Architec Tradure

Category: body

  • 24NovAn intelligent bar of soap!

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    The Bar of Soap, created by Michael Bove, Stacie Slotnick and Brandon Taylor at the MIT Media Laboratory, is a handheld device that recognizes how it is being held and adjusts its functionality accordingly. For instance if you want to make a phone call, just hold the bar of soap like a phone!

    The device senses the pattern of touch and orientation when it is held, and reconfigures to become one of a variety of devices, such as phone, camera, remote control, PDA, or game machine. Pattern-recognition techniques allow the device to infer the user’s intention based on grasp. We are now adding display surfaces across the entire device so that buttons and indicators can be created where needed for a particular mode.


  • 27NovTransitional objects

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    Filet From the series Hommage au Sol – accesoires de prolongement du corps, objets transitionels de perception

    1989-1994

    Marie-Claire Bevar works with textiles, transforms them, adds all kinds of other materials to them, turns them into objects which has been her passion and necessity since childhood.

    After collaborating both in trade and in theater, she decided to create objects as part of a personal introspection expressing itself through propositions evolving around the theme of the body. Both in Hommage au Sol and in L’Avant-Bras, Le Lien, Le Trait d’Union on one side and in Artextilabo, a laboratory of experimentations.



    Doré

    Hommage au Sol focuses around the foot and its relation to the ground. It includes accessories extending the body, transitory objects of perception, photos, videos and written documentation.



    Venise

    L’Avant-Bras, Le Lien, Le Trait d’Union is a work in progress. First she experimented with materials and techniques proper to the theme. A first series of objects were created, and now the artist is reflecting on them, furthering her research and figuring out how to stage them and present them to the public.

    Chatting with Paulina on transitional objects made me revisit its classical roots. And what a pleasure to re-read Jerome Singer and his wife Dorothy’s -authors of the awesome house of make believe book– fascinating journal paper from which I quote:

    One possible route to the beginnings of the creation of miniaturized virtual realities by the very young may emerge in the course of older babies’ or toddlers’ manifestations of what the psychoanalyst, Winnicott (1971), termed involvement with “transitional objects.” Early on many children become attached to a soft cloth or to some combination of an old crib blanket and a “plush” toy, a cloth bunny rabbit, bear, or lamb. The well-known Peanuts’ cartoons’ youngest character, Linus, carries a worn blanket around all day and clings to it tenaciously. Such behavior generally meets those criteria of play developed in the research of Smith and Vollstedt (1985), nonliteralness and associated positive affect. Actually, one might propose that the tenacity with which children cling to these objects even as they fade in color, shrink or become ragged, may reflect the very beginnings of an experience of autonomy (“my blankie”) and personal ownership, a primordial expression of our nearly universal adult sense of private property upon which whole societies and legal systems are constructed.

    In Singer, Jerome L. & Singer, Dorothy G. (2006). Preschoolers’ imaginative play as precursor of narrative consciousness. Imagination, Cognition and Personality 25 (2):97-117.

    By Architectradure


  • 26DecAlgorithmic film assembly using toy gestures

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    A new input device for video capturing and editing! Designed for young children, ages five and up, it allows them to craft compelling movies through the motion analysis of their interaction with toys.



    A child playing with Picture This and his Naruto action figure

    Continuing my research on perspective taking and tangible video editing, I recently finished the development of Picture This, a video editing and capturing device designed for young children. It allows them to craft compelling movies through the motion analysis of their interaction with toys. Children’s favorite props alternate between characters and cameramen in a film. As children play with the toys to act out a story, they conduct algorithmic film assembly.

    Picture This’s web site.

    In my prior work, Moving Pictures, I wanted to offer children the opportunity to gather imagery from their environment in the form of short video clips captured on video camera platforms modified for the application. I wanted to provide a transparent experience for the user, in which the cumbersome process of capturing and editing becomes fluid in the improvisation of a story and accessible as a way to create a final movie.

    Web site for my past work on Moving Pictures.

    Tangible interfaces combine operations on physical objects with digital data. I have sought to develop interfaces where either digital data can be overlaid onto physical objects in a display space or physical objects can act as handles into the digital space. The tangible handle is more than a marker or place-holder for digital data. It has the power to materialize and redefine our conception of space and content during the creative process.

    If the toy had a visual perspective immediately accessible to the child, a new world would be opened to her. The toy could potentially bring the child into exploring visual and narrative perspectives of these character props, expanding her discovery and understanding of social interrelationships.

    A video snippet of Picture This and a 6 minutes video for its interaction design.

    The Picture this tool is an audiovisual device that combines two digital video cameras and two accelerometers. The tool captures motions, video and sound in real-time while an algorithmic video editing system composes a movie from these inputs. A motion based editing engine fluidly assembles the film as its story is being narrated, while respecting the conventions of continuity editing, namely, a sequence of shots that appear to be continuous.

    This style of film editing is made possible in Picture This by detecting turn taking behaviors between the toys. Two toy props are augmented with video cameras and custom accelerometer hardware. They use the Picture This tool both as a doll hand-bag or a doll audiovisual recorder. The tool is flexible for a child to take the perspective of props she selected for her movie.

    Also my portfolio for selected projects is finally online!


  • 26DecAlgorithmic film assembly using toy gestures

    If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

    A new input device for video capturing and editing! Designed for young children, ages five and up, it allows them to craft compelling movies through the motion analysis of their interaction with toys.


    A child playing with Picture This and his Naruto action figure

    Continuing my research on perspective taking and tangible video editing, I recently finished the development of Picture This, a video editing and capturing device designed for young children. It allows them to craft compelling movies through the motion analysis of their interaction with toys. Children’s favorite props alternate between characters and cameramen in a film. As children play with the toys to act out a story, they conduct algorithmic film assembly.

    Picture This’s web site.

    In my prior work, Moving Pictures, I wanted to offer children the opportunity to gather imagery from their environment in the form of short video clips captured on video camera platforms modified for the application. I wanted to provide a transparent experience for the user, in which the cumbersome process of capturing and editing becomes fluid in the improvisation of a story and accessible as a way to create a final movie.

    Web site for my past work on Moving Pictures.

    Tangible interfaces combine operations on physical objects with digital data. I have sought to develop interfaces where either digital data can be overlaid onto physical objects in a display space or physical objects can act as handles into the digital space. The tangible handle is more than a marker or place-holder for digital data. It has the power to materialize and redefine our conception of space and content during the creative process.

    If the toy had a visual perspective immediately accessible to the child, a new world would be opened to her. The toy could potentially bring the child into exploring visual and narrative perspectives of these character props, expanding her discovery and understanding of social interrelationships.

    A video snippet of Picture This and a 6 minutes video for its interaction design.

    The Picture this tool is an audiovisual device that combines two digital video cameras and two accelerometers. The tool captures motions, video and sound in real-time while an algorithmic video editing system composes a movie from these inputs. A motion based editing engine fluidly assembles the film as its story is being narrated, while respecting the conventions of continuity editing, namely, a sequence of shots that appear to be continuous.

    This style of film editing is made possible in Picture This by detecting turn taking behaviors between the toys. Two toy props are augmented with video cameras and custom accelerometer hardware. They use the Picture This tool both as a doll hand-bag or a doll audiovisual recorder. The tool is flexible for a child to take the perspective of props she selected for her movie.

    Also my portfolio for selected projects is finally online!

  • 24JanHugging my furniture

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    A landscape designed for the body. These livingstones, “les coussins galets” created by French designer Stephanie Marin, remind me of Ernesto Neto’s work. I stumbled upon these and I love them. I can now embrace my furniture, discover the spaces inside, around and between my body!

    See also the felt rocks by Molo!

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle

    ♥ Architectradure

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  • 31JanTwirl the reactive skirt

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    Twirl    , created by Megan Galbraith, is a dynamic and reactive skirt that is controlled using a fuzzy logic reasoning algorithm, and programmed with a fuzzy logic controller, dixit Megan. This skirt has a bend sensor embedded along the seam of the back side, and it thus detects when the wearer is standing up straight, sitting down, or bending over. The sprinning flourishes alter their behavior based on the posture of the wearer.

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle

    Architectradure

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  • 31JanTwirl the reactive skirt

    If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!



    Twirl    , created by Megan Galbraith, is a dynamic and reactive skirt that is controlled using a fuzzy logic reasoning algorithm, and programmed with a fuzzy logic controller, dixit Megan. This skirt has a bend sensor embedded along the seam of the back side, and it thus detects when the wearer is standing up straight, sitting down, or bending over. The sprinning flourishes alter their behavior based on the posture of the wearer.

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle

    ♥ Architectradure

    ………………………………………


  • 07FebMutsugoto

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    Mutsugoto is an interactive installation that invites couples to experience an intimate communication over a distance created by Tomoko Hayashi, Stefan Agamanolis and Matthew Karau.





    Begin by laying on the bed and wearing the special ring. As you relax and think about your partner, gently move your hand around your body. These movements are traced on your own body as well as your partner laying in the other bed. Twinkling spots give a hint of where your partner is drawing. If you follow your partner’s movements and your strokes cross, the lines will react with each other and reflect your synchrony.

    Don’t forget to check the beautiful video of Mutsugoto. This is the first time I’ve seen ambient remote communication being that beautifully achieved and that sensual.

    In 2003 Tomoko Hayashi created Intimacy is a series of accessories for people who exist in a long-distance relationship. The accessories are a combination of ties or undergarments with jewelry such as necklace or ring. Each accessory encloses jewelry inside and is heat-pressed to make an embossed pattern of the jewelry on its surface. Lovers can take the jewelry out to give it as a gift to their lover in a distant location. This allows lovers to share the memory of the object remotely and feel close to each other. The embossed pattern will fade away little by little (through pressure, moisture or heat) with daily use. When they meet again, the lovers can recreate the pattern by pressing the piece with a very hot iron.



    Posted by Cati Vaucelle

    ♥ Architectradure

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  • 27FebLife-size dolls

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    London Life. Concept: Scarlet Projects and Matt Higgs

    Laforet Museum presented a snapshot of London life as seen through the eyes of 10 of the brightest new stars on the London scene. A mixture of young designers, architects, club promoters, stylists, models and artists, came together to present their own particular style, and give us a glimpse into their personal and distinctive view of London life.

    Each person was represented by a life-size doll, packaged like a Barbie Doll, and dressed by themselves in their own selected clothing. Their lifestyle was presented through the packaging – with accessories as well as personal information about them, detailing their favorite things and places. A tv monitor incorporated into the packaging played a personal video diary.

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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  • 28FebAccessories for lonely men

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    My friends Burak, Yasmine, and Jonah mentioned an exhibition at the Moma that I checked online. I now plan a trip to New York to attend it. Among the many stimulating pieces, I selected this very funny set of electronic objects in the vein of Design Noir, which I believe could sadly become a commercial hit! Accessories for lonely men are eight electronic devices designed to alleviate loneliness by stimulating the -sometimes annoying- traces that one’s companion would normally leave behind.

    The collection includes a Sheet Thief, which “winds the bedclothes up on the other side of the bed while you’re sleeping”. Other joys of sharing a bed are re-created with Cold feet and a Heavy Breather that breathes hot air down the user’s neck. In the morning the Hair Alarm Clock swings hair across the user’s face to wake him, while the steel finger of the Chest-Hair Curler gently swirls his chest hair in concentric circles.


    Accessories for lonely men by Noam Toran, photos Frank Thurston

    Jonah’s piece the WIFI-HOG is included in the show. The Wifi Hog is a tactical tool to liberate public WiFi Nodes!

    “Wi-Fi Hog is personal system for a laptop or portable computer that enables people to gain complete control over a public access wireless network. The idea is presented as an alternative to the utopian vision of wireless networks being open, shared, and utilitarian for everyone. This project is a cautionary one, and comes as a reaction to the battle over free wireless spectrum where corporate pay-per-use and free community networks are fighting for signal dominance in public spaces. Wifi-Hog exists as a tactical media tool for controlling and subverting this claim of ownership and regulation over free spectrum, by allowing a means of control to come from a third-party.”

    Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition opens February 24th, 2008 at New Yorks Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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