Submitted by Emma Berg on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 at 11:44
The Swiss artist Zimoun is exhibiting his organic sound installations in a solo show in Florida’s Ringling Museum of Art. The mechanical devices which create soundscapes are presented in a series of repetitive models.
Zimoun blends elements of sound, sculpture, mechanics, and engineering into these sensory experiences which challenge the more typical views of sculpture and sonar performance. The mechanised, structural works are installed in an industrial-like warehouse space that juxtaposes the ‘organic’ sound models with the physical ‘artificial’ environment of its setting.
Zimoun creates the sound sculptures from simple components and basic mechanics, such as mini motors, ping pong balls, cardboard boxes and wires. He explores the physical representation of sound by forming multiples of repeated mechanical elements to examine the creation and degeneration of patterns. This will be the first showing of Zimoun’s work in Florida and one of the few showings of his work in the United States.
MoDA (China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Arts) will officially open on December 17, 2011. CMoDA will launch a series of programs under the umbrella of Creative Future. The opening season of Creative Future, AV@AR, will be co-presented with international organization onedotzero and feature its adventures in motion festival from the UK.
As virtual and augmented reality, avatars and new modes of expression are an erupting phenomenon in China, AV@AR refers to these changes in digital production, expression and a new advanced way of seeing the world. It will generate positive energy in the post 2012 era.
AV, audiovisual program consists of onedotzero_ adventures in motion festival’s 13 short film programs with 17 hours of exciting creative production from around the world. The audience can also edit and produce their own music promo at the interactive music video lounge.
AT (or @) is the locative exchange program consisting of the premiere of the Creative Future documentary and book launch, and Cascade, the award winning education program from the UK. The Creative Future documentary contains 6 episodes on Social Media, Game, Animation, Design, Green, Creative China, which captures new creative forces around the world and establishes a dialogue with China into the future. The book focus on 10 young creative leaders from the documentary, they might be the future Steve Jobs and they will definitely change our lives. onedotzero_cascade is an award winning platform for creative collaboration across diverse disciplines, with the aim to foster personal and professional development.
AR, Advanced Reality, is unfolded by an opening audio visual performance by Murcof and AntiVJ and a multi-media exhibition with 10 installations to explore the evolution of avatar-like experiences. Artists include AntiVJ, Field, Quayola, Lab212, Jun Yong Moon, Fei Jun, Wang Zhenfei (HHD_Fun), Supernature, Wonwei and Francis Lam.
AV@AR will start on December 17, 2011, and run until January 3, 2012. The program is supported by Cultural & Education Section of British Embassy Beijing.
About CMoDA:
As China’s first comprehensive art center specialized in digital arts, China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Arts (CMoDA) is striving to build an interactive, experiential and integrated platform for exhibitions, educational exchanges, art, design and technological development, and creative start-up incubation.
www.modachina.org
About onedotzero:
onedotzero is an international moving image and digital art and design organisation which commissions, showcases and promotes innovation across all aspects of moving image, digital and interactive arts. The organisation, founded in 1996, is known for representing a diverse array of artistic endeavor via the annual onedotzero_ adventures in motion festival and associated touring. It has a cross media and collaborative approach attuned to technological advances and fast paced change within digital arts and the contemporary culture landscape.
This is an article I found yesterday, which touches on something very important and I thought it was an interesting take on interaction design as it know stands.
So, here's a Vision Of The Future that's popular right now.
It's a lot of this sort of thing.
As it happens, designing Future Interfaces For The Future used to be my line of work. I had the opportunity to design with real working prototypes, not green screens and After Effects, so there certainly are some interactions in the video which I'm a little skeptical of, given that I've actually tried them and the animators presumably haven't. But that's not my problem with the video.
My problem is the opposite, really — this vision, from an interaction perspective, is not visionary. It's a timid increment from the status quo, and the status quo, from an interaction perspective, is actually rather terrible.
This matters, because visions matter. Visions give people a direction and inspire people to act, and a group of inspired people is the most powerful force in the world. If you're a young person setting off to realize a vision, or an old person setting off to fund one, I really want it to be something worthwhile. Something that genuinely improves how we interact.
This little rant isn't going to lay out any grand vision or anything. I just hope to suggest some places to look.
Before we think about how we should interact with our Tools Of The Future, let's consider what a tool is in the first place.
I like this definition: A tool addresses human needs by amplifying human capabilities.
That is, a tool converts what we can do into what we want to do. A great tool is designed to fit both sides.
In this rant, I'm not going to talk about human needs. Everyone talks about that; it's the single most popular conversation topic in history.
And I'm not going to talk about about technology. That's the easy part, in a sense, because we control it. Technology can be invented; human nature is something we're stuck with.
I'm going to talk about that neglected third factor, human capabilities. What people can do. Because if a tool isn't designed to be used by a person, it can't be a very good tool, right?
Take another look at what our Future People are using to interact with their Future Technology:
Do you see what everyone is interacting with? The central component of this Interactive Future? It's there in every photo!
That's right! —
And that's great! I think hands are fantastic! Hands make us human! It's even there in the word — human, man, mankind — manual, la mano, la main. Our hands literally define us.
Hands do two things. They are two utterly amazing things, and you rely on them every moment of the day, and most Future Interaction Concepts completely ignore both of them.
Hands feel things, and hands manipulate things.
Go ahead and pick up a book. Open it up to some page.
Notice how you know where you are in the book by the distribution of weight in each hand, and the thickness of the page stacks between your fingers. Turn a page, and notice how you would know if you grabbed two pages together, by how they would slip apart when you rub them against each other.
Go ahead and pick up a glass of water. Take a sip.
Notice how you know how much water is left, by how the weight shifts in response to you tipping it.
Almost every object in the world offers this sort of feedback. It's so taken for granted that we're usually not even aware of it. Take a moment to pick up the objects around you. Use them as you normally would, and sense their tactile response — their texture, pliability, temperature; their distribution of weight; their edges, curves, and ridges; how they respond in your hand as you use them.
There's a reason that our fingertips have some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body. This is how we experience the world close-up. This is how our tools talk to us. The sense of touch is essential to everything that humans have called "work" for millions of years.
Now, take out your favorite Magical And Revolutionary Technology Device. Use it for a bit.
What did you feel? Did it feel glassy? Did it have no connection whatsoever with the task you were performing?
I call this technology Pictures Under Glass. Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade.
Is that so bad, to dump the tactile for the visual? Try this: close your eyes and tie your shoelaces. No problem at all, right? Now, how well do you think you could tie your shoes if your arm was asleep? Or even if your fingers were numb? When working with our hands, touch does the driving, and vision helps out from the back seat.
Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanent numbness. It's a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our hands what they do best. And yet, it's the star player in every Vision Of The Future.
To me, claiming that Pictures Under Glass is the future of interaction is like claiming that black-and-white is the future of photography. It's obviously a transitional technology. And the sooner we transition, the better.
What can you do with a Picture Under Glass? You can slide it.
That's the fundamental gesture in this technology. Sliding a finger along a flat surface.
There is almost nothing in the natural world that we manipulate in this way.
That's pretty much all I can think of.
Okay then, how do we manipulate things? As it turns out, our fingers have an incredibly rich and expressive repertoire, and we improvise from it constantly without the slightest thought. In each of these pictures, pay attention to the positions of all the fingers, what's applying pressure against what, and how the weight of the object is balanced:
Many of these are variations on the four fundamental grips. (And if you like this sort of thing, you should read John Napier's wonderful book.)
Suppose I give you a jar to open. You actually will switch between two different grips:
You've made this switch with every jar you've ever opened. Not only without being taught, but probably without ever realizing you were doing it. How's that for an intuitive interface?
We live in a three-dimensional world. Our hands are designed for moving and rotating objects in three dimensions, for picking up objects and placing them over, under, beside, and inside each other. No creature on earth has a dexterity that compares to ours.
The next time you make a sandwich, pay attention to your hands. Seriously! Notice the myriad little tricks your fingers have for manipulating the ingredients and the utensils and all the other objects involved in this enterprise. Then compare your experience to sliding around Pictures Under Glass.
Are we really going to accept an Interface Of The Future that is less expressive than a sandwich?
So then. What is the Future Of Interaction?
The most important thing to realize about the future is that it's a choice. People choose which visions to pursue, people choose which research gets funded, people choose how they will spend their careers.
Despite how it appears to the culture at large, technology doesn't just happen. It doesn't emerge spontaneously, like mold on cheese. Revolutionary technology comes out of long research, and research is performed and funded by inspired people.
And this is my plea — be inspired by the untapped potential of human capabilities. Don't just extrapolate yesterday's technology and then cram people into it.
This photo could very well could be our future. But why? Why choose that? It's a handheld device that ignores our hands.
Our hands feel things, and our hands manipulate things. Why aim for anything less than a dynamic medium that we can see, feel, and manipulate?
There is a smattering of activeresearchinrelatedareas. It's been smattering along for decades. This research has always been fairly marginalized, and still is. But maybe you can help.
And yes, the fruits of this research are still crude, rudimentary, and sometimes kind of dubious. But look —
In 1968 — three years before the invention of the microprocessor — Alan Kay stumbled across Don Bitzer's early flat-panel display. Its resolution was 16 pixels by 16 pixels — an impressive improvement over their earlier 4 pixel by 4 pixel display.
Alan saw those 256 glowing orange squares, and he went home, and he picked up a pen, and he drew a picture of a goddamn iPad.
And then he chased that carrot through decades of groundbreaking research, much of which is responsible for the hardware and software that you're currently reading this with.
That's the kind of ambitious, long-range vision I'm talking about. Pictures Under Glass is old news. Let's start using our hands.
If you're with me so far, maybe I can nudge you one step further. Look down at your hands. Are they attached to anything? Yes — you've got arms! And shoulders, and a torso, and legs, and feet! And they all move!
Any dancer or doctor knows full well what an incredibly expressive device your body is. 300 joints! 600 muscles! Hundreds of degrees of freedom!
The next time you make breakfast, pay attention to the exquisitely intricate choreography of opening cupboards and pouring the milk — notice how your limbs move in space, how effortlessly you use your weight and balance. The only reason your mind doesn't explode every morning from the sheer awesomeness of your balletic achievement is that everyone else in the world can do this as well.
With an entire body at your command, do you seriously think the Future Of Interaction should be a single finger?
Submitted by Chloe Rahall on Tue, 01 Nov 2011 at 10:50
Adidas is promoting its new Adidas Originals Mega range with a new website that lets people create their own dubstep mix using pre-recorded beatbox samples. Using functional sole technology that’s embedded in the Mega shoe range, every heel, tap and step the wearer takes is recorded.
Using the moves of four hip hop dancers and beatboxer, Dharni. Adidas has correlated the dance moves and sound to make creating your own track easy.
This is not the first time Adidas has experimented with making music with feet. Last year, the sports brand teamed up with French coder Didier Brun to create “Megalizer", which placed sensors in shoes that read the pressure applied by the wearer. People could then control the sounds they made on an interface, as seen in the video.
It’s interesting to see technology normally associated with passive devices being placed directly into things we wear, and how our body movements can be used as a way to manipulate music. Have a look on the Adidas website to have a go at recording and sharing your own tracks.
Submitted by Max Reyner on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 at 17:59
It’s pretty clear we’re in the middle of a digital age. We communicate with each other using sophisticated digital devices, and even with objects through QR codes and NFC technology. But what’s next? What happens in the post-digital era?
A new exhibition called After the Bit Rush: Design in the Post-digital Age is exploring what this landscape might look like. The show at the MU gallery in Eindhoven, The Netherlands features projects that predict scenarios that might happen in the near future.
Belgian design group Unfold Studio has shown KIOSK, which explores how digital fabricators could be so omnipresent that they even appear on street corners. Dutch designer Tim Knapen has created an interactive installation that combines a video game with a zoetrope (an apparatus that creates an illusion of movement by rapidly replacing still images one after the other). Visitors are invited to add their own drawings, by which they can influence the structure of the game. And ex-RCA graduate Markus Kayserhas shown his Sun-Cutter project, a mechanical device that uses sintering to heat sand and turn it into 3D glass forms.
The show gives us a glimpse into the sort of manufacturing processes and means of digital interaction that might exist in the near future. And we just hope it isn’t too far away.
So I havent blogged for a couple of weeks. This is because I was part of Cascade a weeks workshop of 40 of the top Graduates where we are invited to collaborate within a group of 7 others whome we have never met and answer a brief.
All of the goings on can be found here to show what I have been up too...we present at the BFI on the 24th November.
