I found a nice new video today, a photographic point of viewing architecture.
The Third & The Seventh
February 9th, 2010
A MAZE. Interact
February 7th, 2010Just coming back from the A MAZE Interact festival where I experienced the global game jam Berlin. My mind is still there. I love Berlin, as always! How I wish I could have stayed longer and checked out transmediale, especially ‘The Futurity Long Conversation‘.
It was indeed an awesome festival. I am glad I finally met Julian Oliver and heard his talk “The Computer Game as Musical Instrument”, comparing contemporary sound-based games with 20th Century experimental instrument design, positioning such games as the grandchildren of early, radical ideas within Western (noise) music. Since the first time I saw his Levelhead, an Augmented Reality spatial-memory game, I wished I could meet him in person.
Keiichi Yano gave an inspiring and witty speech about ‘The Future of Music Games’. He also shared his insight of how the next generation of music games can continue to push the genre forward into new gaming plateaus, respectively, physical, social, education and fantastical. Martin Pichlmair talked about ‘Tracing the History of Synaesthetic Video Games and Media Artwork’, presented the game Radio Flare Redux and traced the history of synaesthetic video games and media artworks – from Kandinsky to Rez, from Frank Malina to wipeOut. It was interesting to know that he stopped making art in order to pursue the development of digital games. I guess somehow, life is a big game and we all have to enjoy playing. I also liked Leonard J. Paul’s talk ‘Droppin’ Science: Video Game Audio Breakdown’, stripping away the layers around how game audio works down to the core.
So many interesting things going on, and creative folks are exploring digital media. The world is getting so exciting!
Digital Fabrication
February 6th, 2010Early this year, I got chance to visit The University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. And I was luckily able to check out its impressive fabrication lab. It was inspiring talking with prof. Karl Daubmann, prof. Glenn Wilcox and director of the FAB lab Wesley McGee. I appreciated it a lot that they showed me some of their creative works.
The short visit also gave me quite a lot to think about. Certainly, there is much potential for applying digital fabrication in architecture design and production processes. Digital fabrication is the process of translating a digital design into a physical object. Its techniques such as rapid prototyping, stereolithography and laser cutting enable the production of physical objects directly from digital models. It allows creating new forms or structures, and exploration of the aesthetics of space.
But I am thinking about the possibility of mapping invisible data, not just concrete/hard data such as body movement, breath, and temperature but also some more abstract/soft information - for instance, memory, emotions, cognitive processes, thoughts, etc. into the architectural space generated by digital fabrication technology. And when these data could be embedded into our living space, in turn they would affect the way we interact with the environment.
Apart from this, I am always fascinated by how basic geometries with simple algorithms can be aggregated and emerge into extensively complicated forms. I’d like to see more creative or experimental digital fabricated works.
“Hyper” Augmented Reality
February 5th, 2010An interesting video shows a hyper augmented reality cave. Somehow the video is satire as well. I wonder what the essential things will be that we need to live in the future?
Sketches
December 17th, 2009
It was definitely an amazing workshop. Some sketches I presented at the end. I was quite happy that I finally started to mess around with openframeworks. A big thanks to Zach and people from the Fabrica. I had such a great time, fantastic food, wine and lots lots of fun….!
Fabrica Workshop
December 9th, 2009Yes, Fabrica of Benetton! I am going to Zachary Lieberman’s workshop “Making Things Move” from 10th to 15th Dec. at Fabrica.
Artists have always been exploring different technologies to make animations - from early zoetropes to hand drawn etched film - while with programming, there is another emerged animated form. The workshop will look at the animation and animated form through the lens of computation and mainly focus on coding to move things in a natural way. Zach will also give us an introduction of openframeworks.
Well, surely lot of things to learn and creative pals to meet, I am really looking forward to it now.
Urbanstract
December 7th, 2009A nice video created by art Director Jopsu Ramu from Musuta Ltd. and Shun Kawakami takes you across an abstract urban space in 45 Seconds. For more information of Urbanstract…
“Food” for thought
September 10th, 2009Mischievous designs surely will add some spice and humor to daily life. I really enjoyed seeing these inspiring and interesting designs related to food. Anti-Theft Lunch Bags are transparent sandwich bags meant to look like mold to save your lunch from sticky-fingered coworkers. A giant mousetrap turns out to be a real cheese board and slice. And this Snow White Macbook really made me smile …
Mobile HCI 2009
September 3rd, 2009MobileHCI09, the 11th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, will be held at the University of Bonn in the city of Bonn from 15th till 18th September. I was lucky enough to work with my colleagues Barbara Rita Barricelli and Claudia Iacob and our paper “Map-Based Wikis as Contextual and Cultural Mediators” was accepted by the conference, so I am heading for Bonn soon. If I can be bothered, I will post something interesting when I come back.
‘mylight’ lamp
August 30th, 2009I’ve been looking for a definition of meta-design, and in doing so I came across the ‘mylight lamp’ by Lars Spuybroek. It’s interesting to see that meta-design, an emerging conceptual framework, as a boundary object interpreted differently among various applied fields. As with most of Spuybroek’s designs, the lamp is a form of creative experimentation and quite impressive, no matter its shape or the concept behind it.
As Spuybroek himself says:
“We can now ‘print’ an object directly from digital information – molds will just disappear. People have no idea yet what an incredible change in technology that is. And what that means for design. All design will become meta-design: objects can now be a range-of-objects like in a family or a species. Not one is the same, but they are similar enough to be recognised. They can be big on top, big in the middle, or big below. They can have many holes or just a few. But they will always be private, each lamp you buy is different from the other, it’s unique.” – lars spuybroek
The concept is still pretty vague to me, but perhaps that’s to be expected – after all, there is no conceret definition in this field, since it is still under-developed. Right now, everyone has their own definition of ‘meta design’ The search for clarity is complex – but exhilarating.
