“Rows of motorised measuring tapes record the amount of time that visitors stay in the installation. As a computerised tracking system detects the presence of a person, the closest measuring tape starts to project upwards. When the tape reaches around 3m high it crashes and recoils back. Each hour, the system prints the total number of minutes spent by the sum of all visitors.”
Social Firefly is a reactive/interactive installation made from intelligent lights that influence one another. It was created by Jason McDermott and Liam Ryan (Arup) with Frank McGuire for the Vivid 2011 festival in Sydney.
“Social Firefly is a demonstration of how interaction design can be dynamic, beautiful and playful, as well as teaching us about our relationship to other creatures with which we share this earth. Inspiration came from lateral and cellular communication systems such as those used by fireflies in synchronizing their rhythms and slime molds in movements through caves, which collided with network theories and cascading relationships between the parts and the whole. These were then shaken together with the Vivid 2011 theme of Fiat Lux and user centered interaction design to create the light installation that is Social Firefly.”
“As the first artists in residence at la Gaîté lyrique in Paris, UVA created Rien a Cacher / Rien a Craindre, a series of responsive light and sound installations that together seduced and unsettled visitors in a unique way.
Exploring the unexamined assumption that digital technology is moving us towards utopia, UVA created a visitor experience simultaneously celebrating and critiquing the brave new world of the digital.”
“This installation draws information from the intensity and movement of the water in a remote location. Wave data is being collected in real-time from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data buoy station 46075 Shumagin Islands Alaska (53°54’39” N 160°48’21” W). The wave intensity and frequency is scaled and transferred to the mechanical grid structure resulting in a simulation of the physical effects caused by the movement of water from this distant location.”
Tessel by D.Letelier (Kangding Ray) and LAb[au] is a kinetic sound installation investigating the perception of sound and space.
“The installation is constituted of a suspended and articulated topography of 4 x 2 m, subdivided into forty triangular mirrors. Twelve triangles are fitted with motors and eight triangles are equipped with audio transducers, which transform the surface into a dynamic sonic space. A dialogue between space and sound is created as the surface slowly modifies its shape, our perception of it altered through continuously changing light and sound reflection.”
Falling objects - positioning systems from 2009-2011 by Pe Lang is an custom made machine that adds drops of water onto a special textured surface. Each drop forms into an almost perfect sphere through the surface tension of the water and the omniphopic Material. The electronically controlled pipette wanders through a square grid of 21 x 21 drops to form a micro-matrix and returns to the beginning. After approximately 300 minutes, and when the water drops have evaporated, the same process starts again.
Fermid by Behnaz Babazadeh is a kinetic sculpture that uses technology and parametric design principles to explore the natural movement that can be found in living organisms.
