Erratic creature
Andre Vicentini, Régis Frias
Using servo motors connected to an Arduino board we created an interactive object that reacts to facial expressions. Based on the work of Lygia Clark’s series Bichos (beasts in portuguese) we transffered her geometrical and abstract approach to sculpture from the 60s to the interactive contemporary view. Lygia’s original sculptures were meant to be interactive, so the piece is only complete when someone actively interacts with it by handling the objects. We wanted to keep this intention in our own work but focusing on new media technology, hence the use of facial recognition.
Automata
Eunyoung Park
Here’s a link to the latest developments of this project
I’ve been fascinated with the simple mechanism. With the mysterious harmony of gears, cranks, cams and linkages, making them into a funny tale, the Automata was the one that I’m into at this moment. And, there seems to be a potential that deserve to be dug deep into in terms of storytelling and combining low-tech and high-tech.
It is a prototype for an interactive installation which is a kind of 2D-like 3D, interactive, mechanical, animated live painting. It is a multitude of people who look slightly different with each other but same in the ambiguous facial expression so that we cannot tell their true thought or emotion. They follow passer-bys with a subtle movement of upper body, head, and eye balls which is controlled by gears and scotch yokes attached to a servo motor as two ultrasonic sensors sense the direction of a viewer.
7-bit army
José Jácome & Taavi Varm
Tangible control of your digital music library
Karina Jensen
A physical way to handle your digital music library trough objects and a player. Each object contains a list of songs, the player settings decide how the songs are mixed and played. You might want to play the music that is in both your relaxed archive and your electronic, or you might want to play all songs from two different playlists. (Additive or subtractive playback). The objects will be magnetic, so they can be placed on the fridge and easily moved around. When a song is played, the objects con- taining that song light up. You can add the song playing to a object (that is not lighted up) by flip- ping the object around, when the song is added the object light up because it is also now containing the song being played back.
In a social context people can join a party and all put their created playlist near the player, and the player plays all songs in random order. If you like the song playing, you can go to the fridge and flip your object to get the song playing.
Having your playlists as objects/tokens also encourage exchanging of playlists between friends and creating a playlist for a specific person.
Electronic electronics learning book
Maja Dika
Broken lamp
Narim Lee
This is a broken lamp. No matter how much you switch on to turn on the lamp, it’ll be turned off eventually. Sometimes it blinks few times and be turned off, sometimes it slowly fades out. It also makes a beeping noise once in a while. Obviously you can not turn on the lamp in the usual way. There is only one way to turn on the lamp, which is pulling the plug out.
The idea came out of questions like, “Does technology make us always comfortable and pleasant?”, “Does technology make us smart or stupid?”. Since this lamp is messed up by some kind of technology, it’s uncontrollable and unpleasant, and even it may make a person as a stupid who doesn’t know how to turn on a lamp. However, if you know a rule to deal with the technology, it works easily and comfortably. I think how this lamp works could show both sides of technology and ask the above mentioned questions.
I programmed random animations of 4 RGB LEDs with Arduino. A power source is a 9v battery which is embedded in the lamp. To detect whether the cord is plugged in or out, I connected two pins of the plug by painting conductive paint on them. Because a fake socket is connected to a digital pin of Arduino, a value of the pin is changed when you unplug the cord.
Stone, Paper, Scissors – FIGHT
Pouyan Mohseninia & Thomas Thibault
A two player game where they will play the traditional stone, paper and scissors in street fighter version. Where a combination of two objects will become special powers of street fighter characters. In different words when there is an equality our alternative will work as a tiebreaker to expand the features of the game. The game will become more exciting since who ever responds faster could have higher chances to win the match. Two wearable gloves containing conductive fabric working as switches are made that are connected to the computer. Commands are made by the user through different hand gestures. Tiebreakers will have special features influenced by street fighter universe. i.e. if we have two paper there is an ability to use one of the special features for instant “fire”. The special effect displaying the fire on the floor will start moving from one user (you) to the other (rival).
Trickle
Scott McGregor
Trickle – a board game with adaptive and evolving music composition. Each player has a musical identity. Each identity has 3 levels of intensity. Depending on who is winning the game and by how much the board will play the corresponding music track. The audio should cross fade between tracks and no have pauses between.
