Green Interactive Installations as Conceptual Experiments towards a New Meaning of Smart Design

Nature-based design process with its embedded concept of form that follows function can be materialized as products capable of incorporating aesthetics and functionality similar to the characteristics of its natural role models. The paper addresses the topic of green installations created through a design process that simulates nature’s smart developmental mechanisms. The aim is to create an interactive installation capable of receiving and interpreting external factors that would determine the ensemble’s behavior and influence its future development and evolution. The main challenge lies in the fact that the smart feature is often achieved by intensive use of technology, which often overshadows inventive ways in which the behavioral and aesthetic properties of the material can be reinterpreted. The interactive green installation “Modgrew” investigates the possibilities of obtaining smart features through the experimental testing of two main types of configurations. The results underline the fact that, by applying the principles of biomimetic design, technologies from different fields can be combined towards obtaining a smart product. The conclusions highlight the need for future studies cover subjects such as the efficiency of automation, the possible reconfiguration of modules, behavioral optimization over time, the identification of minimal tech alternatives and the reduction of maintenance necessities.

Diversifying Emotional Experience by Layered Interfaces in Affective Interactive Installations

This paper aims to improve users’ experience in affective interactive installations through the diversification of interfaces. With logically organized hierarchical experience, diverse interfaces with emotion data as inputs enhance users’ emotional interaction to be more natural and immersive. By using facial affect detection technology, an installation with diverse input interfaces was tested with an organic formal setting. Mechanical flowers and support structure based on the organic form were deployed as its physical output for a multitude of sensorial dimensions. With actions of the mechanical flowers, such as blooming, closing, rotating, glowing and blinking, a layered experiential sequence was created and the atmosphere of the installation was evaluated to be more engaging. In this way, the layered complexity of information was transferred to users’ immersive emotional experience. We believe that the practices in this work can contribute to deeper emotional engagement with users and add new layers of emotional interactivity.

The Body, the Threshold, and the Cut: The Aesthetics and the Ethics of Measuring in Interactive Media Art

New media artists working on interactive installations often rely on different monitoring techniques, such as variable sensors in the design and the production of responsive environments and objects. In this short commentary, I will inquire into my installation Mother, Child (2011/2000) to address a new media art practice as productive alignment of agencies at the interface. The term body-sensor co-performance is used to foreground both the performative nature and the fundamental integrity of the technology and the body in interactive art. I will suggest that the setting of threshold values for different measuring operations can be understood as the boundary-making process, through which the installation feeds off the embodied liveliness of its audiences for its responsive actions. Drawing on Karen Barad’s work, these thresholds can be thematized as agential cuts. A number of specific examples in using sensors for interactivity are then addressed in order to inquire into the ways in which the questions of ethics and aesthetics entangle in creative and collaborative labors for Mother, Child.

Homo Sapiens, Mnesitardigrada Class and Umwelt: A Dialogue on Interspecies Organic Data Flow

This article presents artistic research based on existing knowledge about interspecific communication and hypothesis about the spread of interplanetary civilizations. It is expressed as an imagined communication flow between a human earthling scientist and a Kquaanian–human hybrid who is an artist by earthly occupation. While these two species’ sensoria are too different to allow discussion, this consideration supports the poetic approach to interspecies understanding, through immersive interactive installations and a willingness to share thoughts and feelings, in answering questions about the world and our place in it. The organs, molecules and protein expression of tardigrades provide a point of departure.

Co-Design of a Playful Mixed Reality Installation: An Interactive Crane in the Museum of Marble Crafts

Interactive installations in museums usually adopt hybrid technologies that combine physical elements with digital content, and studies so far show that this approach enhances the interest and engagement of visitors compared to non-interactive media or purely digital environments. However, the design of such systems is complicated, as it involves a large number of stakeholders and specialists. Additionally, the functional components need to be carefully orchestrated to deliver a rich user experience. Thus, there is a need for further research on tools and methods that facilitate the process. In this paper we present the design and development of a mixed reality installation for the Museum of Marble Crafts in Tinos island in Greece, which places visitors in the role of the crane operator and they have to complete challenges in a gamified version of the old quarry. The system lets users operate a tangible controller and their actions are executed by digital workers in a rich 3D environment. Our design approach involved iterative prototyping, research and co-design activities. The creative process has been supported by a series of organized workshops. The evaluation results indicate that mixed reality can be a promising medium for rich interactive experiences in museums that combine tangible and intangible heritage.

Pablo Palazuelo e Victoria Vesna. Arte e Ciência, Laboratório de Formas

ResumoA exposição retrospetiva PABLO PALAZUELO Proceso de Trabajo. MACB-5-12-06 a 18-2-07; e a conferência (ln) Tangibles: Nanopercepció i Mon Quantic. Vitoria Vesna, David Peat, CCCB- 24-3- 07, criam uma perspetiva da relação Arte-Ciência-Tecnologia. Essa perspetiva é aqui apresentada nos argumentos evidenciados pela obra deste artista e desta nanocientista. A obra, na sua função figurativa emergente, flui entre dois tempos: o da vida de Palazuelo (Madrid, 1915-2007) e Vesna (Washington D.C.,1960). Estas figurações materializam-se através da pintura e escultura em PaIazueIo e em instalações interativas, ambientes digitais virtuais, performances polisensoriais, em Vesna. Palazuelo, em 1976, falava deste plano de interceções do seguinte modo: "La ciencia penetra cada vez más profundamente en eI misterio de Ia materia formada, y el arte puede hacerlo también por sus propios medios, buscando allí otras cosas que aún no han sido reveladas." Este "tête a tête", conquista um espaço introdutório para a criação de obras unidas numa temática: a Mandala. O trabalho de atelier do pintor Palazuelo (Madrid, 1915-2007) e a obra nanomandala realizada pelos monges tibetanos de Gaden Kangtsen - County Museum de L.A. e Picolab.UCLA. A transição entre imagens de grãos de areia que revelam ondas padrão aparecendo a uma escala nanométrica, é evidente na referência formal e concetual na obra de Palazuelo. Assim sendo, as formas na matéria emergem seja pela via de atelier ou pela via de laboratório.Palavras-chave: Arte-Ciência, Laboratório, Linguagem Gráfica AbstractThe retrospective exhibition PABLO PALAZUELO Proceso de Trabajo. MACB-5-12-06 a 18-2-07; and the conference (ln) Tangibles: Nanopercepció i Mon Quantic. Vitoria Vesna, David Peat, CCCB24-3-07, create a perspective of the Art-Science-Technology relationship. This perspective is presented here in the arguments evidenced by the work of this artist and this nanocientist. The work, in its emergent figurative function, flows between two times: that of the life of Palazuelo (Madrid, 1915-2007) and Vesna (Washington D.C., 1960). These figurations materialize through the painting and sculpture in PaIazueIo and in interactive installations, digital virtual environments, polysensorial performances, in Vesna. Palazuelo, in 1976, spoke of this plan of interceptions as follows: "La ciencia penetra cada vez más profundamente en eI misterio de Ia materia formada, y el arte puede hacerlo también por sus propios medios, buscando allí otras cosas que aún no han sido reveladas."This "tête a tête", conquers an introductory space for the creation of works united in a theme: Mandala. The studio work of the painter Palazuelo (Madrid, 1915-2007) and the nanomandala work by the Tibetan monks of Gaden Kangtsen - County Museum of L.A. and Picolab.UCLA. The transition between images of sand grains that reveal standard waves appearing on a nanoscale scale is evident in the formal and concetual reference in Palazuelo's work. Thus, the forms in matter emerge either by atelier or by laboratory.Keywords: Art-Science, Laboratory, Graphic Language

Talk (post)normal: conceptualisations of the future in Laurie Anderson’s work

To call Laurie Anderson a multimedia artist – as she herself has done on more than one occasion – is to state something so obvious as to be nearly meaningless. Indeed, it is as redundant as to say that her work has persistently concerned the future. Offering universalizing depictions of American postmodernity through the new technologies that were the theme of many of her projects, Anderson has, nevertheless, persistently stressed her attachment to a very traditional art form, that of storytelling. Paradoxically, however, this ancient form implies an interest in the future just as intense as and perhaps in fact even more fundamental than her cutting-edge interactive installations and multimedia performances. Voicing her concern about whether there is indeed any future before humanity, Anderson presented herself in a recent interview as an artist in danger of being radically deprived of her medium, which for a storyteller is, by definition, the future. My paper is a look at the various facets of futures conceptualized by Laurie Anderson over the forty years of her artistic activity, stretching from political fear and anger, through philosophical reflection, to personal considerations of our individual temporality.