Tag: Interactive

Playful in Paris: Life-Sized Interactive Street Art

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

Everyday objects and imperfections in the urban surfaces of Paris become part of strange and unexpected scenes as French artist Levalet incorporates them into life-sized street art. A bull head sculpture becomes a minotaur, map in hand; a figure with a jackhammer goes to work on a damaged section of wall; a display box for advertisements is transformed into an x-ray machine.

Known by day as an art teacher named Charles Leval, the artist creates humorous scenes that interact with idiosyncrasies and often-unnoticed details in the fabric of the city.

The life-sized wheat paste posters take advantage of everything from pipes and spigots to false windows and concrete recesses.

Levalet walks around the city looking for the ideal spots for his work, takes measurements and creates the paste-ups at home before returning to his chosen locations and installing the work.

He told Street Art News that he considers all of the individual scenes to be part of a larger frame, “where I try to define a cosmology of a parallel world.”

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Interactive Urbanism: 5 Simple Street Art Projects

These five street art projects, including ‘Before I Die’, invite participants to alter, comment upon or ponder their urban surroundings in new ways.
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Cocaine Skull: Life-Sized Sculpture Made of Street Drugs

A pile of street cocaine mixed with gelatin is sculpted into a life-sized replica of a human skull in ‘Ecce Animal,’ a statement on …
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Marvelous Muralist Makes Giant-Sized Street Art Illusions

Madrid-based street artist Sam3 creates massive murals covering entire multi-story buildings in cities like Vienna, Valencia, Quito, Berlin and Atlanta.
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[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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WebUrbanist

February 20, 2015
Interactive Wonderland: Light Projection Art Animates Sydney

[ By WebUrbanist in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

A series of dynamic light art installations have begun to take over the largest city in Australia, turning tunnels into painted bouquets and the converting the sails iconic Sydney Opera House sails into a colorful storytelling canvass.

Part of this VividSydney event (running through June 9th), the MLC building begins its animated tale as a small stand of trees that entangle and intertwine to become a single huge trunk. As the visual story unfolds, “leaves flutter in a virtual breeze. Before your very eyes, a colossal tree seeds, sprouts, and rapidly spreads.”

The process is full of small and sudden surprises as well as slow-building suspense.“Like the dwellers and vehicles that bring energy and movement to a large city, beetles, bugs, centipedes and birds emerge out of the tree, scurry about their business, and then vanish again into the canopy. A symbiotic ecosystem is created [from] previously lifeless concrete and glass.”

Meanwhile, along the waterfront, this year’s ambitious all-new light art production for the opera house will “take the iconic building on a dramatic journey through time – from the birth of architecture and civilization through to the pinnacle of human and technological achievement.”

Other illuminated installations can be found all around the city, lighting up everything from buildings and bridges to ferries and fountains. And light art is only one of its three dimensions. VividSydney “is a unique annual event of light, music and ideas, featuring many of the world’s most important creative industry forums, a mesmerising free public exhibition of outdoor lighting sculptures and installations, a cutting-edge contemporary music program and the spectacular illumination of Sydney’s iconic architecture.”

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Architectural Light Graffiti: Image Projection Bombing

Architectural light graffiti, or projection bombing, falls somewhere curiously in between street light art and large-scale temporary installations.
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Invisible Apparel: Material-Free Dresses Made of Light

Combining light art photography and high fashion, these show-stopping runway gowns are manufactured without physical material and composed purely of light.
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Interactive Light Art Installation Operated by Smart Phones

A five-story light art installation in Frankfurt billows and contracts like a curtain or a veil, controlled by swipes of users’ fingers on their smart phones.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 28, 2014
Apple patents 3D interactive hologram display system

AppleInsider has discovered another interesting Apple patent. This time the technology giant has patented a 3D-display system that projects digital images into a medium such as a non-linear crystal, using infrared lasers or similar technologies and accepts user input in the form of gestures. Learn more

News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

April 28, 2014
Shape-Shifting Furniture: Interactive 3D Surfaces from MIT

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

The Tangible Media Group from MIT has developed an approach to responsive design in physical space that is both conceptual and plausible, futuristic yet already a reality.

Displaying their work this year at Milan, the group unveiled Transform, an extension of their amazing interactive inFORM user experience invention from last year.

1,000 independently-mobile squares shift up and down to shape bowls and surfaces – with even more such ‘pixels’ of a soft material the same technology could be applied to chairs and couches, too.

The morphing surfaces in play can be manipulated in all kind of ways, from passively sensing your mood (and changing shape accordingly) to responding directly to commands, gestures, movements or remote control. Their approach grows out of a notion that we increasingly take for granted: computers are moving into everything, not just dedicated laptops or handheld devices but everyday objects all around us.

This last video shows where it all started, with inFORM, a “Dynamic Shape Display that can render 3D content physically, so users can interact with digital information in a tangible way. inFORM can also interact with the physical world around it, for example moving objects on the table’s surface. Remote participants in a video conference can be displayed physically, allowing for a strong sense of presence and the ability to interact physically at a distance.”

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Dynamic Shape-Shifting D*Haus Rotates to Follow the Sun

The D*Haus is a residential architecture concept based on a mathematical formula that morphs and rotates according to the time of day and the season.
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Flexible Interiors: 13 Shape-Shifting Small Apartments

Transforming furniture and living pod systems help make the most of a small space, but when entire rooms shape-shift in unexpected ways, the results can be …
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It’s Electric: 14 Fun and Interactive Conductive Designs

Electronic functions aren’t just limited to gadgets anymore – they can be extended to everyday objects, architectural surfaces, paper, clothing and …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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WebUrbanist

April 21, 2014
Crochet Playscapes: 13 Interactive String Art Installations

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Miles of yarn and string stretch across inflatable structures, galleries and outdoor environments in these crocheted and knotted art installations, offering massive interactive playgrounds that invite people to climb, bounce and lounge. String is used as both an art medium and a functional, supportive structure in projects ranging from vast playscapes for children to a public NYC installation made of 1.4 million feet of hand-knotted rope.

Colorful Crochet Playgrounds by Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam

Perhaps the most vast and complex crocheted works ever created, Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam’s colorful installations are literal playgrounds for kids and adults, installed in parks and playgrounds. The artist starts her design process by creating a wooden scale model of the space where the net will be installed, and thence rockets the piece in fine cotton thread. That design is then adapted to full scale with yarn. ‘Rainbow Net,’ her most famous piece, took three years to complete and is located at the children’s area of the Takino Suzuran Hillside National Park in Sapporo, Japan.

Crocheted Alligator Playground by Olek

An alligator the size of a particularly massive dinosaur is covered in colorful crocheted yarn in ‘Crocheted Jacaré,’ a piece in Brazil by Brooklyn-based artist Olek. The alligator was already a part of the playground, Olek simply created some temporary clothes for it that made it stand out even more.

In Orbit: Transparent Suspended Net Playground

Transparent net hung over a four-story drop offers a rather frightening play experience for anyone with the slightest fear of heights. Artist Tomás Saraceno created the 2500-square-meter installation at the Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen museum in Dusseldorf, Germany, inviting visitors to walk out onto the cloud-like nets amidst mirrored spheres.

Inhabitable String Structure by Numen/For Use

Climbers make their way through a grid made of string in this ‘social sculpture’ installation by design collective Numen/For Use. The ropes are contained within an inflatable structure, secured to all sides of the interior. When the bubble is deflated, they fall to the ground, and when it’s inflated, they become a taut interactive playground. The designers describe it as “bodies entrapped in a 3D grid, flying in unnatural positions throughout superficial white space, resemble dadaist collages. Impossibility of perception of scale and direction results in the simultaneous feeling of immenseness and absence of space.”

Crocheted Net Nests by Ernesto Neto

Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto creates massive crochet installations reminiscent of the playgrounds by Horiuchi MacAdam, but in more muted tones. Strung from gallery ceilings, these strange little ‘nests’ offer an inhabitable space that can be either playful or quiet and comforting. Larger pieces encourage running and jumping, while the smaller ones are cocoon-like relaxation spaces.

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Crochet Playscapes 13 Interactive String Installations

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The City is a Playground: 15 Interactive Installations

Art installations that invite or even dare passersby to join in on a fun activity transform even the most stiff and boring urban environments into public …
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Tying Us Together: Portraits on Hanging Elastic String

Korean artist Hong Sung Chul prints images of human body parts onto individual strings so that they come together into ghostly three-dimensional sculptures.
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Spicy Fleshy Wonderland: Installation by Ernesto Neto

It smells like citrus and cloves, looks like parts of human anatomy and invites you in like a womb: Ernesto Neto’s ‘Anthropodino’ is a feast for the senses.
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[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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WebUrbanist

February 10, 2014
It’s Electric: 14 Fun and Interactive Conductive Designs

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

Electronic functions aren’t just limited to gadgets anymore – they can be extended to everyday objects, architectural surfaces, paper, clothing and even our own bodies. Conductive paint, thread and wires are used in conjunction with little processors like the Arduino Lilypad to turn bananas into musical instruments or a pair of metallic false eyelashes into a controller for an LED headset.

Gilded Ceramic Radio Controlled by Gesture

The metallic patterns on what looks like no more than a ceramic vase aren’t merely ornamental. In fact, they’re how you control the volume, frequency and on/off functions of this object, which is actually a radio. Made using fine palladium paint that has conductive properties, geometric patterns each have an individual motif for the function they control. The Hibou, as it’s called, is the result of an unusual collaboration between a gilder and an electronic specialist.

MusicInk: Turning Paper into Instruments

Flat sheets of ordinary paper become functioning, noise-making instruments thanks to a prototype kit containing conductive carbon paint, stencils and an Arduino Duemilanove board. Individual painted areas on the paper turn into playable trumpets, guitars, drums and more (recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra) by turning them into capacitive sensors that react to gestures. The Arduino board is synched with a smartphone app via Bluetooth.

Touch Board Turns Everyday Objects into Interactive Artifacts

Another touch board uses capacitive sensing to turn any conductive material into an interface. The touch boards are pre-programmed to turn gestures into sound just by connecting them to a speaker and plugging in a micro USB cable. You effectively paint light switches, volume controls or musical instruments onto a surface with electrically conductive paint, and then use gestures to control them.

SmartWrap Interactive Building Film

Now imagine taking that kind of interactive functionality and applying it to an entire building. That’s the idea behind SmartWrap interactive architectural film, which can be applied to a wall or the facade of a structure to provide not just shelter and climate control but also lighting, information display and power. It’s embedded with OLED technology, thin film batteries and silicon cells and conductive ink.

Conductive Body Paint Enables Novel Interaction with Environment

A conductive ink applied directly to human skin can bridge the gap between electronics and the body. Bare Conductive’s body paint is a skin-safe, water-soluble carbon-based ink that can be brushed, stamped or sprayed on to allow users to interact with technology through gestures, creating ‘custom electronics.’ The makers list potential areas of use as dance performances, music, fashion, security, military, audio/visual communication and medical devices.

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Its Electric 14 Fun And Interactive Conductive Designs

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Tactile Technology: 13 Off-Screen Touch Input Inventions

Touch input has already almost entirely eliminated the need for physical keyboards and mouses, but soon, it won’t even be confined to a screen. …
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Dazzling Digital Ads: 12 Interactive Storefront Displays

It’s practically impossible to ignore interactive storefront ads that literally jump out at you, react to your movements and follow you down the street.
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Touchy Instrument Turns Literal Beets Into Figurative Beats

The BeetBox from designer Scott Garner explores user expectations and creates a delightful visual pun. Its wooden enclosure holds six beet-making beats.
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[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

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WebUrbanist

November 25, 2013
Interactive Sculpture Echoes the Movements of Spectators

[ By Delana in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Artist Daniel Rozin creates installation pieces that watch you even more closely than you watch them. His Angles Mirror installation features a triangular base with hundreds of yellow pegs. As you approach the sculpture, it springs to life and the yellow pegs start to spin into new positions. After a moment it becomes apparent: the yellow pieces are mimicking your body’s position and movements. As you shift positions, the yellow pegs rearrange their own positions to echo yours.

Rozin calls this and his other similar interactive sculpture “mirrors.” The label is accurate in that the surfaces reflect the postures of the people standing in front of them. They do not provide details of the viewers’ appearances, but they give a minimalist view of one’s outline. The technique takes the focus away from the individual and puts it entirely on the interactive sculptures.

When the viewer moves away from the sculpture and it has no one to mimic, a set of pre-programmed shapes and patterns cycle on the sculpture’s face. The pegs move so gracefully that they almost seem to be living things moving on their own. The robotic mirrors let spectators feel like part of the art installation rather than viewers removed from the art.

[ By Delana in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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WebUrbanist

November 2, 2013
The City is a Playground: 15 Interactive Installations

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Art installations that invite or even dare passersby to join in on a fun activity transform even the most stiff and boring urban environments into public playgrounds. Musical swings on the sidewalks of Montreal, a giant red ear in South Korea, a massive Monopoly game in Chicago and a submarine erupting from the middle of Milan are among the cool interactive projects that bring out the kid in all of us.

Massive Submarine in the Middle of Milan

Pedestrians in Milan were puzzled to see what looked like a massive deep-sea voyager bursting from the pavement in the middle of Piazza Mercanit. A Smart Car appears to have been caught up in the eruption, barely escaping. Of course, it’s an art installation – actually, a marketing stunt for an insurance group’s ‘Protect Your Life’ campaign. A ‘scuba diver’ at the scene told onlookers about the importance of insurance in safeguarding your possessions – probably a little less exciting than what they were hoping to hear.

Escape Machine

Where do you want to escape to? Press the red button on this strange black cube in the middle of a French public square, tell it your desired destination and something really, really unexpected will happen.

Urban Shopping Cart Merry-Go-Round

In the middle of a municipal theater square in Portugal, a merry-go-round of shopping carts beckons kids and adults alike to interact. It’s a parasitic addition to a lamp post, made to attach to any such structure in a public place. “By counteracting the freedom of movement that normally characterizes these carts (ironically moving in circles) we are reminded that consumerism does not take us anywhere… or in the best case scenario to the starting point.”

Whisper a Message to ‘The Big Ear’

Called ‘Yobosayo,’ the Korean word used when calling to get someone’s attention, this interactive sculpture records voice messages from passersby and shares them with others. You speak into the big red ear, and people inside the adjacent Seoul Citizens Hall listen. It’s even more interactive than that, in fact; sensors on the hanging speaker units monitor how much time people spend listening to each message, so the ones people pay attention to remain in the playlist, while the unpopular ones are transformed into music by an algorithm that amplifies and distorts the sound.

Knitting the Andy Warhol Bridge

A project called Knit the Bridge brought 1,800 volunteers onto the Andy Warhol Bridge in Pittsburgh to cover the sides, towers and main cables in rectangular panels individually knitted by each artist. It’s a fitting tribute to the only bridge in the United States to be named for an artist.

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In Orbit: Transparent Suspended Net Playground in the Sky

A suspension of transparent nets hovering 80 feet over the floor of an indoor courtyard makes for a surreal playground for the brave, and a terrifying sight …
Click Here to Read More »»

Interactive Light Art Installation Operated by Smart Phones

A five-story light art installation in Frankfurt billows and contracts like a curtain or a veil, controlled by swipes of users’ fingers on their smart phones.
Click Here to Read More »»

Next Page:
The City Is A Playground 15 Interactive Installations

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

In Orbit: Transparent Suspended Net Playground in the Sky

A suspension of transparent nets hovering 80 feet over the floor of an indoor courtyard makes for a surreal playground for the brave, and a terrifying sight …
Click Here to Read More »»

Interactive Light Art Installation Operated by Smart Phones

A five-story light art installation in Frankfurt billows and contracts like a curtain or a veil, controlled by swipes of users’ fingers on their smart phones.
Click Here to Read More »»

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 11, 2013
The City is a Playground: 15 Interactive Installations

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Art installations that invite or even dare passersby to join in on a fun activity transform even the most stiff and boring urban environments into public playgrounds. Musical swings on the sidewalks of Montreal, a giant red ear in South Korea, a massive Monopoly game in Chicago and a submarine erupting from the middle of Milan are among the cool interactive projects that bring out the kid in all of us.

Massive Submarine in the Middle of Milan

Pedestrians in Milan were puzzled to see what looked like a massive deep-sea voyager bursting from the pavement in the middle of Piazza Mercanit. A Smart Car appears to have been caught up in the eruption, barely escaping. Of course, it’s an art installation – actually, a marketing stunt for an insurance group’s ‘Protect Your Life’ campaign. A ‘scuba diver’ at the scene told onlookers about the importance of insurance in safeguarding your possessions – probably a little less exciting than what they were hoping to hear.

Escape Machine

Where do you want to escape to? Press the red button on this strange black cube in the middle of a French public square, tell it your desired destination and something really, really unexpected will happen.

Urban Shopping Cart Merry-Go-Round

In the middle of a municipal theater square in Portugal, a merry-go-round of shopping carts beckons kids and adults alike to interact. It’s a parasitic addition to a lamp post, made to attach to any such structure in a public place. “By counteracting the freedom of movement that normally characterizes these carts (ironically moving in circles) we are reminded that consumerism does not take us anywhere… or in the best case scenario to the starting point.”

Whisper a Message to ‘The Big Ear’

Called ‘Yobosayo,’ the Korean word used when calling to get someone’s attention, this interactive sculpture records voice messages from passersby and shares them with others. You speak into the big red ear, and people inside the adjacent Seoul Citizens Hall listen. It’s even more interactive than that, in fact; sensors on the hanging speaker units monitor how much time people spend listening to each message, so the ones people pay attention to remain in the playlist, while the unpopular ones are transformed into music by an algorithm that amplifies and distorts the sound.

Knitting the Andy Warhol Bridge

A project called Knit the Bridge brought 1,800 volunteers onto the Andy Warhol Bridge in Pittsburgh to cover the sides, towers and main cables in rectangular panels individually knitted by each artist. It’s a fitting tribute to the only bridge in the United States to be named for an artist.

Next Page:
The City Is A Playground 15 Interactive Installations

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 9, 2013
Urban Apps: 13 Interactive City Maps, Tools & Guides

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

Chances are, even if you’re a lifelong resident of a particular city, you don’t know every nook and cranny, every food truck location, or the lore of every interesting local building. Apps for smartphones, tablets and other gadgets are making big urban centers feel smaller than ever, making it easy to catch a ride, find cheap eats, check out street art and make new friends.

Eat Cheap – Roaming Hunger

Find out where your next meal is parked with Roaming Hunger, an app that shows real-time food truck locations in your area. The app not only displays the trucks on a map, with their hours at that location, but also allows you to sort results by meal, and browse menus. Additional apps are city-specific, like Street Food App, which currently shows schedules for Boston, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.

Maps and Travel Guides – City Maps 2Go

Want access to maps while traveling abroad, without gobbling up roaming data or lurking in a spot that offers wi-fi? City Maps 2Go downloads maps for the cities of your choice for offline use, including millions of POI (restaurants, bars, hotels etc.), 500,000 Wikipedia entries for sites and attractions, and travel guides. It’s avaiable for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Connect – MeetMe

Among the most popular apps to show you who’s nearby and looking to meet new people, MeetMe gives both social butterflies and the shy an easy way to connect. You’ll probably find more people looking to date than to make new friends, and it might be easier to just walk up to someone and introduce yourself than spend your time scrolling through photos, but hey – whatever works.

Avoid Your Friends – Hell is Other People

Maybe, instead of making new friends, you want to avoid the ones you already have. There’s an app for that, too. Hell is Other People will show you where your friends are based on check-ins on Foursquare, Facebook, Instagram and other networks, and provide ‘safe zones’ where you can hang out without being recognized. Of course, it only works if your contacts are avid users of social media, and you might find yourself relegated to unexpected places in the city.

Find Street Art – 1AM Mobile

This free photo app called 1AM Mobile lets users pinpoint, share and discover street art in their own communities before it’s gone, as it often is within days or weeks of completion. Shoot photos of street art and the app will map them, date them and credit you as the photographer before sharing them worldwide.

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Urban Apps 13 Interactive City Maps Tools Guides

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

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July 15, 2013