void ()

It took me a little while to realize that the projection is under water, and the black particles that travel up are bubbles. Apparently, the bubbles are created according to frequency of sound, and the movement of the bubbles are then caught by a sensor and are used to create a real-time visual projection onto the bubble wall. All elements come together to create an audiovisual experience. I find the movements of the bubbles and projection quite calming, and projection in water is kind of unique. I’m not sure why the project is named “void ()”, unless it’s the default video title if no titles are entered? But it sounds cool.

atOms – Ryo Kishi

This project is fairly different from the art projects I usually focus on. He uses air flow to suspend balls in air, and then used the rotations of the air blowers controlled by Arduino to choreograph some kind of “dance”. I find the idea and the physics quite ingenious. It seems like he is still working on this. It’d be cool to see some fancier choreography, such as incorporating varying air flow force if it’s possible, so the balls would suspend at different heights.

Pixelate

https://www.creativeapplications.net/openframeworks/pixelate-guitar-hero-style-eating-game-which-detects-food-you-are-eating/
A very creative outtake on an old concept. This project turns eating into competitive gaming. The fork uses the difference in various fruits’ current resistance to figure out which food the player is picking up. Arduino is built into the table that shows the players what food they’re supposed to eat. The presentation of the game looks like 8-bit old-school, an homage to the old pixelated games. I’m not sure how they’re generating the food order, but I could see a potential problem with running out of a certain food on the plate. Also, although a purpose of this project is to encourage healthy eating, making eating competitive could make competitive players rush while eating (maybe not chew thoroughly before swallowing), which isn’t healthy. Anyway, I bet they had a really good time during the development of this project. Yum.

Perception – Volvoxlabs

https://www.creativeapplications.net/environment/perception-of-consequence-by-volvoxlabs/
[It seems like the main focus of this project, the animation, has little to do with Arduino. The Arduino use is in the real room viewing of the video, though I’m not exactly sure what… fans, maybe? But man, the animation looked cool.] Watching this video made me feel uncomfortable in my stomach and feel captivated at the same time. The general gist looks like it’s two blobs of milk in vague shapes of beasts fighting against each other (it’s supposed to simulate human states and emotions). The animation is projected on a fabric on a custom shaped structure to make it seem more “organic”.

Sound Machines – 2011. Sound Machines was created by The Product, a Berlin-based design studio for Volkswagen. It’s a faux-record player that uses a (light? color?) sensor to read slowly rotating “records” that have been concentrically patterned. The data is thrown into a music software package that then processes it and makes beautiful beats! Cool! I really like the idea of taking old technology and remixing it into something novel, as this does well. They were *almost* there in terms of interactivity, I really love the ability to play new patterns based on where the sensor is rotated, but I feel like they could’ve gone further. I wish they had allowed visitors to generate their own records and attempt to play them, although I understand the fear of having a less musically inclined person attempt to draw their own record and have it sound like crap.

NOISY JELLY – 2012. Noisy Jelly was created by Raphaël Pluvinage and Marianne Cauvard as part of a class project at L’Ensci Les ateliers. Players mix and set their own jellies and then place them on a board to create their own jelly soundboards. Super clever use of capacitive sensors and conductivity to create audio signals, I liked that each addable color had different salt capacities as opposed to having players add salt on their own, clever way to help players *and* the computer differentiate between different instruments. The sounds they use are kind of annoying, but they totally work for jelly.

DJ JACKET – 2013. Another sound interface project! Created by Atif Ateeq, the DJ Jacket is a wearable electronic device that communicates with MAX MSP & Ableton Live to do various audio transformations such as noise additions (air horns, scratching), looping, and cross fading. I <3 wearable electronics, I think this provided an interesting way to remix music. Clothing and style are often very relevant to musical genres (rappers namedrop clothing brands all the time, country singers often talk about wearing work boots). His jacket had so many zippers though, I wish he had used some of them as sensors!

The Tropism Well by Harvey and John is a mechanism that is meant to replace current drinking fountains in public spaces. The well has a large ‘arm’ that holds a pitcher and extends its arm in order to pour water into a cup some participant is holding. This project was very interesting for me since it mimics what we are trying to achieve with the creature assignment. Through the simple motion of the water running up the valve, the figure seems to dip in a calm almost life-like way. The machine is not being controlled, but the water. I though that was an ingenious way to achieve motion. The project also comes to life with the interactions it has with other people; they treat it almost as if it were an animal. It commands attention and parents are eager to get their children to try it. There are also crowds of people who form around it to watch as it gives water.

The Hanging Garden by Aer Studio is a group of plants with LEDs who let you know when they are thirsty by lighting up the LED. This project, much like the one I mentioned before, gives so much character to something that we generally don’t see as having personalities. We know that plants are alive , however having them literally begin to glow in order to attract your attention for food gives them a certain charm or character that is not present otherwise; it highlights their vulnerability and reasserts the fact that only you, their caretaker can help them grow; it’s both humbling and empowering.

The Firewall by Aaron Sherwood is a project which lets the participants interact with the screen in order to generate interesting ripples or ‘fire’. This project seems like it mimics many others but although that may have been an element of the piece what really stands out is definitely the fact that to interact with it, one must press into the screen; This simple change in the structure of these types of projects inspires the audience to interact with the piece in ways that one would not expect; what brings this piece to life for me is definitely the participation of the audience. This is a good example of how to rework something that may be cliche to something interesting, fun, and new; it proves that there are many ways to slice a cake.

One Hundred and Eight – Nils Völker

One Hundred and Eight by Nils Völker is a 2.4 by 1.8 meter wall-mounted grid of garbage bags. Columns of bags deflate in response to the silhouette of a viewer as detected by a camera – although the grid is able to operate autonomously should it be left alone. Unlike many of the other Arduino-based projects I researched, the technical “gee-whiz” aspect of this work is secondary to a study of material and a reversal of expectations. Völiker breathes just enough life into the bags to give them interest, but not so much as to overpower the sensitivity of the forms. In doing so, he transforms the plastic bag from a symbol of waste to an object of awe. I’m impressed by Völker’s disciplined use of interaction itself (at a bare minimum) as an element in a highly formalist work. A principal struggle for artists working with computation lies in tucking away the engineering of an artwork, but this is something that Völkner does to great success. Also, I don’t think Jim Cambell’s Formula for Computer Art applies here, since the signal and response are so elegantly unified.

Noisy Jelly – Raphaël Pluvinage

Raphaël Pluvinage describes Noisy Jelly as a “game where the player has to cook and shape his own musical material, based on coloured jelly.” Here, as in One Hundred and Eight, inanimate objects personified through a simple interaction. But unlike One Hundred and Eight, the jellies are unresponsive until touched, that is, they don’t do anything on their own. Pluvinage uses an Arduino to detect a hand touching a jelly, I presume by passing a small current through it. He uses Max/MSP for the sound – relying on oscillators whose frequency corresponds in some way to the touches. While I normally find pure tones with no harmonics excruciating to listen to, they work well with the jelly. As I see it, the jelly and crude synthesized sounds refer to failed experiments like the Segway, lending the work a jarring retro-future aesthetic with a hint of irony. I especially enjoy how Pluvinage gives the various jelly shapes unique sonic personalities.

SENSELESS DRAWING BOT #2 – So KANNO + Takahiro YAMAGUCHI

Much like mudlevel’s robo-rainbow, SENSELESS DRAWING BOT #2 by So KANNO and Takahiro YAMAGUCHI makes graffiti so that we don’t have to. It raises interesting questions surrounding the notion of authorship, as well as the problem of responsibility when robots can perform illegal tasks on our behalf. Concretely, the bot consists of high pressure washers equipped with spray cans, mounted on a motorized platform with wheels. An Arduino manages the servos used to release the paint – it is unclear from the documentation whether the robot’s movements are being controlled remotely or internally. Unlike the two other Arduino projects I cited, in which art-objects surprised us by being interactive, SENSELESS DRAWING BOT is poetic because gun-wielding robots aren’t normally thought of as art-machines. The work destabilizes our expectations, and exploits our cynicism to convey the message that robots can be machines of creation in addition to machines of destruction.

 

 

 

Hyper(Reality)

This project contains a helmet which allows the user to enter a sort of digital world, surrounding the user in an alternative version of reality through the helmet. The user can navigate through the digital world created by the helmet while still interacting with the physical world outside of the helmet. It creates an odd and curious median between the two states.

I found this project interesting because of the combination between what is real and what is fabricated. The ability of the project to combine the two is very attractive for me. If further explored, the digital world can have certain surprises or friendly characters that the real world doesn’t’ contain. The user can then enter a digital game world, in which the game utilizes the real world to create levels or advances. I think to have those subtle differences in the two worlds will bring about the question of what is reality and what is invented. Is reality what we perceive in our own minds about the world of which we have control over or is it simply an observation that we accept?

I think a very effective part of this project was the way the digital world look. It had a much digitized effect in the way the image is rendered. The artist of this piece, Maxence Parache seems to involve his artwork in a lot of digital design. His website reveals different projects such as Data Visualizatino of Holborn Traffic, The Yagi Project, which can be used to listen to frequencies from satellites by relying on radio messages sent from hundreds of kilos away.

It is definitely a project of high potential and can be utilized in games or digitalized designs.

 

Hyper(reality) – Geffrye Museum from Maxence on Vimeo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dodoecaudion

Dodoecaudion is an audiovisual controller assembled from infrared distance sensors, arduinos, Bluetooth, processing and osc. It manipulates sounds as people glide their hands across the openings of the spatial suspended device. The source code is open and the CAD documentation and schematics as well.

The most intriguing part of this piece for me is its geometric simple design. The design is clean and pristine and gives it an almost foreign feel because it is so simple yet creates such beautiful music. I think the inside of the piece could have been more carefully designed so the inside could be just as simple in appearance as the outside. Of course, since the piece is still in its alpha stage at the moment, there are still incomplete qualities to the piece that will be changed before it goes on production.

The artists behind Dodoecaudion create a lot of musical based interactive products, such as their panGenerator-Peacock, which is an interactive kinetic audiovisual installation shakes three panels of lights as the piece produces chaotic sounds.

 

DODECAUDION from ◥ panGenerator on Vimeo.

panGenerator – PEACOCK from Jakub Koźniewski on Vimeo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Radiance

I found this project very gorgeous. Radiance is a wall consisting of acrylic flower petals that light up according to the motion of people walking around. It was assembled and installed on a standalone fireplace in the house of a family who rarely used their fireplace. The team proposed an idea of orating and lighting up the family’s life by installing this interactive light piece on top of the brick fireplace.

Although the design is fairly simplistic, I think the idea behind the piece is very compelling and beautiful. From an ordinary bland fireplace that was rarely used, the team transformed it into an art piece that would bring the family together as it lit up when members walked around the piece. I think it was a great touch to make the lights light up based upon movement, which engages interaction with the piece. By having an irregular lighting effect, the flower petals appear almost alive.

Upon exploring their website(http://www.projectione.com/), I recognized that they used a lot of lighting in their pieces and have a distinct signature of assembling many little repeated pieces to create a larger piece. I think an improvement they could have made to the Radiance piece was to have the flowers glow slightly a different color at night or during different times of the day. I think by having that variety, the piece would gain even more life. Many flowers, such as day lilies, open during the day and close at night, while other flowers just live for one day and die off in the night while other buds replace them. By giving the wall of acrylic flowers more life creates a fantastical and curious feel just as it would when one blurs the line between a manmade object and an organic living object.

 

Radiance from PROJECTiONE on Vimeo.

 

“Rewind” by Pauline Saglio is a series of digital clocks whose interface reacts to a certain manner of physical interaction. For example, when a gear is turn, it would start to unwind and the drawings on the clock would come to life while telling the time. I find this piece enjoyable to watch and well-crafted because it breaks the mold of the simple Campbell formula. The work does not react just to touch, but to a specific action, like turning a gear, and it seems to react in a plausible way to the physical input. What really surprised me was that the little elements in the clock were hand-drawn, rather than computationally generated. This quality sets the clocks apart from any old arduino-rigged digital clock, and becomes something quite personal. The only thing I wish to see would be just more of these clocks that react to different input, or one all-encompassing clock that can react to all of the different inputs and let those inputs interact in complicated ways.

The kinograph is a rig consisting of a digital camera, arduino, raspberry pi, and a bunch of 3D printed parts which work together to digitize films. This is a project that is utilitarian, but highly beneficial to the preservation of the arts. I can appreciate that this is just as important as the arts themselves. I know for a fact that many classics and landmark films have regrettably been lost and/or destroyed in fires. It is distressing for me to think how parts of our culture have been permanently lost, like losing something that has sentimental value to my history. The kinograph does not completely democratize film digitization (the cost of $3200 is nothing to sneeze at), but it is a huge improvement from the standard hundreds of thousands of dollars. It provides a much better alternative for private collectors and film studios, and it is a significant step forwards towards a complete democratization of the process, possibly saving thousands of pieces of our cultural history as well as preparing them for mass distribution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFXJa_1_bHg

“Missing” is an installation produced by The xx. Because it’s the brainchild of an extremely famous band, it seems to have a lot of ambition and professional polish. The form of the space and its function are both very well-crafted. As for the form, the way the lightbulbs, speakers, and wires are all arranged makes it look like the set of a high-budget music video, and the fact that it functions as an installation piece that reacts to its audience puts it streets ahead of other music video sets. What really surprised me was the resourcefulness of the creators. The piece was completed from scratch in the span of six weeks with relatively modest means. I would love to actually visit this site, since the piece can only be appreciated through direct presence and sound. I would also enjoy seeing the piece re-appropriated as a music video set, or otherwise interacting with something other than just random people walking through.

My Little piece of privacy | Niklas Roy

A really delightful piece in which a small lace curtain is motorised along a track. A camera is used to do some motion tracking and as people walk past the window the curtain is propelled in-front of them in an effort to protect the privacy of the buildings occupance. I like the idea of this “robot” trying so earnestly to protect and shield its owner. Arduino is used to send commands from the computer to the large servo controlling the curtain.

Eunoia | Lisa Park

http://www.metalocus.es/content/en/system/files/file-images/ml_eunoia_02_1024.png

Eunoia from Lisa Park on Vimeo.

Lisa uses Arduino to translate her brain activity into vibrations in the 5 dishes that sit around her.
There is something beautiful about taking something as subtle and intangible as a brain wave and converting it into something so visible and powerful.

Troblion | Stefan Schwabe

https://www.creativeapplications.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/troblion1.jpg

TROBLION from stschwabe on Vimeo.

I think that this work has a lot of potential, but that it wasn’t achieved in the project.
I love this idea of a robotic sphere with no clue as it its orientation. Actually it doesn’t have external orientation…
I also like how it slowly gets covered in red clay, camouflaging itself. You could almost mistake it for something organic. It would have been interesting to see if they clay that gets peeled off its “body” could be fired and used – perhaps a bowl?

https://vimeo.com/26424619

The Hanging Garden, a collaboration between The Clorofilas and Aer Studio, uses an arduino to monitor a plant’s need for water. Moisture sensors in the soil send information to the arduino, causing LEDS to light when the soil becomes too dry. The organic use of the arduino surprised me; that the arduino can respond to a sensor so obscure as moisture was very interesting. Overall the work is very successful in its relation of plants and technology. The soft, small lights give the plants the voice one would expect a plant to have—the lights are subtle and emerge organically from the leaves, as if they are just extensions of the plant. The work is quiet and self sustaining, and it generates a sense of peace.

 

https://vimeo.com/25765171

Captured, by Nils Völkerand Sven Völker, is an environment installation consisting of space blankets inflated by CPU fans at controlled speeds. An arduino controls all of the fans. This project combines intelligent material choice and application. As the blankets inflate and deflate, they generate soft colliding sounds that rise and fall with each undulation of the environment. The mirror surfaces of the blankets reflect one another, deepening even subtle movements made by the air flow inside. The result is an oceanic effect that is very effective in submerging the viewer visually and spatially in the experience of the environment. The blankets move in response to a coordinated system of lights and music. In this way I see this work as an intense choreographed dance executed by an arduino, with space blankets for limbs.

https://vimeo.com/35014340

Soundmachines, by The Product Studio, is an interactive turn table. The project uses an arduino to collect and interpret signals of light and dark read off a spinning disk. Those signals are then sent to music software to generate sounds. There are three disks in all, each able to produce unique patterns of sound. The sleek design of this project attracted me, but for lasting impact I think the project needs more turntables with a wider range of sounds. At the moment, all of the music produced sounds computer generated and formulaic (there are only so many combinations of patterns in the three disks.) Adding organic instruments or even non-musical sounds could keep the project interactive longer. The project is meant to be successfully used by any one interacting with it, but I would like to see its effects if multiple people were to engage the instrument and generate music together instead of just one individual playing.