or: Ben van Berkel meets meso. Portikus/Frankfurt 2007.

ampop during the setup

In the last month I was part of a really nice project here in Frankfurt. Let’s start with some official words:
“Ben van Berkel & the Theatre of Immanence is a combined art and architectural exhibition wherein the different parts in the exhibition are synthesised into a complete whole. The exhibition stages a theatre or space of communication: communication between the visitors and the exhibited works, between the virtual and the real, between the different visitors in the gallery and between the different parts in the exhibition. Throughout its period, the architectural installation will serve as a hub for various events including lectures, art performances, and hosted talks with invited guests, DJ-sessions that are to be broadcast and more.”

Our part was developing a solution for projecting on the piece of architecture, and developing and implementing the interaction. We created a vvvv application which enables us to use the 3dimensional surface for our projections in a very comfortable way, and allows to using more than typical 2d content but also things like volumetric textures and virtual lights. We called it “a case study in augmented architecture”. It is an attempt to create a reactive surface of extraordinary spatial complexity.
The interaction works over the internet - you can try it here (only when the exhibition is opened).
The exhibition ends on January 13th.

Some of my photos made during the setup (that’s why the projections are not fitting perfectly!):

official post at meso.net / official site Portikus / review art-magazin (german) / review transform-magazine (click “interior”)

Dazed Digital did a nice behind the scene coverage about three studios/artists from London, working primarily with light. Enjoy listening to the people who did great projects, but be aware of a very bad sound quality:
United Visual Artists (Website), Jason Bruges Studio (Website), David Batchelor.

via interactive architecture (thanks for being back at business finally!)

The IAA is already over for this year, but it’s still worth writing some lines about the impressive Mercedes Benz hall.
Heart of this completely modified hall was the “Carwalk” - a huge (50×15m) LED surface on the floor, where the silver cars were placed on. It was partly fed with interactive content by VVVV, realized by Atelier Markgraph and meso.
The whole atmosphere of the hall was really stunning, also because of a perfect combination of all components like light, interior design and moving images. But the total costs must be beyond my imagination…

Also remarkable was the presentation of Mini, where the Pfadfinderei did livevisuals for the complete duration.
Respect :)

Dual photography? Not easy to understand…

“Let’s say there’s some hot naked chick standing by a window, except she’s facing away from it so all you can see is her back. She’s watching NBC.
Luckily, you’re the president of NBC. You make a phone call and tell the network to interrupt programming and instead send out a video that illuminates each pixel, one at a time, in order.
While this is going on, you record the wall behind her TV. Your crappy video camera has only a 1×1 pixel resolution, but this doesn’t matter. Do a bunch of math based on your recording, and you can reconstruct an image of what she looks like from the TV’s point of view. If her TV has a 1920×1080 resolution, you get a clear, 1920×1080, hi-res image.
So see? Without this technology, you wouldn’t get to see what her boobs look like.” (raldi at reddit)

The official video shows it up visually, especially at the end. Sounds amazing!

The Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich is currently exhibiting a Dan Flavin retrospective. I visited it yesterday, and it’s really recommendable for everyone who’s interested in minimal art, light and colours. How he uses the space and plays with the physical behaviour of the eye really made me a fan of his work. It’s exhibited until the 8th of April, go there and watch it. The entrance fee is just 1 Euro on Sundays. Note to self: renew student id.

Akarium Call is a fascinating light installation in Tokyo, created by Semitransparent Design, 777interactive and Exonemo. The light is controlled by an audio analysis which you can call with your telephone. So you are able to some kind of phone with the whole Omotesando Avenue. A lovely concept in an enormous scope.

via Pixelsumo (one of my favourites!)

I didn’t blog about “volume” yet, not because I don’t like it but because nearly every multimedia blogger did this. I’m changing this now, because I went to London this weekend and visited the installation in the V&A backyard.

Yes, it is as amazing as it looks like!
As you can also see in the official video, there are different themes which are cycled. The one in the image above is the most popular and graphically interesting one, but works more as some kind of screensaver between different, more interactive settings. The one I liked most is the green theme, which is also shown in the video. But I found out that I haven’t seen them all.
What I did not find out is how the motiontracking is done. I haven’t seem cameras, and the ground on which it’s built is wooden and not sensory at all. I guess it’s some kind of a huge Theremin, which is built in each tower, because the distance you have to the lights is not only measured in one axis - it reacts on how you move in the forward semi circle.*
A very impressing fact is that there are different speakers in each LED tower, what makes the audiovisual experience more perfect.

People of all ages seemed to be fascinated. A little child sat in his baby buggy, and more aged people in chairs, watching people walking through and changing the lights and atmosphere. Go there, if you have the opportunity!

* update: another look at the making of pictures showed that it’s done with infrared indeed.