Over the past year I have been working for Seconde Nature designing a public multi-touch platform via my Atelier Hypermédia in Aix-en-Provence. It’s a fairly ambitious project and involves many partners and most importantly, a whole bunch of students and researchers from five different schools/departments exploring interactivity from the perspectives of art, design, architecture or some combination therein. While I’ve been tooling away at the project in some form or another over the past 12 months, the production team was officially formed at the beginning of 2010 and still has about 6 months to go before completing the project with an exhibition planned for early 2011 in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille. In other words, we’re only at the half-way point and anything you see here should be considered highly work-in-progress, and purely experimental/speculative in nature.

That said, we have amassed enough material from the exploratory/workshop phase of the project to create the following document which can be considered a collection of ideas that we found interesting enough to record and group into this 20-minute demo reel. There were actually far more ideas explored than those you will see in this reel but they were unfortunately either lacking decent documentation or were simply too preliminary/unpolished. That said, many if not all of these ideas will need to be completely reworked during the production phase of the project. Only a few will be retained and most of those will be redesigned in collaboration with our content partners.

All of the projects were built within one of the four workshops, with each workshop lasting either 1 or 2 weeks. In total, this reel represents the accumulation of about 6 weeks of direct prototyping.

Download Video: HD quality: Mur Communicant.m4v iPhone compatible: Mur communicant iPhone.m4v Firefox compatible: MurCommunicant.ogv

I was invited a few months back by the very respectible Poptronics to participate in this exhibition which, now that I’ve taken the time to explore the website a little, actually looks pretty interesting. For the « interviews » section of the exhibition, I was asked to revisit the ugly Invaders! brouhaha, as well as to opine on the age-old debate yawn! on the relationship between art + gaming. I am also in pretty cool company; folks like Nicolas Nova, Invader, Isabelle Arvers, Frédérick Raynal, etc.

I’m particularly interested in the scenography of the exhibit which attempts a mise en scène of the both the public and private act of old skool gaming. Video games have over the years often been constructed as a very private act — not all that different from the act of reading –, while at the same time utilizing explicitly shared media such as the family television set as its transmission device. Even in the context of collective gameplay the ultra-tricked-out PC often encloses the gamer through various devices, in an attempt to surround the gamer within their specific perspective of the game world/gameplay. The Gameboy of course created the ultimate template for this enclosure and will further cement this relationship via the 3ds. And yet simultaneously, this configuration has very much been called into question, thanks to phenomena such as Guitar Hero/Rock Band or Nintendo’s own Wii.

The question therefore become, how to expose such a configuration; how to exhibit the game as both image-sound media object and human-computer apparatus. This is not only a question of gameplay, although there is of course that aspect as well: we cannot very well pretend to exhibit the video game as cultural artifact without in some way exposing its various forms gameplay from within the immersive shell. But it is also the notion of another form of shared configuration, specifically of the human-computer embrace that takes place when we sit down and pick up the joystick in its invitation to play. There is an interesting spectacle in that embrace, or at least when considered as a phenomenon in and of itself.

There are also a few other curiosity pieces, such as Sega’s stereo-laserdisc « Time Traveller » which I was actually able to play a few weeks ago at California Extreme 2010. It’s a strange pseudo « Hollogram » device, which plays more or less like laserdisc classics such as Dragon’s Lair. The cheez-y gameplay sucks, but of course you knew that already. Nevertheless it sure feels like an under-explored technology that I wouldn’t be surprised to see recycled in some modified form over the next few years.

You can download the PDF here: liveanimal.pdf

If you use this pdf for your own travel needs, know that it’s officially Friendly-Ware®™, i.e. « be friendly » (send a picture, say thanks, give ‘er a woof, et caetera).

And here are some shameless pictures of Duke, because, well, he’s adorable and has officially teary-eye-stared my protective cynical sheen to oblivion.

• Exhibition: Mode:Demo
• Artists: Matthieu Cherubini, Etienne Mineur, Dominique Cunin, Mayumi Okura, Arthur Violy, Cédric Brunel, Clovis Duran, Max Mollon, Antonin Fourneau, Kenichi Okada, Chris Woebken, David-Olivier Lartigaud, Ka Fai Choy, Nicolas Rivet, Juliette Sallin, Ishac Bertran, Natalia Echevarria, Benoît Espinola, Shruti Ramiah, Leïla Jacquet, Gerard Rallo, Nicolas Field, Sascha Pohflepp, Karsten Schmidt, Aaron Koblin, Daniel Massey, Auger-Loizeau
• Conference: Lift 2010 « Connected People »
• Curator: Jean-Louis Boissier
• Selection committee / production team: Jérome Baratelli, Victor Durschei, Étienne Mineur, Carlo Parmigiani, Daniel Pinkas, Annelore Schneider, Daniel Sciboz, Douglas Edric Stanley
• Lift Conference: Laurent Bolli, Laurent Haug, Nicolas Nova, Sylvie Reinhard
• Dates: 5-7 May 2010
• Vernissage: Thursday, 6 mai 2010 – 18h30
• Open access (for non-Lift participants): Friday, 7 May 2010, 13h00–16h30
• Location: Centre International de Conférences Genève – 17 rue de Varembé, 1211 Genève, Suisse
• Production: Geneva University of Art and Design — HEAD Genève
• Departments: Espaces et communication + Media Design
• Press release: HEAD – Geneva at Lift10

The Mode:Demo exhibit went live today as a part of the Lift Conference Geneva 2010. The exhibit was curated by Jean-Louis Boissier as something more or less like a parallel presentation to that of the official Lift conference who’s theme is « Connected People ». All works in the exhibit are here presented as « demonstrable works », i.e. works that can be demonstrated (in the literal sense) by their creators and yet more importantly works that contain within their internal logic a principle of demonstrability.

The exhibition was curated as a part of the first year of the Media Design Master at HEAD — Genève and the scenography of the exhibit was designed by the students of the Space and Communication Master. Some works come from projects and workshops created directly within Media Design, but others come from partner institutions (such as ENSAD Lab or Design Interactions RCA) — works from their students, their professors or both. And finally, some work was simply work we found interesting.

The scenography of the exhibit is quite interesting, and I’ll try to blog some photos later if/when I can find the time to take some pictures or steal some from someone else. Also, the demonstrations themselves are being recorded via recording stations that accompany each work. Those as well will eventually go on-line as part of the archival work that Media Design students are recording in real-time of the exhibit as it reveals itself.

Final note: while Lift is a conference for paying customers, there will be a public exhibition of Mode:Demo on Friday, 7 May 2010 from 13h00–16h30 at the Centre International de Conférences Genève – 17 rue de Varembé, 1211 Genève, Suisse.

Here are some images of the presented works along with links to each project. Please note that all of these images are from (and therefore owned by) the artists/designers themselves:

Etienne Mineur (with Bertrand Duplat) Les éditions volumiques

Auger-Loizeau - Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots

Matthieu Cherubini - The Pursuit of Happiness

Leïla Jacquet - Scolu

Clovis Duran / Nicolas Rivet - Still Life

Nicolas Field - Think Thrice v.3

Juliette Sallin - Touch_Me

Dominique Cunin / Mayumi Okura / Arthur Violy / Cédric Brunel / Matthieu Cherubini / Clovis Duran / Max Mollon - Mobilizing

Kenichi Okada / Chris Woebken - Animal Superpowers

Aaron Koblin / Daniel Massey - Bicycle Built For Two Thousand

Antonin Fourneau - RR

Sascha Pohflepp / Karsten Schmidt - Social Collider

Ishac Bertran / Natalia Echevarria / Benoit Espinola / Shruti Ramiah - Linyl

Ka Fai Choy - Eternal Summer Storm

Gerard Rallo - Devices for Mindless Communication

David-Olivier Lartigaud / Dominique Cunin - Multiuser Arena

• Installation: « Peep-Show, Fishes and Other Objects of Desire »
• Exhibition: Milan International Furniture Fair 2010
• Time/Dates: 10:00 – 19:00 / 15-18 April, 2010
• Location: Officina della Torneria (ZonaTortona), Via Novi 5, Milano
• Production: Geneva University of Art and Design — HEAD Genève
• Departments: Interior Architecture + Master Media Design
• Press release: HEAD-Milan-2010
• Photo documentation: Sandra Pointet, Max Mollon, Leïla Jacquet
• Video documentation: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Video download: HEAD-Milan.m4v
• Vimeo link: Peep-Show, Fishes and Other Objects of Desire
• Media Design development platforms: OpenFrameworks (Scolu), Arduino (Still Life, Abysses), Max/MSP (Abysses), Blender (Scolu)
• Development blog: http://head.hesge.ch/made/projet/

Peep-Show (photo Sandra Pointet)

For the Milan Furniture Fair 2010 Head – Geneva proposed a series of media-design realisations and objects which reinterpreted the theme of the home aquarium, along with a presentation of work from the Jewelry and Fashion departments of the HEAD.

Peep Show, Fishes and Other Objects of Desire (photo Sandra Pointet)

All the aquariums were designed by students from the Interior Architecture and Media Design departments, and the structures were designed and built by the Interior Architecture department under the direction of Carlo Parmigiani, Daniel Zamarbide and Léopold Banchini.

Scolu - Prise en main du jeu par le public

Scolu - Prise en main du jeu par le public

Scolu - Transfering fish from one iPhone to another

Démonstration du projet Scolu

From the Media Design side of the equation, I was joined by Étienne Mineur, Daniel Sciboz and Daniel Pinkas for the artistic direction, with production assistance from Maxime Schoeni, and technical direction from Théo Reichel and Pierre Rossel. We received additional development assistance from David Hodgetts, and heaps of help from the Wood and Metal departments of the HEAD.

Abysses - Public

Unfortunately I didn’t have the best camera available, so here is a fairly grainy video of the installations:

And here are some lovelier illustrations of the installations, taken by Sandra Pointet:

Versus (photo Sandra Pointet)

• « Versus »
• Aquarium designed by Nicolas Perrottet, Florence Darragon
• Interior Architecture/Space Design department

FreakFish (photo Sandra Pointet)

• « FreakFish »
• Aquarium designed by Anna Graf, Vincent De Florio, Julia Dahmen, Juliette Roduit
• Interior Architecture/Space Design department

Habitarium (photo Sandra Pointet)

• « Habitarium »
• Aquarium designed by Laura Ventura, Giancarlo Mino
• Interior Architecture/Space Design department

Abysses (photo Sandra Pointet)

• « Abysses »
• Ambiant responsive aquarium Aquarium designed by
• Fabio Colucci, Maxime Baillard (Interior Architecture department)
• with Alexandre Burdin-François, Elwood-Léo Spafford and Max Mollon (Media Design Master programme)
• Software development: Matthieu Cherubini, Théo Reichel
• Hardware platform: Arduino

Aquascope (photo Sandra Pointet)

• « Aquascope »
• Aquarium designed by Mélanie Zogheb, Kumiko Machida, Femke Vauthier, Réanne Clot
• Interior Architecture/Space Design department

Ice Cube (photo Sandra Pointet)

• « Ice Cube »
• Aquarium designed by Maurane Jullien, Céline Bhend, Noémie Vauthey
• Interior Architecture/Space Design department

Still Life (photo Sandra Pointet)

• « Still Life »
• Mobile aquarium Clovis Duran and Nicolas Rivet
• Media Design Master programme
• Hardware/Software development: Douglas Edric Stanley, Théo Reichel
• Hardware platform: Arduino

Scolu (photo Sandra Pointet)

• « Scolu »
• Aquatic creatures on mobile devices by Leïla Jaquet in collaboration with Stanislas Bernatt
• Media Design Master programme
• Software development: Douglas Edric Stanley, Pierre Rossel, David Hodgetts
• Hardware development: Théo Reichel, Leïla Jaquet
• Software platforms: OpenFrameworks, Blender, Subversion
• http://www.scolu.com

Dorothée Loustalot

• creations by Dorothée Loustalot
• Jewellery Design department

Tie Ups Belt

• accessories developed by the Venetian company Tie-Ups
• http://www.tie-ups.it

Peep Show, Fishes - vue de la structure

For more information on the three projects developed in part, or in full, by Media Design, you can follow the Master Design production blog where you will find some beautiful schematics on how to build a mobile aquarium, source code for converting iPhones into fudicials on hypersurfaces, PCB diagrams, video documentation of experiments with audio interfaces, as well as a good helping of photos/videos of the making-of.

Full Moon - Schematic

You can also follow the sub-sections of each project for more information on the technical, conceptual, and design process of each project: Abysses, Scolu, Still Life.

PCB - Etching

Abysses - cablage

Scolu - Debugging session

Scolu - Debugging session

If you are in Geneva in the next week or so (5-7 May 2010), you will be able to see two of these projects, Still Life and Scolu, as they will be exhibited at Mode:Demo, an exhibition curated by Jean-Louis Boissier and the Media Design department for the upcoming Lift Conference 2010 « Connected People ».

Peep Show flyer (photo Sandra Pointet)

Also — and I’ll blog again about this in a few days — we’re searching for the next round of students looking to innovate in the field of Media Design. If you’re interested you’ll have to act quick; the application deadline is May 14th. For more information: http://head.hesge.ch/made/media-design/2010/03/26/admission-2010/

P.S. This should be the first of several cross-posts between the abstractmachine blog and the Media Design master which has been taking up so much of my time recently. I hope this also somewhat explains the long silence which has caused me many a Twitter Qwittering over the past two months. Ho hum. Unfortunately, some of us are just too damn busy to blog.

Dans le cadre du projet iFish, on travaille sur EyePhone, un logiciel de détection des iPhone/iPodTouch.

Cette application cherche actuellement des iPhones et iPodTouch sur une surface de type Reactable et envoie des informations au format TUIO à des clients. Ces informations sont: l’identifiant de l’objet (no.1, no.2, no.3, no.4, …), la position de l’objet (x=0.23, y=.91), et l’orientation (angle=0.0f > 360.0f).

Pour l’instant, l’application est mega-super-alpha-incomplet. Par exemple, les commandes TUIO sont envoyés sous forme de cursor et non pas d’object, comme il faudrait. Il manque aussi la reconnaissance de la forme qui empêchera, par exemple, qu’une main de la même aire d’un iPhone soit confondu avec un vrai iPhone.

Il s’agit d’une adaptation du logiciel de détection des doigts pour le projet Mur communicant, actullement en développement à Aix-en-Provence. Guillaume Stagnaro a dévéloppé une partie du code, avec beaucoup de code de la communauté OpenFrameworks dont les provenances sont annoncés dans le code.

Voici un apperçu de l’application en fonctionnement :

EyePhone tracking software screenshot

Voici une vidéo de l’application en fonctionnement :

EyePhone Screen Recording from MediaDesign on Vimeo.

Voici la surface de la table vue du point de vue de la caméra de surveillance :

EyePhone Surface Recording from MediaDesign on Vimeo.

Voici une vidéo montrant le prototype de l’hypersurface qui doit être construit pour Milan avec le postionnement de la caméra :

iFish_tracking_test from MediaDesign on Vimeo.

Enfin, voici les codes sources du projet dans sa phase embryonnaire actuelle (2010_03_11) :

EyePhone.zip (source + fichier projet compatible OpenFrameworks v0.061 OSX)

Voici purgatoire des programmes perdus lors du workshop Toucher du projet Mur communicant.

7,8,28,29 janvier + 4,5 février 2010 (impression papier)
15-19 mars 2010 (impression 3D)
AOC Hypermédia : Dessin génératif
Années concernées : 2°
Equipe : Douglas Edric Stanley, Antoine Bollasina
Invité : Marius Watz

Today we began our week-long « Mobility » workshop at the Aix-en-Provence Art School. We kicked off the session this afternoon with a conference from Thierry Marcou, director of the Villes 2.0 project at Fing who gave a general overview of the major issues facing the city as it evolves in the current networked era, as well as techno-social experiments, services and creations illustrating these tendencies.

Then, starting tomorrow, we’ll be working in two groups exploring the question of Mobility from an artistic point of view, using either the iPhone/iPodTouch platform via OpenFrameworks, a specifially-designed GPS platformed designed by the Atelier 3D, or some combination of both.

While Memo Akten couldn’t be here this week (cf. Decode), he nevertheless was able to come two weeks ago to the Atelier Hypermédia and help me (actually, the other way around) write a MapKit addon for the ofxiPhone project. This is a pretty cool little addition which allows you to run the standard Apple+Google MapKit library from within OpenFrameworks, and (magically) without breaking either. This addon is already sitting in the current svn/git of ofxiphone if you’re geek enough, otherwise it should be available within the next few weeks when the OpenFrameworks download is updated.

I have finally found a venue to show a decent working version of bitPong, a piece I created some time ago when I was still working on the close relationship with phsyical implementations of data and their aesthetic consequences.

The idea is simple: a two-player game, based on the uber-referenced Pong, here played with 8-bit controllers. When I say « 8-bit controller », I mean literally 8-bit, i.e. 8 buttons, each representing 1-bit of data. Collected together, this byte represents a 256 value variable which is used to control a visual paddle representation within the game. To aid players in the conversion of 1-bit discrete switches into their collective base-two 8-bit value, each button has been labelled: 2^n, i.e. two to the power of zero, two to the power of one, two to the power of two, and so on. This is otherwise known to mere mortals as the values 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128. To move your paddle, you must add each of these values together in order to position it somewhere between position 0 and position 255.

For those who know little about how the computer works internally, this is how the computer moves from the well-known binary 0 | 1 value, to complex values such as the letters you are reading right now: by associating a different value to each bit (the 1 values of « 0 1 0 1 0 1 » get converted to « 0+2+0+4+0+8+0+32 », otherwise known as the value 42) the computer can use a physically limited scheme (0 or 1, on or off, yes or no, true or false) in order to represent a far greater sum of possibilities (here a number from 0 to 255). bitPong plays off of this configuration and brings its dynamics to the surface of the playing field. In order to take control of your paddle, you will have to quickly master binary encoding.

In this Victor Vasarely inspired version of bitPong, hexagons populate the playing field and create an added diversion. Therefore, bitPong has now turned into something like a two-player bitBreakout. I was actually inspired by the following sign which is posted on the wall just next to my installation, indicating the escape routes out of the museum.

I have to admit, even considering the current legal battle of the Fondation, and the related embezzlement of it’s holdings by its president / family members, all leading to the current dilapidated state of this curious monument, it’s still a pretty cool place to show work.

Memo Akten is currently working in the Atelier Hypermédia in preparation for the Mobility Workshop in December where we will be using (amongst other things) iPhones for their GPS capacities. We are also discussing multitouch for a big project that has just been green-lighted (more on that later) and finally OpenFrameworks development and ofxiPhone for OpenFrameworks.

Tomorrow he will give a presentation of his work to the students of the Atelier as well as anyone else who would like to come and visit.