Inventing Interactive
This past weekend I had a chance to experience Voice Tunnel — an interactive light and sound installation by Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. It’s a temporary installation in New York City’s Park Avenue Tunnel and open just three Saturdays this month as part of Summer Streets 2013. The 1,4000 foot long piece runs from East 33rd Street […]
I love my new Sonos system. It took me a while to understand what it offered and why I might want it, but now that I’ve got it, I just want more. So – it was pretty cool to discover that Sonos has been (quietly) periodically sponsoring interactive installations that feature their technology… Right now […]
I’m a dork for liking flying and airports as much as I do. It’s not based on any modern reality, just nostalgia for what it used to be like. And one of things I used to love at airports was, while waiting for a flight, going to the observation deck and watching the planes. So […]
A couple months ago, while in Paris, I saw a fascinating exhibition of work by Yayoi Kusama. Much of her work has a hallucinatory quality — of obliteration and making things (especially herself) disappear. And it was her dot-room and light installations that I thought were particularly beautiful and amazing. She recently completed an installation […]
Two interesting wall-sized interactive experiences… one charming, one kinda terrifying. Night Bright is a new installation by Design I/O. The experience, designed for children, let users explore a nighttime forest, as if moving through it. The system adapts to their movements, and creatures in the forrest hide or come forward in response. It’s charming and […]
Back in 1997 Art Center‘s Williamson Gallery housed the exhibition “Memory, Reflection and Transformation, Reactive Works by Jim Campbell.” I was teaching there at the time and remember first seeing the show as I took a break from one of my classes. Walking through the gallery was a playful and social experience, as visitors together […]
Arclighting recently posted two fascinating video histories, by Thomas Schielke, on lighting and communication technologies in architecture. The videos contained just a handful of examples of interactivity — but there were some elegant ones from rAndom International, a firm which is inventing and creating interactive, experiential installations. rAndom International was founded by Stuart Wood, Flo […]
Small Design Firm‘s recent Pledge Wall for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a beautiful interactive installation with a unique pen interaction. David Small, the firm’s founder, is a friend back from when we were both students at the MIT Media Lab. I’m a little jealous, as his firm has gone on to create some remarkable […]
Take a look at this “reactive wall” in Montreal in front of La Vitrine. It was created by Moment Factory and Photonic Dreams. Created in August 2009 it was originally intended to be a temporary installation, it’s since been made a permanent part of the club’s facade. Sensors (it looks like they’re in an overhang […]