hello.

This summer I got to assist on a project by artists Matthew Belanger, Sean Riley,  Ven Voisey, and producer Marianne Petit on a neat project called Lumens.  Actually, they did all the work, I just offered a little guidance to get things started.  It’s an installation of 160 networked lamps situated in two galleries in the towns of Adams and North Adams, Massachusetts, and the online arts organization turbulence.org.  The lamps in each gallery react to visitors walking through the space, as well as responding to movements in the other space. In addition, visitors online can turn on the lamps as well.

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HC Gilje’s wind-up bird(s) is an environmental sound work installed in a forest in Lillehammer, Norway. It’s a flock of mechanical woodpeckers that communicate via XBee radios, spread out through the forest.  I love this line in the description: “Initial tests indicate an attraction: it took 15 minutes for a real woodpecker to join a wind-up bird on the same tree.”

Image by hc gilje

Wordle is awesome. I want a poster of this.Thanks, Clay for the link.

Lucas Cueni has a blog of various interactive projects, most of which involve multiple physical objects making up a larger image, physical pixel-style.

Technorati Tags: art, pcomp, physical computing

Golan Levin gives a nice introduction to computer vision in this essay, including a little history of the use of CV in art, and examples of some of the tools and problems involved. For anyone beginning to look into computer vision from a non-engineering perspective, Computer Vision for Artists and Designers: Pedagogic Tools and Techniques for Novice Programmers is a good place to start.

Technorati Tags: art, computer vision

Testing… was a one-night event staged by Eric Paulos (Intel Research, Anthony Burke (UC Berkeley), and David Ross (UC Berkeley). It was a party at which all the partygoers wore RFID tags. A series of RFID antennae distributed through the room read the tags, and the data was then used to create background visuals for the party.

Technorati Tags: art, networked objects, RFID

Jim Campbell does light sculptures using very low-resolution video displays made of LEDs or light bulbs, showing short, silent films. His animations are stripped of so much detail that you’re forced to fill in using your imagination and his short descriptions. The works remind me of spare pencil sketches that evoke a ton of emotion with only a few lines. Well worth seeing whenever you can.

Thanks to Dan Winckler for the link.

Technorati Tags: art, electronics

Robot Clothes is James Powderly and Michelle Kempner’s company and blog on robotics and wearable technologies. Includes some useful how-to’s and interesting projects.

Technorati Tags: art, electronics, pcomp, physical computing, wearables

IF machines is run by Maggie Orth, and does some interesting research and development in fashion and digital technology. They’ve developed some really interesting conductive fabrics.

“International Fashion Machines is a design and research company whose broad mission is to understand and transform the aesthetic and material properties of technology. IFM is dedicated to creating technology, art and design that is physically unexpected, intimate, humorous and beautiful. To accomplish this, IFM merges the practices of design and art-making with experimental, technological and smart material research. IFM’s projects in this area range from one-of-a kind interactive textile artworks to research for the military and design and strategy for the fashion industry.”

Technorati Tags: design, electronics, wearables

The Music Thing Blog is a collection of resources and articles on all things related to digital and interactive music systems. If you’re interested in interaction design and music, it’s worth a read.

Thanks to Jamie Allen for the link

Technorati Tags: art, electronics, pcomp, physical computing, music