Primal Source by Usman Haque was an all-night performance/installation brought to life through the active participation of festival-goers at Glow 08. Making use of a large-scale outdoor waterscreen/mist projection system, the mirage-like installation glowed with colours and ebullient patterns created in response to the competing and collaborative voices, music and screams of people nearby.

Another interactive dreamlike design. This time it is from Usman Haque. It is made for the Glow Festival 2008. The holograms are changing by the surrounding voices and the music.

For the video of the installation click here.

Last week at Ecobuild, at the end of his BIM and social media presentation (see EE post), Birmingham-based architect Rob Annable wondered if it might be possible to use energy usage monitoring tools such as Pachube in combination with social media as a way of creating energy efficiency competitions between building occupiers.

According to Earth2Tech (Green Social Network Startups Tap Competition to Fight Climate Change), there are already at least two US firms, Carbonrally and Climate Culture, that are aiming to use the power of social networks on the web to tackle climate change. Carbonrally is already working on a project with US teen magazine, Seventeen, to create – at this stage, not particularly challenging – competitions to take actions to reduce carbon emissions, while Climate Culture is targeting university students to get them to pledge to reduce emissions.

And late last month, AMEE (like Rob and Pachube, a participant in Be2camp 2008) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers announced the launch of a Facebook application, Carbon Bigfoot by PwC, that enables environmentally conscious individuals to calculate their carbon footprint based upon three metrics: shelter, commute and devices. The application can be automatically added to Facebook status updates and shared among friends. Users can also compare their carbon footprint with friends and exchange ideas to lessen their environmental impact.

While the Web 2.0/Generation Y cohort are more likely to incorporate carbon-cutting actions into their online social networking, these initiatives currently sound a little superficial. Wouldn’t it be better if these challenges were monitored to see what measurable reductions were actually being achieved? Maybe Usman Haque and his Pachube colleagues should approach these firms and/or their competition partners and offer some support? Maybe there’s scope for similar campaigns run by UK organisations that could build on the US efforts to embrace social networks and give some demonstrable emission reductions?

So now have the work started for preparing for the upcoming course physical prototyping 2 advanced. Will do a theme in the course with interactive architecture reconnecting back to my time at Aup and also because it feels like it is in the time right now. More and more buildings get hooked up and start to be “intelligent”. This will be my first course which I will be primarily responsible which feels really nice. Of course I will heavily rely on my colleges here in the lab to help me out and without them everything would collapse… Will be a fun autumn to see what can be built at the end.

Here is some of the information and examples I will probably show. If anyone else have anything please send a note. Will be a lot of stuff from Usman Haque which I think is a really interesting artist and creator. Will also hopefully be using his pachube to do some experiments.

http://www.haque.co.uk/

http://www.pachube.com/

The next 5000 days of the web (TED talk)

Interactive light displays seem to be all the rage…

This past Saturday was Glow.  Located on the Santa Monica Pier, this free contemporary art exhibit of light was inspired by Nuit Blance in Paris.  One of the major highlights was Usman Haque’s Primal Source - an aurora borealis-type exhibit built out of a huge water spray screen with rear projected light patterns.  The changing display was controlled by crowd reaction and ambient noise caught on the microphones set up in front of the display.  If you are interested in seeing Primal Source in action, watch this video!

And last year, even God got in on this action with his own exhibit called Evoke.  A massive interactive light projection on York Minster’s western facade.  Can I get an AMEN?

Fused were invited to the press preview of The Public this morning so we went for a mooch around to take a look.

Driving up to the building from the main road in to West Bromwich (coming from Birmingham) makes for an impressive view. The building stands proud amongst the rest of the regeneration happening around the town. Inside the building’s pink touches from the outside take presidence – pink walls and neon lighting are all around the building.

Although it may not seem obvious at first art is all around. When you go in to the Public Gallery you are presented with a tag which you carry around with you. The tag holds information about you and as you carry on through the building pieces of work begin to react with you.
The abstract steel trees are placed around the gallery and have been created by Ben Kelly who built his reputation as the designer behind Manchester’s Hacienda and Factory Records HQ. The trees (pictured below)  hold information and orientation of the buidling but also ask you questions: What is your favourite colour; Choose a face you like; Have your picture taken, etc. All of this information gets ‘flown’ around the building and pops up on different pieces of work.

Not only does the work interact with you the visitor but a majority of it has also had significant input from the people living in and around Sandwell. The first exhibition on display is by Paris based artist Esther Shalev-Gerz whose piece ‘Les Portaits des Histories’ asks local residents – ‘What Story Must Be Told Today?’. The work stretches over 2 spaces – one that includes the questions answered by people from all over the world and one by the local residents.

The temporary exhibition programme will change every 8-10 weeks with no ‘dark’ periods to worry about. Curator Jason E. Bowman wants to make sure that there is a flowing and continuous programme so that visitors never miss out.

Other works around the Public Gallery include an animation project where visitors take images and make an instant animation – this was developed with a local school. As were the images of faces used in Blast Theory’s ‘Flypad’ one of the biggest peices in the gallery.

Flypad creates a 3D avatar using the images and faces visitors picked out early on in their visit. By standing on a moveable pad you get to fly in space, move and interact with your fellow visitors – swapping bodies and playing games.

Technology is very much at the fore of this space and another peice ‘Datafall’ – which resembles an electronic waterfall – also reacts to people in similar ways, changing colour as they approach. ‘Flower of my Secret’ by Usman Haque is another peice that lets you tell secrets in to ‘flower beds’ and once its gauged your mood it presents you with an electronic flower – unique to you.

The pieces are truly innovative and are going to be a lot of fun to play around with and at the end of your visit you can buy a peice of your own work – a badge, a CD Rom with editing software, a tee shirt – all with your own work made from your visit and interaction with the pieces.

This weekend sees the gallery open for free which would be an excellent opportunity to get around and take a look. Click here to see our pick of what is going on.

We will be updating with more information on the individual pieces, how they work and the artists behind them soon.

This week the West end of York Minster is being used for a brilliant ‘live’ light show. Here’s the link to the Minster news post.

The lighting of the building covers to full 60m height of the West end and is dynamically created from several microphones which passers by can speak or sing into. The effect, as friend also watching tonight said, is like the visual effect you get in Microsoft Media player or iTunes … but better. Another friend I saw there said ‘its more adictive than Facebook!’