No space and no time

Good article about Anish Kapoor trying to find a space in NY to locate an art piece. And this one about why do Americans have to work so hard at taking it easy.

If you cannot go to the mountain, the mountain goes to you

Central Saint Martins: Narrative Environments

These are some interesting projects from the MA in Narrative Environments at Central Saint Martins in London. When I was thinking on doing a Masters degree this MA was actually one of my main options.

1. Interactive Storytelling Exhibitions: 'we apologise but this exhibit is not working'
Arlete Castelo
2. Hypetrace
Leandros Katsouris
3. Superposition and Collapse, Everyday Routine as Narrative
Interior Design, Product Design, Architecture
4. Spatial Diaries
Information Design Jona Piehl
jonapiehl@gmx.de
5. Look up, Look Down, Look Sideways
Interaction & Digital Media Design for Narratives Spaces
Pervasive Networks
Charles Ward
emailward@gmail.com
6. The EPS Traveller: [What a coincidence !!! a similar idea from the one I had for my moMa project]
Spatial Designer
Ming Jung-Wu
moonmincoco@msn.com

Random and non-sense thoughts at Siggraph

At Siggraph I thought a lot or at least I tried to.I had a lot of non sense thoughts but I think if I write them down and process them maybe they will have more or at least some sense later.

- How the physical world is connected to the real and how each one “feeds” from the other.
- Look at something=pass by /vs./ Understand=looks closer
- In which ways can technology helps us to experience reality?
- Virtual reality => create a space that can not be created without the help of technology
- Design is about solving problems while art is about creating problems to solve.
“An artist negotiates chaos. An artist is concerned with expression and with articulating the sublime. Artists work in the realm of ethereal and the abstract. A designer is concerned with negotiating their inner-artist and presenting a structured order.
Designers are concerned with communicating concepts and articulating abstracts. Designers boil down ideas to their core. Designers are the foot soldiers. Artists are the 'blue sky" strategists. It's pointless to be so defined that you only do one thing, art or design. They inform each other. There should be one word that incorporates the artist and designer. Maybe that word is "inventor" or "creator," but those are loaded words too”.
Yuri Gitman (Interview: we-make-money-not-art)

Some questions and thoughts
1. What is that I wanted to do with my Thesis? To solve a problem? Which kind of problem? A problem about way finding or about how way finding could be used to solve “other problems”.
2. How can it be useful and benefit the community?
3. Goal: focusing on something very small and solving it in a very strong way.
4. How to push people to feel free and happy to get lost? How to create and interface where the
purpose is to get lost?
5. Main emotional states that someone mentioned in a lecture( related to my moMa project): happy sad angry fearful disgusted surprised

Siggraph

What I consider most valuable about my experience at Siggraph was having the opportunity of swimming in the technology arena and learns about what was going on as much as I can. I could have a general idea about what is possible and what is not and when technology is really a medium and when is a purpose. My general overview regarding the art gallery was that almost every project was based on the idea of magic trick. Although there were a lot of interesting projects I found out that I saw more technological experiments that design or art projects.

Some of the projects that I liked:

1 Bubble cosmos:
Beautiful piece that consists of a bubble display system that projects an image onto a real bubble containing smoke and changes the sound effect and image when bubble burst.
Again, it was very charming: Is like a piece of magic, pure illusion.

2 Tablescape
This was one of the projects that I like most. It is a tabletop display where you can interact with physical objects. Although I had the feeling the some of its applications were not that interesting, the potential of the technology is very height. I found the modes of interaction very compelling (the interaction with physical objects) and I also liked the idea of changing an object on a scenario, (his characteristics or appearance) depending on the user input. I loved the animation where the interaction with the little blocks produces a conversation between animated characters. Other similar project that works with the same principle but applied to architecture was Deskrama.

3 Tangibility and Phisicality
Talking about Physical objects that activated virtual environments, this was an idea that was everywhere at the exhibition. I assume that this is part of the tendency which aims to minimize the feeling of interacting with the virtual word. It is related to the idea of letting the user to manipulate the virtual through the real making him feel the experience “more true, more tangible”.

And talking about tangibility another great project was MRI, a tangible experience. Where physical objects are linked whit digital content: “Human Senses come first and computer technology stays in the background”.

I also liked the Shared space design and the Multi-Touch Interaction. The goal of these two projects is also related to the idea of “feeling and manipulated the virtual with your own hands”. Although I think there is still along way to go to achieve this goal, again the potential of the technology is very height. People using the screens seems to be very involved and while playing with it and I really had the feeling that I was manipulating virtual data with my hands.

And other project that I also found very interesting was Light Attack.

Light Attack is a media artwork, as well as social experiment, performed in public urban spaces. While driving through the city, an animated virtual character is projected onto the cityscape, exploring places ‘to go’ and places ‘not to go’, according to the popular Lonely Planet travel guide. I like the idea of creating a character, an ordinary tourist guide who travels around the city and specially the idea of public and private. It reminded me the work of Julian Opie. I also find interesting the question that rises from the project: property and privacy: how public is public space? How is ‘projection’, as a ubiquitous medium, changing the environment in which we live?

4. Lisa Erdman: Drugs to change you.
Very clever, good concept, very accurate graphics and also very simple. This project made me think of how much I like the way that I did last semester when adding some “sense of humor” to my projects and I also realized that Music is a very interesting component. Lisa talked about irony & satire as a way of express our ideas and state our concerns and ideas to society.

5 Herminia Wei Hsin Din
Exploring Educational games in Museums
Interesting talk about Exploring Museums through games.
Herminia pointed out that a Museum is a place that exhibit, collects, educates, preserves and “talks”.
Regarding Types of Museum Online Educational Games she mentioned
Role-play
Simulation
Creative Play
Puzzle and Mystery
Interactive Reference
Building Learning Resources
Visit :
Museums and the Web
The American Association of Museums

6 Also nice talked about teaching 3D modeling software through art using Hopper’s Nighthawks .

Berlin streets

Recently I have been thinking about the idea of the tons of information that we receive everyday. It is impossible to grasp everything and it is very hard to process. Most of it is unnecessary and some of it, which it is very relevant, it is not shown. What is the information that we really need to know and when is the right moment to display it ?

A good, and very beautiful example of showing information just when is the right time is the Berlin's street signage project. What was hidden behind the street signs? What is the history of the city that is being reveled through the name of streets? Every night, when the sun is hidden and it gets dark, a series of old street signs appear on the floor showing the history of the names of the streets, which reveal the history of the city itself. (permanent vs ephemeral)

Interactive Spaces

Those are some interesting projects related to interactive installation in cultural spaces. One of my thoughts, although they are not clear yet, is how to construct new ways of exploring museums and cultural centers moving out from the traditional experiences. What are people looking for in places like those? How can user have enrichment experience if they have the opportunity of exploring the place in an alternative way?

Knowledge Wells
InfoGallery
iBib
The Interactive Children's Library… (the idea is interesting but the project is not that good).