By Justin on December 16th, 2009, 11:49 am 2 Comments

To cut a long story short, after a company-wide upgrade the agency had a lot of old mobiles gathering dust. Lost Boys International took these, built and hoisted a gigantic interactive chandelier/mobile that plays christmas jingles in their reception area.

When no one interacts with the sculpture, it plays “Carol of the Bells”. But you can also play with it. You can control it through this website or you can send a tweet with #lbitree and it will react to it.

Given some upcoming projects that we’re going to be tackling are going to be a bit more technology intensive, and in one instance is actually going to use cell phones (though not in this capacity), I thought I’d post it to add to the research archives. What’s really great is that LBI creative director, James Theophane, offers a quick breakdown of how the installation works, well worth a read to get an idea of some of the magic behind the installation. Also interesting is the Ning project site that was used by the folks making the installation as it happened in real-time.

[via today and tomorrow]

Tagged: cellphone context installation interactive music upcycle xmas

By Josh on November 29th, 2008, 12:24 pm 0 Comments

I came across this last week while I was browsing for sound artists. It’s basically a collaborative sound art project directed by Agricola de Cologne, New Media curator and media artist from Cologne/Germany. There are  currently 10 curators and their contributions featuring about 200 sound art works from about 150 artists.

“SoundLAB is focusing on thematic aspects, i.e “memory and identity” and related themes, and is developed for being presented in physical space in media exhibitions and festivals, as well as in virtual space as streaming applications in online environments…”

I find the site a bit overwhelming, but like the ‘soundworks‘ section which features samples of current sound artworks. Listening to them one at a time is good, but playing a few at once is the real fun. This seems like a good example of current sound art and might be inspiration for any sound work we might create.

Tagged: context interactive lab Soundart

By Josh on November 3rd, 2008, 6:45 pm 0 Comments

“Peg Mirror comprises 650 circular wooden pieces that are cut on an angle. Casting shadows by twisting and rotating, wooden pegs forming concentric circles surround a small central camera. The mirrored image produced in this work is activated by software authored by Rozin that processes video signals and breaks up imagery geometrically, seemingly pixel by pixel. The silently moving wood components in this piece flicker like jewels or coins in the spotlight, challenging our notions about what constitutes a “digital object”.”

This blew my mind, mostly because of its complexity. Making shadows work as pixels in real time is new to me. I’d love to be a part of a project like this.

Video of the Peg Mirror in action Here.

Tagged: interactive mirror peg sculpture

By Justin on October 26th, 2008, 10:25 am 0 Comments

I promise I’m not getting lazy, I promise that I’m not just watching the RSS feed for vvork, that I do indeed visit other sites, but this project was really great, I had to post it.

Test Signal by Phil Coy uses a choir to sign to generate the colour bars that are used to calibrate televisions and video signals for broadcast. Each choir member sings one sustained note that is translated to one of the colour bars. Also check out Provincial Landscape…

[via]

Tagged: interactive reblog sound video

By Justin on October 21st, 2008, 10:09 am 0 Comments

It’s been a little while since we’ve posted other people’s work, but I really like the idea of keeping an ongoing archive of interesting works. So, here is Adam Parker Smith’s Sunset Now. The viewer can adjust the speed of the sunset via the dimmer switch placed in front of the plexiglass sun.

[via]

Tagged: analog art interactive reblog sunset

By Justin on July 24th, 2008, 10:12 am 0 Comments

[NOTCOT at GLOW: Usman Haque's Primal Source from Jean Aw on Vimeo.]

As part of GLOW in Santa Monica, Usman Haque’s Primal Source was a huge interactive light/projection installation on the beach. Rear-projecting onto a water-screen, the installation responded to sound from the crowd with microphones being placed along the crowd’s edge on the beach. The event went on for 12 hours throughout the night. The software was built withProcessing and PD (an open-source cousin of Max/MSP/Jitter). 

[via] & [via]

Tagged: installation interactive light projection reblog visualization water