Project of admiration: Aleph of Emotions by Mithru Vigneshwara. It is such a simple poem, that this small machine writes. This machine uses and Arduino, OpenFrameworks, GPS, and smart phone to create a camera-like display of visualizations of a particular locations human emotions based on accumulated tweets. It’s a beautiful and elegant thing that lets the user explore, on somewhat of a deep level, emotional well-being throughout the globe. I admire it’s scope. I admire it’s aim to incorporate an intangible yet ever present element of human existence. Quite a lovely thing we have here.

Project that Inspires: Ambient Synthesis by Amanda Ghassae. The ambient noise machine is a work of art that is extravagant. What I mean is that, the form could be anything, from a node, a bench, anything. The fact that this was created not as an object of disguise, but as an object of symbiotic invasion makes me love it much more. I love to create things that go against the human perception of average. I think I am inspired by this piece because of my ability to relate to the creation of an object as more than the sum of it’s parts. This piece holds attention because it isn’t alone. It has context within all environments and I am greatly intrigued by that notion.

Project that disappoints:  Noisy Typer by Theo Watson. It isn’t that I don’t like it at all. It is that the potential to tell a story or narrate our progression through time technologically is left unused. I believe that this is quite the one-liner if you will. What else could be done? I feel more compelled to talk about the application of the tool, rather than the tool itself. A simple act that transgresses time (writing a letter, a composition, a note to a friend) could have changed this neat tool, into a project with some substance.