The annual ITP show is a two day exhibition of interactive sight, sound and physical objects by the student artists of ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University). Here are some of our favorite projects this year, this is a giant post – scroll scroll!
Picture here, single white android.
The ‘Is our machines learning?’ machines 2.0
The ‘Is our machines learning?’ machines is a networked art installation in which test-taking robots behave according to how users engage with a website composed of questions from real U.S. standardized tests. The physical installation consists of machines that are mechanically capable of making marks on standardized test forms with a pencil. These machines rest on top of antique school desks, ready to pencil in multiple-choice bubbles on SCANTRON test forms. In a separate online space, visitors coming to a website determine which multiple-choice answers the machines in the installation select to fill in. At this website, users can watch the machines respond to their input via a streaming video feed from the installation – Link & more.
Pusher/Puller
Sound/Space is a architecturally-inspired physical interface for pushing and pulling sound — an interactive architecture prototype. The device is meant to both stand on its own, reacting to what it hears, and provide control over the audio environment for the users.
By pushing and pulling the points along the shape’s exterior, users will be able to change the parameters of filters, delays, buffers, etc., allowing them to “play” the sounds around them as music- Link & more.
momo : a haptic navigation device
A haptic navigational device that requires only the sense of touch to guide a user. No maps, no text, no arrows, no lights. momo sits in the palm of your two hands and navigates you to an end location by leaning and vibrating. Akin to someone pointing you in the right direction, there is no need to find your map, you simply follow as the device gravitates to your destination – Link & more. The NYTimes got to this one just a few minutes before I did, ah well.
morgen: they’ll wake you up
Project is based on the idea that while many people hate their alarm clocks, few hate their mothers. Morgen is an interface that uses the connections between people to make waking up a more dynamic and meaningful experience.
Via a Facebook application, friends and family can vie for the job of waking up the Morgen user on a particular day. They create a new message that makes its way wirelessly to one of Morgen’s nodes–an expandable system of networked objects that the user can place throughout the room. The user knows that each day, they will receive a new message from someone, but they will not find out whom until they walk over to their alarm in the morning. At the time the user wishes to wake up, one of the nodes begins to make sounds, which gradually increase in volume – Link & more.
Compass Ion Organ
Compass Ion Organ is a posture and meditation support belt embedded with sensors which track the curvature of the users spine, and provides feedback for the wearer in the form of visual and sonic information via a microcontroler to software(Max/MSP/Jitter). The belt has a calibration button which can be set for each user in order to give personal readings about their current state of spinal posture. The information coming from the user influences changes in realtime, to visual and/or sonic algorithmic compositions. These are displayed on a large flat panel LCD screen which the user is facing. The compositions for the belt will explore different mathematical principals about balance and order, such as Lindenmayer Systems and Fractals, as well as irregularities, dealing with atonal and chaotic patterns. The feed back of visuals and sound is meant to guide the user into proper alignment and help them maintain it once they have it. The algorithms are designed to reflect balance when the spine is straight and discord when it is not – Link.
Plink Jet
Plink Jet is a robotic musical instrument made from scavenged ink jet printers. The mechanical parts of four printers are diverted from their original function, re-contextualizing the relatively high-tech mechanisms of this typically banal appliance into a ludic musical performance. Motorized, sliding ink cartridges and plucking mechanisms play four guitar strings by manipulating both pitch and strumming patterns like human hands fingering, fretting, and strumming a guitar. Plink Jet is designed to play itself, be played, or both. The result is an optionally collaborative performance between both the user and Plink Jet, with the user choosing varying levels of manual control over the different cartridges (fretting) and string plucking speeds (strumming) – Link & more.
Afterimage – Mind Frame II
‘Afterimage – Mind Frame II’ is a visual installation where the audience discovers and recreates images in empty picture frames. Physical, mental, and emotional interactions all come together in this piece. Audiences see an abstract moving image composed of tiny white blocks projected in a picture frame placed at eye level in a gallery setting. After the array of blocks stops moving, an afterimage of a familiar image is revealed in the otherwise blank frame.
The array of tiny, moving blocks forms a very vague representation of the original image and the afterimage it creates is not very clear. But regardless, the audience perceives a well-defined impression of the subject. This happens because the afterimage subconsciously invokes the original image from their memory, neurologically combining it with the afterimage from the eye. Therefore audiences don’t see just the afterimage, but a combination of the afterimage and the original image from their own memory which fills in the details more fully as they remember the original image. It’s a surprising experience, and created entirely in the mind from memories and a grid of glowing blocks! – Link.
Balance Board
This project consists of two pieces: a platform with embedded sensors and a box giving feedback (via light) as to how a patient’s weight is distributed between the left and right feet. It can be used by a therapist to detect weight bearing & balance issues and track progress, by the patient to give feedback and positively reinforce correct weight bearing, or as an aid to exercises that help with weight bearing & balance. It was developed primarily for use by stroke patients – Link.
Jabberjockeys
Jabberjockeys consist of a pair of underwear (one male, one female) which discreetly inform a partner when the other gets aroused. By sensing subtle changes in temperature, moisture and pressure the undergarments detect arousal. The underwear automatically notifies the partner by activating vibrating motors sewn into the fabric of their underwear, thus enabling them to discreetly share their heightened emotions. The sensors that are sewn into the underwear are galvonic skin response sensors, pressure sensorss and a stretch sensor. The ouput consists of a grid of small vibrating motors. The controllers are Arduino Lilypads. Communication is achieved via bluetooth to the wearer’s cellphones – Link.
More:
If you attended the show and have others you enjoy, post up in the comments!
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