DRAWN is a concert-performance in which live painting is augmented in real time, the painted forms appear to come to life. The performance explores the musicality of drawing by turning brushstrokes of ink into complex and energetic life forms.
A table on stage holds the paper, ink and brushes. A camera above the table captures the drawing and the image is then projected for the audience to observe. However, the projected image is not entirely unadulterated - a software analyses the video image and augments the image with synthetic graphics. The result is a hybrid video signal, combining both factual and fictional pixels. The hand-drawn gestures appear to have a mind of their own: they can be played with as though they weren't actually painted on paper, and the user can push them around the page using only his hands.One of the main concerns of the developers was to create a visual "instrument" that could be used in collaboration together with musicians. In this nuanced relationship between animated drawing and sound, the sketches, doodles, and gestures mix together with the sonic environment in order to create a dense and lively musical form.
Drawn
TENORI-ON (sound on your palm) is a novel personal digital instrument for playing sound and ambient light patterns. This instrument was developed by Toshio Iwai and Yamaha Corporation and will be showcased at SIGGRAPH 2005 in Los Angeles. TENORI-ON is operated by touching 16x16 LED switches. You could think of them as musical keyboards that respond to the subtlety of your finger touch by emitting light waves, creating afterglow, and making soothing sound sequences. The instrument knows how long and from which direction the player touches each LED switch as well as the tilt angle. ITRON is used as the computational engine that handles complex processing in real time. It has a jog dial, LCD display, hi-quality stereo speakers, and four function switches in the frame. On the back side of the device are additional 16x16 LEDs that allow audience to see the light patterns as well. Multiple TENORI-ON devices can be connected for collaborative sessions and exchanging songs.
"Controlling light and sound as comfortably as playing musical instruments or painting pictures" -- Toshio Iwai has long been interested in addressing this challenge. TENORI-ON, which is designed for esthetics and comfort, can be used as an ambient interior decoration object as well as an instrument. "A violin doesn't work if any of its beautiful shape, sound quality, and usability is missing. However, electronic musical instruments often fail to create this inevitable relation of shape, sound, and usability. My goal with TENORI-ON is to make it the right instrument for the real digital age by rethinking what musical instruments should be." (Toshio Iwai)Tenori-on
Like a zoo, Ooz is a series of sites where animals and humans interact. But it's a place where animals interact with humans by choice rather than because they're caged. Throughout the Ooz communication habitats (horses, water striders and bats), the animals can learn to control the human spectators by pressing the appropriately designed button or lever that communicates in human speech. For example, a button may trigger the recorded voice: "Yo! If you are going to stare, how 'bout inserting 25cents and delivering a dose of that beaver biscuit!"
The project explores whether science has learned how to design habitats attractive enough to entice voluntary fur- or feather-bearing tenants.
The first experiment is about goose communication, human participants saddle up in a "goose chair" and contort their bodies to remote control a robotic goose out on the water in hopes of successfully communicating with live geese. "We have a kind of schizophrenic relationship with 'sub-humans,'" Jeremijenko comments. "It's either 'Let's protect the cute, fuzzy animals' or 'Let's shoot them.' Ooz is a way of exploring other options."
Ooz
In collaboration with Mariliana Arvelo, James Patten created tactile photographic prints as part of a project about the deafblind community in Boston.
The Tactile Photography pieces are produced through a CNC laser etching process that removes the top portion of the wood. The darker the image is a point, the more wood is removed by the laser. The result is a photographic relief that can be touched as well as seen.
As people touch the images, the surface of the wood continues to wear, and people's experience of the work becomes part of the work itself. No computers nor sophisticated mechanical wizzardy but that doesn't make these works less "interactive".The Tactile Photography
