I haven’t been updating my blog as much as I was throughout the year over the last month due to one main reason, I’ve been so busy with finishing the last few weeks of my four year degree. I finished on the 16th of October and since then I have been working for a Laboratory on campass called the HITLab NZ [Human Interface Technology] doing some Graphic Design and Video editing for a documentary on their work. I’m using an amazing Mac Pro G5 8 cored Xeon, 8Gb of RAM and two 30″ Cinema Displays! It has been a good experience. I’ll put a link up to the video once I’ve finished working on it.

In the mean time—check out my online portfolio at the new creatives network CargoCollective.com!

More photos here.

Technology is advancing so rapidly allowing people to explore their creativity through it so much more. Every year new computer systems are designed, new interfaces are developed and as a creative professional, it’s our job to utilise these technologies—exploring and taking them beyond places previously ever imagined. The majority of the schools within the arts (such as Photography, Film and Design) rely on technology to enhance, alter or in some way generate work. As this technology begins to get more complex and advanced, logically, so can the work we create with it. Software has begun to get so complex that people spend their entire lives working towards developing it, and others therefore using it—like the Adobe Creative Suite. So what is this ‘hyperreality’? It’s not natural, nor is it virtual—its somewhere in between or a multitude of these states of thinking. Hyperreality is then some kind of enhanced or altered state of reality. There are two parts to this way of thinking; there are hyper real objects or forms that have been intentionally changed, and there are people or—lets call them ‘proxy’ that live in a constant state of hyperreality mimicking someone else, always attempting to be like something else, and therefore not themselves. Today’s popular culture, media and mass consumerists can be seen as occupying a hyper real world. Objects are falsely altered to become more desirable, wanted and needed, to blindly sell and make more revenue. Therefore people strive to be like cultural or celebrity icons, who use these products, rather than being themselves. People strive to be like cultural or celebrity icons, rather than being themselves. Some people even live in a way where everything is taken care of for them, like the lives of celebrities which can be seen as a hyperreality. Sometimes losing the main essence of life like simply communicating to people. The opposite of this is someone trying to imitate the lives of others portrayed in the media, television or film, after watching this fabricated world they then wish to be part of it themselves, which becomes a hyperreality. Hyperreality is a means to characterise the way our consciousness defines what is actually ‘real’ in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter the original event or experience being depicted. Frenchman—Jean Baudrillard, argues that we live in a world in which simulations and imitations of reality have become more real than reality itself, He calls this condition ‘Hyperreality’ . Artists have been exploring ideas of reality for some time now, and thanks to technology the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not part of reality—is actually quite difficult. Although, in some cases people choose not to, living in a constant state of what is called ‘hyperreality’.

Advertising and Consumerism are a perfect example of imagery and film that’s intentionally altered to create a perfect world, where you purchase a particular product; all your problems will be resolved, which obviously—is a false hyperreality. Because realistically it’s not going to happen—this is also true with mass communications such as television and movies, even radio and music. Further more; video games are a prime example of some kind of alternate virtual reality. Games such as World of Warcraft—a massively online role playing game lets players indirectly interact with people through their computers. The player moves through a virtual computer generated world quite literally filled with millions of other real players/people—some people become so immersed in this hyperreality that all they want to do is constantly be immersed within it. Contrastively, what most people call virtual reality is some what different, its another step forward to literally being in another world. A virtual reality allows someone to navigate or move quite literally through a computer simulated environment physically using high tech equipment such as a heads up display and electronic receptive clothing such as gloves and shoes, making full body immersion and interaction possible.

When considering reality, virtual reality and hyperreality, one almost immediately thinks of video games. Now that the video game industry has grown bigger than the film industry, its visual language has become so accepted that it is beyond fictional. Virtual computer worlds are becoming increasingly real and blended with our physical world, to the point that games are in some ways—even more real than life. In some online role playing games, aspiring participants have to write an application letter in order to be accepted into a certain group or clan. We still have to get used to the fact that you can earn an income with gaming now, but how normal is it anyway that at the bakery you can trade a piece of paper – called money – for bread. Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as “reality by proxy”—for example; a viewer watching pornography begins to live in the nonexistent world of pornography, and even though pornography is not an accurate depiction of sex, for the viewer the reality of sex becomes something nonexistent. Pornography therefore becomes sexier than sex itself. Most people would denounce spending too much time in a virtual world, but which world should be called virtual then? Simply defining the virtual as the opposite to physical is perhaps too simple. The word virtual has different meanings that are often entangled and used without further consideration. Sometimes we used to think the word virtual meant ‘almost real’, while at the same time we mean imaginary and hyper real.

It would be naïve to think hyperreality is limited to video games. In a sense all reality is hyperreal, it is constructed through our cognition and sensory organs. Reality is not so much ‘out there’ rather it is what we pragmatically consider to be ‘out there’. Ever since the first paintings, sculptures and architecture were perceived, people have been interacting with art, objects and form by simply looking at it, or even touching it, but the art generally doesn’t respond to those acts of interaction. But what I’m interested in is the recent advances in technology allowing artists to generate truly interactive art on more levels than just simply looking at it. Involving a persons senses in a whole new way, but also in what seems a natural way. This type of interactive work then begins to bring something new generating emotion, feelings and other things to the experience. All whilst having a certain unpredictability about the whole thing. Installations in gallery spaces can often come across as vacant cold and boring, but by bringing in a sense of interaction whether it be through physical touch, movement or sound suddenly people begin forming a bond with the work—a relationship, even emotions come into play. Another huge part of an interactive work is the uncertainty or that sense of discovery, the process of figuring out how to interact with the work itself. A quote from Wikipedia justifies the definition of interaction perfectly; “Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect on one another”. “The idea of a two way effect is essential in the concept of interaction” .

Now, after discussing the differences between hyper real, virtual reality and reality, I’d like to explore where they meet, and how they affect art. At the moment a work of art is placed into a gallery, people begin de constructing it, and looking at it from every possible angle they can. They really start thinking about the work in different ways. So as soon as an artist alters a work, digitally or physically it becomes something new, something different something hyper real. For example, I’d like to look at Build , and particularly a designer named Mathew Falla . Falla uses conventional print display systems to create animated posters. A kind of merged media installational conceptionalist, in a way—dissecting the intersection of graphic and interaction design. Falla can be seen employing media from print to motion, generating a digital environment from a conceptual idea. The work ‘IT’S OK TO TOUCH’ made in 2007 in London, is an A1 interactive poster design for the “Intergraphics” show in the London ARAM Gallery. Users can interact with the piece by touching the conductive ink, this then triggers a series of events (slogans, FlickR feeds and animations) beamed direct (via Bluetooth) onto the poster using a high resolution projector. The screen print—with gloss UV varnish, fluorescent green ink and silver granules (suspended in a solvent) is executed in a marvelous way. Although this concept seems very unique and original, projectors are now being executed by many artists around the world. Installational art using projectors and interactive elements through touch by receptive surfaces or motion sensors are becoming much more common. I like the relationship that begins to build up between the viewer and the technology behind the piece.

I’d like to look at a number of other artists—all of which can be perceived as having hyper real elements to their work in some way or another. I think there is something interesting with the idea of taking imagery from video games, set in a virtual 3D space and completely flattening them by print, or even generating a painting from it. I’ve always been interested in the distinction between Video Games and Art, and even the idea of Video Games as an art form, which in my point of view, Video Games can be an ultimate collaboration of many areas of the Arts. James Barnnett does exactly that. Although this is a different approach again, creating something new from an existing Video Game and bringing it out of it’s native medium and putting it into something new—Painting. James Barnnett himself said; “A series of landscapes painted from video games. These aren’t from screens hots I found online; I navigated around inside of each of the games until I found a composition I liked, and then made a painting of it.” . Hyper real paintings by Adam Stennett (b.1972) are executed with the utmost attention to detail, but clearly the detail has been exaggerated ever so slightly making the images look larger than life, unreal. For example; the water that features in a number of his works is oddly realistic, but there’s also something else about it, something uncanny, something different. Moving onto a light based installation piece, Japanese based designer and artist Makoto Tojiki (b.1975). I’m absolutely blown away by his projects, and in particular this work titled “The Man with No Shadow”. Although this specific work isn’t interactive, it’s a great example of how technology can imitate nature, in this case, lights are imitating the human form. The work is created completely from LED lights suspended in space. I love how this work blends ideas of human nature with electronics and technology. Quite literally blurring the lines and also bringing in ideas of Hyperreality—by creating the human form digitally. A direct quote from Makoto illustrates his ideas for people to look at things in a different way “I hope the message I convey in a product changes the way people look at things” .

The most fascinating in interactive work I’ve come across is that of ‘Multitouch Barcelona’ . Multitouch Barcelona is a small collaboration of people working on using surfaces to create interactive work with. They explore the way in which people connect with surfaces, communicating with the technology and how these trigger emotions. They attempt to use the entirety of the human body to interact with a given work, generally in front of a large format—custom designed screen. After developing tabletop multitouch technology and working with that, they began moving onto a conceptual installational space where large screens were used, on a wall generating a huge touch surface for one to interact with. Titled “HI–a real human interface” the piece was designed for the Red Bull Music Academy in 2008 and by involving people, it forms a natural relationship with the technology. Its made up of a two projected display system and a multitouch wall some 3 meters in size. Multitouch Barcelona created from the ground up—applications designed to engage the viewer into friendly user experiences rather than flashy visualisations. Space invaders is a prime example, just like the original game except the viewer literally physically throws foam balls at the screen to ‘attack’ the enemies on screen. You can digitally paint with your arms by brushing them across the surface. A physics simulated application lets the user toss around or throw balls about and literally even hold a ball in the ‘digital space’ by pressing against the surface. Multitouch Barcelona tries to “blur the boundaries between real and digital with natural interaction”.

A video installation artist; Sam Smith, based in Australia has created a number of interesting works around the ideas of reality, and digital worlds. His latest work—‘Into the Void’ is a video work which starts off flying over New York City, then walking along city streets, Sam then enters the Museum of Modern Art, walks into a gallery space and then enters literally into a painting. “The artist uses video special-effects to give the illusion of him physically immersing himself in Klein’s famous blue paintings and suspending himself in a sublime realm. The work culminates with Smith’s reinterpretation of Klein’s famous Leap into the Void photograph, where Smith has melded multiple moving-image shots of New York to make up an astonishing, modern-day version of the photograph. The artist hovers not only in space but also in time, suspended in a digital loop” . Sam Smith is a perfect example of a practicing artist interested in concepts of reality and hyperreality. FreeBoard collaborative, a group of enthusiast longboard skateboarders have created this amazing work basically creating a Video Game in reality. The video illustrates them skateboarding down a street in San Francisco at night, while huge numbers of people with large shapes that resemble the classic video game ‘Tetris’ skate down this long steep street, all stopping in a particular formation to recreate a similar visual aesthetic like that of the video game. Ms. & Mr. is a collaboration between Stephanie and Richard nova Milne that has spanned the years since they met in 1998. This couple recently presented a lecture to our Fine Arts Department about their work and life. I found it very interesting, especially their most recent works through video editing. Their idea is to take old family footage from their family vaults ad edit them by placing each other digitally in each others past. In a way they are taking on or playing the role of a god, by changing their own personal memories and history. They are “Interested by the relational mechanics of functioning as a composite, they acknowledge this pursuit as a romantic proposition. Important is their admission to, and misappropriation of scientific theories that remain in the realm of practical fiction”.

The movie ‘eXistenZ’ brings ideas of bio-organic computer systems that one plugs into through a ‘bio-port’. Eventually the characters can’t tell the difference between the virtual and the real world. By being in video game for extended amounts of time, the player temporarily forgetting the difference between the game and reality. A similar idea through film is A Scanner Darkly ; an animated film, where actors appear as abstractions of actors, through the magic of software that pictures them more like sketchy, baggy simulations. Every now and then, parts of the screen suddenly resemble undoctored photographic images. The film tells the story of identity and deception in a near-future dystopia constantly monitored by intensive high-technology police surveillance in the midst of a drug addiction epidemic. The main character plays with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result. To give the film its distinct look, the movie was filmed digitally and then animated using interpolated rotoscope over the original footage. Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, although this device has been replaced by computers in recent years it is surely a perfect example of taking a untouched image and turning it into something else, something digital. The Matrix; is well known for its ideas of artificial intelligence, computer programs, virtual and hyperrealities. During the story a computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against the controllers of it.

This brings me to a number of ideas brought forward from Japanese anime series. Set in the future, Ergo Proxy is a story about a group of AI or intelligent robots who become infected, with something called the cognito virus. They begin to become aware of their own existence. So these robots, which have been tools of humans decide to go on an adventure to search for themselves. They have to decide wether the virus that infected them created their identities, or whether they gained their identity through their own experiences. This question is meant to represent our own depiction over whether we become who we are because of our environment, or because of things that are inherent to us. Does our current situation, ie living in a partial virtual or hyper real world affect this, well ofcourse it does. The robots are named after philosophers, Derrida, Lacan and Husseul. Another Japanese anime series similar to Ergo Proxy, is Death Note . A generic everyday teenage student happens to receive a superhuman power and controls the way in which people die, and how they die. The contrast between that and this type of ultimate happy utopian civilisation is huge. Set in a modern day Japan, the narrative is totally fictional and brings in ideas of ones reason to live—‘Raison d’être’.

Similar to Anime and Manga, Comics can portray any kind of story, which can express ideas of hyperreality and virtual realty. Popular producers of comic book series Marvel Comics and DC Comics both have their unique fantasy universes with interesting fictional superheroes and out of this world environments. As a child I read these growing up and there is an obvious impact that this has had on me as a person and my imagination, feeding these ideas of hyperrealites, even if some what unaware of it at the time. This surely has an effect upon our younger generations in the way that it effects what they see as reality. Another example of comics in a different context would be Aha’s music video ‘Take On Me’ which is based around the idea of being able to enter a hand drawn comic and move around this world. Similarly, growing up reading books such as Frank Herberts DUNE series, reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and watching such movie series as George Lucas’ Star Wars generated many ideas within me that really are so far fetched they’ll never actually become a reality, but definitely have an affect on the mind, expanding its ideas. And now that the video game industry has become much larger that the film industry a newer younger generation will be affected differently with a different background and approach, with questions of reaity involved.

As hundreds of millions of gamers join in battle against hordes of enemies in a hyper realistic virtual reality, connected together through the internet, are they just taking steps towards using advanced technology or are they intentionally stepping aside from their real realities and escaping into a carefree world where they can do quite literally anything they’ve ever dreamed of, in a neither here nor there world? Although not limited to the digital world of games, more examples of hyperreality could include ideas of; a sports drink of a flavour that doesn’t even exist, photoshopped models, a well manicured garden—nature as hyper real, massively promoted historical facts—altered through the media, professional sports athletes perceived as super and invincible humans, locations such as Disney World, Las Vegas, TV and film, in particular—reality TV, invented personas and celebrities. We are now living in a society, in which simulations are often, more influential, satisfying and meaningful than the things they are presumed to represent.

Our brain is able to construct ‘reality’ by combining and comparing sensory perceptions with what we expect and already know. For example when we fill in the gaps i.e. when words are constructed with missing characters and we automatically ‘fill in the gaps’ just by judging the general shape and assuming it should be something else, similar to it. As we descend into the depths of our genes, greet web-cam friends across the ocean, send spaceships to the outskirts of the universe, find our way using GPS, inspect our world with google earth, and as if it is not unusual for healthy right minded people to inform themselves about conditions in the world by spending the evening slouched in front of the T.V we come to realise that our world view is fundamentally being shaped through hyperrealities, surely—the designers of these things have an important responsibility in this regard. As media technologies evolve and are incorporated within our culture, our experience of reality changes along the way. “The simulation of something which never really existed” . This process, is so profound – and one could argue, successfully–that it almost goes without notice, that to a large extent, we are actually living in a hyperrealistic—virtual reality, already.

A-Ha—Take On Me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPgMTIgwS6s&feature=related

Barnett, James:

http://jamesbarnett.net/

Baudrillard, J. (1981) —Simulacra and Simulation.

Published: Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1994.

Build Design Studio:

http://www.wearebuild.com

‘ITS OK TO TOUCH’ Video Installation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMKIgmHHWwQ

Death Note Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i1qcAPEI5U&feature=player_embedded

Ergo Proxy—Opening Sequence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oT2W3gaUBc&feature=player_embedded

eXistenZ Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAdbdUt_h9M

Falla, Mathew:

http://www.mathewfalla.com

http://www.osmotronic.com

Freeboarders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwvc6fmXmuY

Kelly, K. (1952) —Out of Control: the new biology of machines, social systems and the economic world.

Published: New York, Basic Books, c1994.

Maruyama, Shinichi:

http://shinichimaruyama.com/

Matrix Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM5yepZ21pI

Ms and Mr:

http://msandmr.net/

Multi Touch Barcelona Design Studio:

http://www.multitouch-barcelona.com/

Guten Touch: http://vimeo.com/3288753

Scanner Darkly Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpGaOqb2Z8

Smith, Sam:

http://www.samsmith.net.au

‘Into the Void’: http://vimeo.com/6748747

Quote from Blog: http://nextwavetimelapse.blogspot.com/

Stennett, Adam:

http://www.adamstennett.com

Tojiki, Makoto:

http://www.makotojiki.com

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hyperreality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jean_baudrillard

I’m always interested in Indie Developed Video Games, this one called FEZ which isn’t out yet, looks great. Its kinda relevant to what I’m doing right now in the way that I’m looking at pixelation and rasterisation. You play a 2D man/character on a voyage of discovery into the mysterious 3rd dimension. Change your perspective and look at the world in a different way.

Here’s two trailers from the yet to be released game coming out on Xbox Live Arcade in 2010.

Visit the official FEZ website here.

I’m heavily influenced by many kinds of Japanese Anime and thought I’d take the opportunity to share a couple of my favorites with you. Not only for the great execution, animation and story driven designs, but look how beautiful they are drawn! Breathtaking. The character design being part of my favorite aspects.

Ergo Proxy

Mushishi

Gankutsuou

Death Note

Quite a short selection of works this month, I’ve not had as much time to search the internet for inspirational work due to being so busy with university work!

If you’ve read my research essay then you’ll know I’m fascinated by the ideas of reality and hyperreality. During the last few days I’ve been creating a few works around a photograph and some static images of myself which I’ve drawn from.

Basically, the work is about a 30second long clip than can be constantly repeated on a projector. It moves inbetween realms of a clean high resolution image and into a highly pixelated world. There’s also an added figure who appears to come from this pixelated realm. I quite like the contrast between high resolution photographs and intense pixelation. It generates some interesting compositions. Here’s a couple of screen grabs from its current state.

I’ll upload a video to Vimeo eventually.

Another part of our 4th years work involves a rather large and in depth essay on our research topics. I’ve just written up a semi-draft of how this might look, and in what direction I might go with it. Its not due for another two months, and this is about half the length it will be in the final.

Graphic Design Research Essay Draft for DESI401

Creating Hyperrealities through Interactive Conceptual Design.

Technology is advancing so rapidly allowing people to exploring their creativity through it as a medium so much more. Every year new computers are created, new interfaces are developed and as a creative, it’s our job to utilise these technologies, exploring and taking them beyond places previously never imagined. The majority of the schools within the arts rely on technology to enhance or in some way generate work. As this technology begins to get more and more complex and advanced, logically, so does the work we create with it. Software begins to get so complex people spend their entire lives working towards completing it, and others therefore using it. Therefore we are confronted with ideas of reality, hyperreality and virtual reality, which hold within them strong ideas of what is real, and what is not, and how we tell the difference between them. Artists have been exploring these ideas for some time now, and thanks to technology the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not is actually quite difficult. Although in some cases, people chose not to, living in a constant state of what is called hyperreality.

What is a VIRTUAL/HYPERREALITY?

So what is this ‘hyperreality’? It’s not natural, nor is it virtual — its something in between or a multitude of these two things. Hyperreality is then some kind of enhanced or altered state of reality. There are two parts to this way of thinking, there are hyperreal objects or forms that have been intentionally changed for a purpose, and there are people or ‘proxy’ that live in a constant state of hyperreality mimicking someone else, always attempting to be like something else, and therefore not themselves. Today’s culture, media and consumerists can be seen as being a hyperreal world. Objects are altered to become more desirable and wanted or needed. People strive to be like cultural or celebrity icons, rather than being themselves. Some people even live in a way where everything is taken care of for them, like the lives of celebrities which can be seen as a hyperreality. Sometimes losing the main essences of life like simple communication. The opposite of this is someone trying to imitate the lives of others portrayed in the media, television or film, after watching this fabricated world, they then wish to be in it themselves, which becomes a hyperreality.

Advertising and Consumerism are a perfect example of imagery that’s intentionally altered to create a perfect world, where if you purchase a particular product, all your problems will be resolved, which obviously, is a hyperreality—this is also true with mass communications such as television and movies, even radio! Further more Video Games is a prime example, games such as World of Warcraft— a massively online role playing game lets players indirectly interact with people through their computers. The player moves through a computer generated world quite literally filled with millions of other real players/people—unfortunately some people become so immersed in this hyperreality that all they want to do is constantly be immersed within it. Contrastingly, virtual reality is some what different, its another step forward to literally being in another world. A virtual reality allows someone to navigate or move quite literally through a computer simulated environment using high tech equipment such as a heads up display and electronic receptive clothing such as gloves and shoes, giving a full body immersion, and interaction.

What is CONCEPTUAL and INTERACTIVE DESIGN?

Ever since the first paintings, sculptures and architecture was perceived, people have been interacting with art, objects and form by simply looking at it, or even touching it, but the art generally doesn’t respond to those acts of interaction. But what I’m interested in is the recent advances in technology allowing artists to generate truly interactive art on more levels than just simply looking at it. Involving a persons senses in a whole new way, but also in what seems a natural way. This type of interactive work then begins to bring something new generating emotion, feelings and other things to the experience. All whilst having a certain unpredictability about the whole thing. Installations in gallery spaces can often come across as vacant cold and boring, but by bringing in a sense of interaction whether it be through physical touch, movement or sound suddenly people begin forming a bond with the work—a relationship, even emotions come into play. Another huge part of an interactive work is the uncertainty or that sense of discovery, the process of figuring out how to interact with the work itself. A quote from Wikipedia justifies the definition of interaction perfectly; “Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect on one another. The idea of a two way effect is essential in the concept of interaction.”

Where do they MEET?

Now, after defining the differences between hyperreal, virtual reality and interactive design, I’d like to explore where they meet. At the moment a work of art is placed into a gallery, people begin deconstructing it, and looking at in from every possible angel they can. They literally stark laterally thinking about it in every possible way. So, as a soon as an artist alters a work, digitally or physically it becomes something new, something different something hyperreal. For example, I’d like to look at Build, and particularly a designer named Mathew Falla. Falla uses conventional print display systems to create animated posters. A kind of merged media installational conceptionalist, or the intersection of graphic and interaction design. Falla can be seen employing media from print to motion, generating a digital environment from a conceptual idea. The work ‘It’s ok to touch’. Made in December 2007 in London, is an A1 interactive poster design for the “Intergraphics” show in the London ARAM Gallery. Users can interact with the piece by touching the conductive ink, this then triggers a series of events (slogans, FlickR feeds and animations) beamed direct (via Bluetooth) onto the poster using a high resolution projector. The screen print is by K2 on G.F Smith Colourplan, with gloss UV varnish, fluorescent green ink and silver granules (suspended in a solvent). Although this concept seems very unique and original, its now being employed by many artists around the world. Installational art using projectors and interactive elements through touch by receptive surfaces or motion sensors are becoming much more common. I like the sense of a kind of relationship that begins to get built up between the viewer and the electrical technological side of the piece.

EXAMPLES/ARTISTS who create work like this.

I’d like to look at a number of other artists who also employ the use of installations, with interactive aspects to their work, all of which can be perceived as hyperreal in some way or another. Hyperreal paintings by Adam Stennett are executed with the utmost attention to detail, but clearly the detail has been exaggerated ever so slightly making the images look larger than life or not real. For example water features in a number of his works and its scarily realistic looking, but there’s also something else about it, something uncanny, something different. A. Stennett (b.1972) living in Brooklyn New York. Moving onto a light based installation piece, Japanese Based Designer and Artist Makoto Tojiki (b.1975). I’m absolutely blown away by his projects, and in particular this work titled “The Man with No Shadow”. Although this specific work isn’t interactive, it’s a great example of how technology can imitate nature, in this case, lights are imitating the human form. The work is created completely from LED lights suspended in space. I love how this work blends ideas of human nature with electronics and technology. Quite literally blurring the lines, but also bringing in ideas of Hyperreality. A direct quote from Makoto illustrates his ideas for people to look at things in a different way “I hope the message I convey in a product changes the way people look at things”.

But the most fascinating in interactive work I’ve come across is that of ‘Multitouch Barcelona’. Multitouch Barcelona is a small collaboration of people working on using surfaces to create interactive work with. They explore the way in which people connect with surfaces, communicating with the technology and how these triggers emotion. They attempt to use the entirety of the human body to interact with a given work but this is generally in front of a larger screen. After developing tabletop multitouch technology and working with that, they began moving onto a conceptual installational space where large (up to 6meters wide) screens were used, on a wall generating a huge touch surface for one to be involved with. Titled “HI -  a real Human interface” was designed for the Red Bull Music Academy in 2008 and by involving people forms a natural relationship with the technology. Its made up of a two projected display system and a multitouch wall some 3m x 2m in size. Multitouch Barcelona created themselves from the ground up applications designed to engage the viewer into friendly user experiences rather than flashy visualisations. Space invaders is a prime example, just like the original game except the viewer literally throws foam balls at the screen to ‘hit’ the enemies. You can digitally paint with your arms by brushing them across the surface. A physics simulated applications lets the user toss around or throw balls about and literally even hold a ball in the air by pressing against the surface. “Multitouch Barcelona’ tries “to blur the boundaries between real and digital with natural interaction”. I think that is what they have succeeded in making but what does the future hold with advancing technology? Where will it take design and conceptual art in and out of the gallery space?

This writing is still a draft, please take that into consideration.

I’d really like some feedback, so if you have time, please leave a comment. Thankyou.

I’ve just discovered Japanese Based Designer and Artist Makoto Tojiki. I’m absolutely blown away by his projects, and in particular this work titled “The Man with No Shadow”.

The work is created completely from LED lights suspended in space.

I love how this work blends ideas of human nature with electronics and technology. Quite literally blurring the lines.

Also, bringing in ideas of Hyperreality, such as my own research. Quite spectacular.

Check out his other work online here.

As my work and research is purely heading into the realm of interaction design, I’d like to share this interview with studio ‘Multitouch Barcelona‘. Its totally relevant to my work and a great read. Be sure to check out the video [at the bottom of this post] to get a better idea for the concept.

“In the last years technology has advanced in giant steps”…this is not a new thing but today it seems to be a reality for everybody. Open source is now an open door that will come into all houses, exponentially speeding up creativity and development possibilities.

Next, a short introduction that will analyse the key moments in the last ten years of technology and creative development in the field of interaction and new media, and end with the performance and interview of one of the most interesting artistic collectives in the last few years: Multitouch Barcelona.

The web has always proposed dynamics connected to interaction (Action/Reaction) used everyday by all the net users. Flash in the ’90s has given colors to this panorama, giving to all interested (including me) the possibility to create funny experiments with animation, colors and graphics.
Nakamura, Amit Pitaru, Naztke, and Jushua Davis, only to name a few, have recently proposed experimentation born under the flash movement and its creative possibilities.

On the other side of this scene, in 2000, I remember having gone to the Offf Festival in Barcelona to the presentation of the installation of Golan Levin and collaborator. This installation was opening up new possibilities in the coding, interaction and MIDI, including all its infinite applications.  In 2001, when processing was founded by Ben Fry and Casey Reas, and later the turn of Reactable, a project created and launched by Interactive Sonic Systems Team directed by Sergi Jordà (Università Pompeu Fabra, Barcellona): a electronic music instrument was presented for the first time in 2005 at the International Computer Music Conference Barcelona, to be used later at the Coachella Festival 2007 in California by Bjork, and presented subsequently in diverse events across Europe.

From here we started to develop a project connected to Multitouch technology as a natural touch screen evolution (the first one is sensitive to touch at the same time in different point of the screen) and in this year 2009, after nine years from Offf ‘00 Barcelona, the neo format MultiTouch was presented at The Offf Oeiras ‘09, in front of 4000 people. The interactive installation Space Invaders XL, exhibited at one of the main festival rooms,  consists of one video screen of 6 X 4 meters and allows all to play the well known video game “Space invaders”. Hundreds of balls were launched from public to “a sensible screen” to hit the target and eliminate it. It was a moment of collective euphoria!

Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction. (Wikipedia)

…When we add to this simple principle, the passion for the code, creativity and the natural human aspects for fun-born Multitouch Barcelona. The collective born just one year ago was able to quickly enhance his international recognition thanks to his experimental, fresh and funny video installations.

Multitouch was founded by four young designers, based in (X), who work across interaction and New Media, and develop platforms linked to entertainment, play and experiment, by constantly exploring the communication between people and technology.

Contrary to many different projects made in this last period in this field, MultiTouch was able to show, in his artistic projects, the human aspects, and opened up another interesting option in the education and entertainment fields.

Next is an interview of Xavier Vilar de Paz, one of the four collective founders that will tell us in a better way how MultiTouch was born and how their artistic projects are developed, by going through a selection of his more representative interactive installation analysed by the eyes of the author to achieve and locate the concept of art and design in this right historical moment.

Marvin: Hi Xavier, tell me a little about how was MultiTouch Barcelona born and what are his principles.

Xavier: Hi, Marvin. Multitouch Barcelona is a group-of-four-project born a year and a half ago. Within a context where a lot of new interactive paradigms where appearing we focused in multitouch technologies, hence our name. We wanted to see how it feel to manipulate this kind of interfaces and so, we decided to build our own prototype.

Soon, we realized the power such interfaces -not only multitouch interfaces, but all the new ones that were appearing- have to connect with people. They involve senses in a whole new way and people feel more comfortable using them. Thus, a new way to communicate people and technology was appearing and we felt like contributing with our project. We saw the opportunity to make technology warmer and more close to people. This was the aim of our early works: to create or use technology to trigger emotions on people.
Later on, we discovered that even though this interfaces were an improvement in emotive technology they would never -or at least for now- beat human interaction complexity and richness.
So we redefined our goal, we wanted our work to serve as an excuse for human encounters to occur. Really shiffting attention from our work to what people feels in the environment it generates, we clearly aim for the experience, which is personal, unpredictable and unique. I believe that to be, currently, the main principle of our work.

Marvin: What is your connection with Barcellona?

Xavier: We live in Barcelona and we enjoy it a lot here.
However, something tells me that you are refering to our original name, we could have make it better with it, we know, but we did not expect the project to evolve as it has and so we went for a practical descriptive name: what you do + where you do it. As it turn out, we are no longer doing multitouch -or not only-, who knows if we will be moving someday too.
Anyway, we will always have a part of Barcelona in our insides, and this is reflected in our projects.
So it makes sense to us.

Marvin: What kind of technical support do you use in your installation, and exactly, what is your relation with technology?

Xavier: We all have a little background on computer science and we love design and interaction. That is nice because it has allowed us to work without any technical support. Everything in our projects we made it in our own from hardware -not the computers itself, everything but-, software, design, grahpics and so on; we even designed and programmed our website and recorded and edited our videos.
We work this way because the main intention we had when we started with the project was to learn, and that stucked. As any way to work, it has advantages and drawbacks but we are happy with it.
The main advantage -a part of learing with every new project- is that we can integrate everything perfectly since we have control of all the layers of the project. The main drawback, we work slower with new technologies we do not know. All in all, for us, the results pay off!

Marvin: Your Demo-Reel “GUTEN TOUCH”, transfers a lot of emotion, the belief and the passion for your work. Interactive installations are often cold. Now, it’ s nice to see how it is possible to combine the cold technology aspects with the human contact, the game, the entertainment…your slogan “ready to play” doesn’t leave any doubt…What can you tell us about this?

Xavier: As we said, there were a lot of new interaction paradigms coming out at the time we started and we saw their potential to warm up technology. By involving the whole human body and senses into the interaction process we believed that technology could become closer to its users. It is all about making technology warmer. When a user sweats in front of your installation, while playing around, you realize that he/she is not perceiving it as technology but as fun. We want our projects to benefit from that kind of interaction.

Marvin: Tell us a little about your installations…how and from where did you start? Which was your first project or experiment as a team?

Xavier: We started building a tabletop multi-touch interface prototype. We wanted to experiment with it and building it allowed us to develop several simple applications and start messing around. We learned a lot out of this period and we applied this knowledge in the conceptualization of our first serious intallation: the Guten Touch Installation.

Marvin: One of your last installation “HI -  a real Human interface” has demonstrated a major importance of human aspect in your work. Tell us two words that can used to describe it…

Xavier: Well, HI is not an installation really, HI was intended to be a concept project that somehow descrived vaguely our phylosophy.
At one point we realized that people no longer understood what we did. We believe our misleading name to be the blame for that. However, we wanted to find a way in which to reflect our project essence leaving room for interpretation.
HI contents our point of view on how interaction design should be and how we like to approach it. At the same time we wanted it to be though provoking with the possibilities that technology is providing.
The most incredible and useful output we got with HI were the comments people make of the video.
They help us to define ourselves, then we knew it was a succesful project.
Since HI is a descriptive project, it is not closed, so HI fans should wait for new releases… there will definitely be

Marvin: Have you ever thought of involving children and old people in your project? It could be the principle of new educational aspects…

Xavier: Defenetly! Children are wild, creative and playful; an actitude that we all should try to maintain as we grow old. This actitude turn them into incredibly interesting testers -since they challange the rules all the time- and a great source of inspiration. It would be a great to develop a project specially devoted to them, sure we will enjoy!
In the other hand, developing for old people will also be interesting. They tend to be unfamiliar with technology and usually affraid of it. Making technology closer to them would be a great challange and would test our skills in warming up technology.

Marvin: Which are your dreams in short, medium and long term?

Xavier: We love what we are doing… so I guess that the answer to all the questions is to be able to keep doing what we do. Part of our philosophy is enjoy while doing, we’ll try to keep it up!

Marvin: In the last years we have seen an exponential growth of new communication media. Thanks to the democratic power of the net, every day a new blog, radio and streaming TV are born and seems to arrive to a bigger collective consciousness. Where are we heading to and what function does art, design and technology play in this historical moment?

Xavier: We think is a great historical moment for creativity. The ability to share and the creation of exchange places have triggered the most important thought revolutions in human history. Internet has become the place to share work, knowledge and exchange it with other people and influences.

It has become a place where hierarchies blur. No matter who you are, just what you do. For us this has been crucial for our project to exist.

Marvin: What do you want to tell to the world?
Xavier: Always think that computers are wrong, not you!

I personally think this work is amazing. I’d love to work on a project similar to this in the future.