Posts filed in ‘ACTIVISM’
TAMPOPO BREATH CONTROLLED INSTALLATION
[ http://www.kentaroyamada.com/works_tampopo.php ]
Trying to launch all the seeds of a dandelion into the air with a single breath is a common experience most people can relate to, especially as a nostalgic activity recalled from childhood. Blowing dandelions is a simple action that occupies folklore in many cultures and is often a metaphor for ‘making a wish’.
Tampopo (Japanese for dandelion) is an interactive video installation where viewers are able to interact with the projector screen by blowing. It also creates echoed blowing sounds in the space, creating a mystical experience of blowing giant dandelions. In this work, the microphone acts not only as a metaphor between the real and virtual, but also creates a simple sculptural interface between the user and the screen. It acts like a conduit from one world to another while the work becomes a portal to the mystical domain of myth, memories and youthful emotions.
In a multi-screen setup, viewers can interact with other viewers by blowing each other’s dandelions, as each microphone input affects not only one but other dandelions through the use of multi-user networking system. This multi-user capability could be used over the internet, blowing each other’s dandelions from remote locations.
Kentaro would like to thank Takeshi Shimada from SNAP Japan, a collaborator on this project. Without his special talent, this project couldn’t be realized.
Exhibitions
Share Prize, Turin Italy March 2008
Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland New Zealand Nov 28 2007
RAMP Gallery Hamilton, New Zealand Oct 7 - 28 2005 [Link]
RM103 Gallery, Auckland New Zealand 29 Jun - 9 Jul 2005
Awards
Share Prize 2008 Finalist (Winner to be announced March 2008) [Link]
2005 TUANZ Interactive Awards Experimental Category Winner
Articles
Contemporary Art of Science and Technology, Page 407, ISBN:978-7-03-020415-8
Waikato Times Oct 2005
BREATH POWERED USB CHARGER
Are you breathing? Do you have a gadget that can be charged via a USB port? Well if you answered yes to both, then you are in luck. This instructable shows how to make a device that will charge your USB-capable devices while you do what you do best. Breathe.
VISUAL MELODIES
Last night I met a great bunch of women at the first gathering of the UTS Community of Scholars for 2010. The group gets together monthly to present where they are up to in their doctoral research projects.
Natalya Godbold’s project about sense making in online discussion forums for those affected by renal failure was really fascinating particularly as it is introducing an innovative methodology to the area of health communication.
Amy Chen’s Visual Melodies is a DCA project which produces an interactive art installation in hospitals to help relieve the stress of patients. I was super eager to learn about how the interactivity is enabled - phidget sensors and active script Flash programming make the ferns grow in the forest scene. Amy has had to hand code the active script herself - she reckons she’s the first to use it with motion sensors in this way. She gave up on using Max/msp+jitter because the colours lost saturation when she brought her video files across.
Scrapyard Challenge Workshops
OPEN_SAILING
Open_Sailing is an international community trying to develop the International_Ocean_Station as an open-source project, developing hardware and software to enable intelligent human activities at sea. The project started as an apocalyptic design response unit, but has evolved into a voluntary exploration community of passionate amateurs, inventors and scientists.
Open_Sailing 4 minutes concept from Cesar Harada on Vimeo.
The oceans covers more than 74% of the surface of the earth. The annual budget for space exploration is more than a thousand times the ocean exploration budget, yet there is so much to learn from the oceans and to do there. Life started in water, the majority of humans live at less than 150 km from the coast. We urgently need a new generation of semi-permanent affordable and sustainable architecture to explore and study the oceans, understand biodiversity, monitor climate change, address marine pollution, invent new modes of sustainable aquaculture, create data mesh networks, produce renewable energies, for navigation safety purposes and much more.
GRAFITTI RESEARCH LAB
My favourite project from GRL is their action at the NYC office of Homeland Security.
Campaign for Obama’s to line dry their washing
I adore this site. It has all the elements that make a successful campaign; beautiful design, wry humour and a clever concept linking a simple action to a global problem. Brought to us by the most fabulous design agency I shot him because I loved him damn him.
Experiment in Deviation
Carsten Holler’s Experiment in Deviation, also known as The Baudouin/Boudwijn Experiment, is inspired by late H.M. Baudouin, King of Belgium. When King Baudouin was declared incapable of governing the country for twenty-four hours on April 1990 he suspended his royal activities during this period.
The Baudouin Experiment took place between 10:00am on September 27th until 10:00am on September 28th in one of Belgium’s most famous architectural landmarks, the Atomium. This building was built for the 1958 World Fair in Brussels and imitates the structure of an atom made up of nine spheres connected by tubes. The space was turned into an area in which could hold up to 100 people who were invited to spend twenty-four hours in the space, stepping out of their normal everyday ‘productive’ lives and into this closed area to the outside world. Any public access was denied so the participants were allowed to cease their normal activities and do nothing at all.
Essentially, the experiment was created to experience what happens when people are freed their usual constraints and yet collectively confined to a particular space and time. There were not documents by means of film or video. The only documentation was the recordings of the memories of the participants and the stories they may tell after the event. However, the experiment is completely unscientific, since objectivity is not the aim. Instead, it is a unique opportunity to experience together the possibilities of escape from one’s daily routine, to participate in a unique event with an unclear outcome.
Full Code Press
Your Call On Coal
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