveland but not my last post on the Walker blogs. My colleagues in New Media are going let me keep posting here, but anyone who wants to get in contact with me after today should use my other email (eric AT helveticore.com).
Robin and I were just working on the Hennepin Avenue Projection yesterday so we got to walk right by the new offices under construction. Here is Robin the Director of New Media Initiatives in her future space.
Please join me in welcoming an updated homepage to the Walker’s site. The homepage incorporates the Walker’s new identity system and shows rotating list including highlights and upcoming events. We’ve also updated the first row of annoucements under the Flash movie to more prominently feature the blogs and give a short list of important links.
Here is a screenshot of the new front of walkerart.org
and for archival comparisons here is the old one:
UPDATE
For further archival reference I posted a list of links to the homepages of years past on our NMI page.
The Walker is going to be hiring for a New Media Designer position soon. The new designer will fill my role in this team of 4 people. The Walker’s New Media Department creates and excutes all the computer related designs for the art center and mnartists.org. This includes the online presence, dynamic signage projects and interactive installations.
There are all kinds of wonderful gushy things I could say about this job (I’m sure I will in a later "Goodbye" post) but if your reading this blog you probably know what we do, if not look around the site or leave a comment on this post. The official job description and information for applying is on our jobs site. All applicants should submit their material by Friday June 9.
Terrain Table
I found infromation about the TerrainTable on the site of defense mega-contactor Northrop Grumman. TerrainTable creates scale 3 dimensional maps on a table top. Mechanical pins in the table distort a silicone skin to create the terrain, color and detail are acheived through an overhead projector, apparently that stretchy skin responds to touch. There is actually very little detail on the Northrop Gummans site but there is a link to this PDF. — source
Touch Table
This is a multitouch screen with multiple configurations, some of which are shown in this video. Currently there are two models available, the multiscreen TT84 and the single screen TT45. The Touch Table’s primary use appears to be tactical planning for government disaster and civil and military response teams. TouchTable was created by by Applied Minds (more on them). In this video the announcer quotes a $65k pricetag for the table, although I’m sure the majority of that goes toward some very expensive software. There is exetended user footage from a conference here. It looks like TouchTable is a gesture interface engine and at least the TT84 screen is a top down projection screen.
Symbolic Table
Billed as an “interface free media player” although that is not accurate it does’t have a traditional computer interface. In fact it does not even have a screen. To interact the user places an object (a plastic horse seen in the picture) on the table. The table then reads and RFID chip in the object and plays a media file, either a sound file or a projected video. Images of the prototype look very rough, but an interactive media player with no visible computer interface could be very intuitive and fun. — source
Our friends at Kinecity have posted some new information about the Podium Light Wall they have been working on for the facade of 7 World Trade Center.
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.
source: information aesthetics
It wasn’t to long ago that we launched the Walker’s new Artists-in-Residence page and it’s already got an update! We received a lot of feedback on the site and made substantial changes to the interface that (hopefully) make the site easier to use.
The Li Zhenhua is the latest Artist-in-Residence. He is here as part of OPEN-ENDED for the opening of The Wave a collection of experimental films from China that he curated, and for the installation his online project Virtual China.
Let us know what you think of the Artist-in-Residence site with a comment here, or even better go over to Li Zhenhua’s residency journal and drop him a comment.
CompuServe’s venerable Graphics Interchange Format looks like it’s back in vogue again.
The GIF show was curated by Marisa Olson (of Rhizome) and the Rx Gallery, it opens tomorrow at the Rx Gallery in San Francisco and even has it’s own mySpace page. Participating artists include Cory Arcangel, Peter Baldes, Michael Bell-Smith, Jimpunk, Olia Lialina, Abe Linkoln, Guthrie Lonergan, Lovid, Tom Moody, Paper Rad, Paul Slocum, and Matt Smear.
Update:
I just saw Marisa Olson put links to some of the works in the show on a del.ciou.us page. Like this GIF by Michael Bell-Smith.
In other GIF news the Animated GIF Mashup was launched in early April. This project allows users to find their favorite animated gifs and combine them into a single wild page. It was developed at the Eyebeam OpenLab. There are quite a few mashups saved on Delicious
It looks like these interactive table posts could become a weekly blog feature. Here are two more interactive table projects.
SonicForms
Opensource interface to create music with tangible objects. To operate the interface users manipulate blocks of wood, the program then generates sounds and visuals based on those positions. The interface utilizes a custom Processing library which receives Open Sound Control messages from PureData. It looks like there is still a good bit of information to fill in on the site but the O’Shea’s willingness to share the technology behind this project is and exciting sign.
PercepTable
Developed by the Pervasive Technology Labs for the Indianapolis Museum of Art. This table can run a couple software applications including a Restaurant Finder and RiverSide data explorer. The display technology is a projector suspended overhead (seen during installation), users move objects around the table which are recognized by video tracking software. On this page the second screen for data display is clearly visible, this is the first dual screen table I’ve found besides the Dialog Table.
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