18.30 – Art Reception & Conference Dinner (Open to Conference Delegates)
Open to the public from 19:30
Location: Kulturhuset
- Digitally Enchanted Wear: a Novel Approach in the Field of Dresses as Dynamic Digital Displays
Rebecca Kleinberger, MIT
Alisha PanjwaniWe introduce the term Digital Dresses as Dynamic Displays as an emergent field in the domains of Wearable Computing and Embodied Interactions. This recent approach consists of turning clothing into visual – and sometimes audiovisual – displays to enable novel forms of interaction between the wearer, the viewer, the tangible clothing and the embedded content. In this context, we present Enchanted Wearable, a new optimized low cost approach to create Digital Dresses as Dynamic Displays. Enchanted Wearable is a technologically embellished and augmented garment containing a portable rear dome projection system that transforms the clothing fabric into a blank canvas displaying audiovisual content. With this system, we create a new form of expression through clothing to reflect identity, personality, emotions and inner states of the wearer. In this paper we first present the growing field of Digital Dresses as Dynamic Displays, then we survey and analyse existing prior art in this field using a specific list of characteristics: display technology, wearability, interactivity, brightness, context. Finally we present the design and technology behind our new Enchanted Wearable system and explain how it brings new perspectives to the field.
- [pain]Byte: Chronic Pain And Biomedical Engineering Through The Lens Of VR
Genevieve Smith-Nunes, ReadySaltedCode CIC, University of Roehampton
Camilla Neale, University of Worcester
Alex Shaw, GlastonBridge Software[pain]Byte is looks at the world of chronic pain. The invisible disability of spinal chronic pain which is manifested and represented through data driven dance (classical ballet) and virtual reality (VR). Enabling the non sufferer audience to ‘see’ the hidden nature and challenges of chronic pain linked to the benefits of biomedical engineering and implanted technology. The body as analogue represented through the digital of the wearables and the virtual in the VR experience. Humanising implanted technology and exposing the invisible nature of chronic pain for audiences. In our exhibit, people can watch the VR, interact with the biometric sensors and our single Kinect motion capture. A recording of the ballet will be projected.
- The Cloakroom
Ella Dagan, University of California Santa Cruz, New York University
This paper presents the concept and instances of implementation of a documentary embodied art installation named ’The Cloakroom’. The Cloakroom is an interactive aesthetic experience which is made out of multiple interpersonal relationship stories and their connection to objects. People are invited to embody a relationship by literally donning a jacket and going through the motions of finding things in its pockets. The objects they find are then used as triggers to play pre-recorded stories, bringing analogue artifacts to meet the digital content. The use of pockets highlights the physical intersection between tangibles and wearables.
- Nettle: An Exploration of Communication Interface Design for Older Adults
Audrey Fox, Parsons School of Design
Telecommunication with family and friends is often offered as a solution for aging adults facing social isolation. While strengthening existing ties is important, it fails to address the importance of spontaneous community interactions. This paper presents Nettle, a system that is designed to build casual human connection into one’s daily routine. Nettle is based on the artist’s alternate vision of smart home design where interfaces are playful, based on familiar household forms and warmly inviting. The audience will observe a performance where Nettle fosters a spontaneous spoken conversation for an older woman alongside the process of her making a pot of tea.
- The Shared Individual
Asreen Rostami, Stockholm University
Emma Bexell, Bombina Bombast
Stefan Stanisic, Bombina BombastThe Shared Individual is a live collaborative Mixed-Reality Performance in which, a group of audience members can observe themselves through an individual’s point of view. In this performance, a performer shares her view with audience members by wearing a head-mounted camera and steaming live video. By wearing a head-mounted display audience members can see themselves and follow performer’s instruction to “occupy” her body and become her. This instruction, in the form of performance, is designed to help the audience to sync with the performer in three different stages: visual synchronization, physical synchronization and emotional synchronization.
- Au Clair de la Lune on Gramophone —For Eduard-Leon Scott and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy— (1860 / 1923 / 2015)
Kazuhiro Jo, YCAM, Kyushu University
“Au Clair de la Lune on Gramophone – For Édouard-Léon Scott and László Moholy-Nagy -(1860/1923/2015)” is a work which realizes the provocative idea of Moholy-Nagy, “a record without prior acoustic information” (1923) with the help of mature vinyl audio recording technology and current personal fabrication tools. This paper explains the body of the work as well as its background and characteristic with references.
- Objektivisering: Text Physicalization and Self-introspective Post-digital Objecthood
Marinos Koutsomichalis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Objektivisering is an experimental system for the computational modeling of generative 3D-printable models. The system pivots on Natural Language Understanding technologies and big 3D data. It processes arbitrary text input, eventually generating an array of words and phrases that summarise its meaning. These are then used as queries to retrieve 3D data from Thingiverse. Finally, the resulting bag of models is concatenated, in this way producing original 3D-printable designs in a computational fashion. Albeit being concretely physical, the resulting artefacts also incorporate the cybernetic encodings of their own making. In this way, they celebrate a certain kind of objecthood which is hybrid, post-digital, and self-introspective at a structural level, in this way concretely accelerating materialist aesthetics.
- Deep Wear: a case study of collaborative design between Human and Artificial Intelligence
Natsumi Kato, University of Tsukuba
Hiroyuki Osone, University of Tsukuba
Daitetsu Sato, University of Tsukuba
Naoya Muramatsu, University of Tsukuba
Yoichi Ochiai, University of TsukubaDeep neural network (DNNs) applications are now increasingly pervasive and powerful. However, fashion designers are lagging behind in leveraging this increasingly common technology. DNNs are not yet a standard part of fashion de- sign practice, either clothes patterns or prototyping tools. In this paper, we present DeepWear, a method using deep convolutional generative adversarial networks for clothes design. The DNNs learn the feature of specific brand clothes and generate images then patterns instructed from the images are made, and an author creates clothes based on that. We evaluated this system by evaluating the credibility of the actual sold clothes on market with our clothes. As the result, we found it is possible to make clothes look like actual products from the generated images. Our findings have implications for collaborative design between machine and human intelligence.
- Op 1254: Music for Neutrons, Networks and Solenoids using a Restored Organ in a Nuclear Reactor
Leif Handberg, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Ludvig Elblaus, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Chris Chafe, Stanford UniversityIn this paper, an installation is presented that connects Stanford and Stockholm through a one-of-a-kind combination of instrument and venue: the Skandia Wurlitzer theatre organ (Wurlitzer serial no.1254) situated in the KTH R1 Experimental Performance Space, a disused nuclear reactor. A continuous stream of musical data, audio, and video between the two places explored the capabilities of the digital to play with the concept of presence and embodiment, virtuality and the physical. In the installation, a series of performances presented new pieces written especially for this setting. The pieces were performed by musicians in Stanford, mediated in real-time, allowing them to play together with the theatre organ in Stockholm, temporarily fusing the two venues to create one ensemble, one audience, in one space.
- Eidolon360 – A VR experience
Beverley Hood, University of Edinburgh
Tom Flint, Edinburgh Napier UniversityEidolon360 is a virtual reality artwork and experience that is interacted with through VR headsets. The viewer, reclining on a bed within the exhibition space, experiences a 360 film, shot within a medical simulation centre, that mimics clinical hospital locations, such as operating theatres and hospital wards. The reclining viewer inhabits the point of view of resuscitation manikin Resusci Anne, set within a resuscitation training room. A medic (actress Pauline Goldsmith) approaches Resusci Anne and tenderly recounts her origin story, an intriguing tale of a mysterious drowned young woman, found in Paris in the late 1880’s, who became the face of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), Resusci Anne, and has since been revived by over 300 million people worldwide. The film attempts to present an emotionally resonant anecdote, as an immersive experience, scrutinizing the overlaps between real life and simulation.
- Embodisuit: A Wearable Platform for Embodied Knowledge
Sophia Brueckner, University of Michigan
Rachel Freire, Rachel Freire StudioThe Embodisuit allows its wearer to map signals onto different places on their body. Informed by embodied cognition, the suit receives signals from an IoT platform, and each signal controls a different haptic actuator on the body. Knowledge is experienced ambiently without necessitating the interpretation of symbols by the conscious mind. The suit empowers wearers to reconfigure the boundaries of their selves strengthening their connection to the people, places, and things that are meaningful to them. It both critiques and offers an alternative to current trends in wearable technology. Most wearables harvest data from their users to be sent and processed elsewhere. The Embodisuit flips this paradigm such that data is taken in through the body instead. Furthermore, we believe that by changing the way people live with data, it will change the type of data that people create.
- The Bronze Key: Performing Data Encryption
Susan Kozel, Malmö University
Ruth Gibson, Coventry University
Bruno Martelli, Independent ArtistThe Bronze Key art installation is the result of performative re-materialisations of bodily data. This collaborative experiment in data encryption expands research into practices of archiving and critical discourses around open data. It integrates bodily movement, motion capture and Virtual Reality (VR) with a critical awareness of data trails and data protection. A symmetric cryptosystem was enacted producing a post-digital cipher system, along with archival artefacts of the encryption process. Material components for inclusion in the TEI Arts Track include: an audio file of text to speech of the raw motion capture data from the original movement sequence on cassette tape (The Plaintext), a 3D printed bronze shape produced from a motion captured gesture (The Encryption Key), and a printed book containing the scrambled motion capture data (The Ciphertext).
- Tracking, Animating, and 3D Printing Elements of the Fine Arts Freehand Drawing Process
Piyum Fernando, SANDS Group at the School of Arts, Media and Engineering
Jennifer Weiler, Arizona State University
Stacey Kuznetsov, Arizona State University
Pavan Turaga, Arizona State UniversityDynamic elements of traditional drawing processes such as the order of compilation, and speed, length, and pressure of strokes can be as important as the final art piece because they can reveal the technique, process, and emotions of the artist. In this paper, we present an interactive system that unobtrusively tracks the freehand drawing process (movement and pressure of artist’s pencil) on a regular easel. The system outputs captured information using 2D video renderings and 3D-printed sculptures. We also present a summery of findings from a user study with 6 experienced artists who created multiple pencil drawings using our system. The resulting digital and physical outputs from our system revealed vast differences in drawing speeds, styles, and techniques. At TEI art track, the attendees will likely engage in lively discussion around the analog, digital, and tangible aspects of our exhibit. We believe that such a discussion will be critical not only in shaping the future of our work, but also in understanding novel research directions at the intersection of art and computation.
- The Screaming Sun
Mithru Vigneshwara, New York University
Digital devices usually contain pre-programmed constraints and behaviours. These behaviours are programmed by the architect of these devices. Analogue devices, on the other hand, are bound by the properties of the components connected to them. Controlling these components and external physical properties will in-turn lead to controlling the output of these devices. Many devices are built to perceive physical phenomena and react to certain stimuli. The Screaming Sun is an analogue noise-making instrument that experiments with light as a stimulus. It is a solar-powered interactive artifact that is meant to be played with and explored. The instrument, much like a living being, thrives on light. The performer plays the instrument by actually influencing the physical properties of light that shines on the instrument, and not by pushing buttons or turning knobs.
- Twinkle: A Flying Lighting Companion for Urban Safety
Honghao Deng, Harvard University
Jiabao Li, Harvard University
Allen Sayegh, Harvard University
Sebastian Birolini, University of Bergamo
Stefano Andreani, Harvard UniversityThe current city lighting system that leaves many areas uncovered induces unsafe perceptions and instigates crimes. The addition of ubiquitous surveillance is an intrusion on privacy and does not take real-time actions. The cold, lifeless light shines in the darkness, trapping people in the solitude of silence. These absences motivated us to create Twinkle – a luminous transformative creature inhabits on light posts. They are curious aerial animals attracted by human activities. During daytime, they rest on urban light posts, expanding their solar panels for charging. At night, they interact with individuals walking on the street in their own way based on their distinct personalities. Twinkles are indirect solutions for improving urban safety without surveillance. We envisage a future that appliance goes beyond machine and becomes a companion with us.
- Synesthetic Experience in STRATIC
Vygandas Simbelis, KTH – Royal Institute of Technology
Anders Lundström, KTHHow do we humanize digital interactive technology? One way is through our experience with technology. With S T R A T I C we present several post-digital concepts to discuss the relationship of the digital in regard to our human lives. We emphasize the synesthetic experience along with other aesthetic experiences and materiality issues with manifestations of the digital in the physical world, tangible approaches to sonic performances, or exposure of internal logics of technological processes.
In this paper, we propose both exhibiting our work as an art installation and via a live performance. We regard it as being highly relevant to the topic of the TEI Arts Track exhibition: post-digital materiality at the intersection of the analog and the digital, and to its tangible aspects. - Thou and I: Exploring Expressive Digital Interaction with Interactive Characteristic Wigs
Young Suk Lee, Indiana University
My project involves the construction of a series of experimental wearable digital technologies as expressive wigs. These wigs are designed to explore the interactions of the wearers and the spectators as the wig moves in elaborate ways to highlight the realms of aesthetic value and sensory experience. The participants are provoked, they are engaged, they are compelled into a state of awareness and curiosity while the digital object constitutes novel experiences that coincide with anthropomorphic interactivity. Furthermore, the expressive value of a digital object is turned inwards as it becomes an extension of the self and a source of multi-sensory communication. Ultimately, the digital object seeks to open a social dialogue on the aesthetic purpose of technology by encouraging people to extend their imagination through bodily interaction. Here the digital object enables the wearers to create engaging narratives and provocative expressions.
- Beacon: Exploring Physicality in Digital Performance
Anna Weisling, Georgia Institute of Technology
Anna Xambó, Queen Mary University of LondonLive performances which involve digital technology often strive toward clear correspondences between distinct media modes, particularly those works which combine audio and video. Often, the process of creating and executing such performances involves mapping schemes which are encased within the digital system, producing content which is tightly synchronized but with relationships which can feel rigid and unexpressive. Within this paper we present a collaborative process between visualist and musician, which builds toward a method for promoting co-creativity in multimedia performance and prioritizes the performer’s physical presence and interaction with digital content. Through the development of two autonomous systems, a novel physical interface and an interactive music system, we summarize our creative process of co-exploration of system capabilities, and extended periods of experimentation and exploration. From this experience, we offer an early-stage framework for approaching engaging digital audiovisual relationships in live performance settings.
- Marching Cubes Made Tangible
Jesse Jackson, University of California, Irvine
Drawing inspiration from a computer algorithm of the same name, Marching Cubes Made Tangible leverages 3D printing to make the virtual world physical. In the 1980s, researchers devised an algorithm for generating computer graphics from medical scan data that featured an underlying language of faceted cubes. Marching Cubes Made Tangible translates this virtual procedure into interactive installations, which are assembled from a modular set of 3D printed components. By enacting the algorithm in the real world, this project generates dialogue about the ways in which information technologies create the building blocks of contemporary culture.
- SKIN – Embodied Navigation through WiFi Traffic using Vibro-Tactile Feedback
Bas van den Boogaard
Vibeke Thorhauge Stephensen
Louise Ørsted Jensen
Karina Lindegaard Aae Jensen
Stefan Engelbrecht Nielsen
Markus LöchtefeldIn today’s world, radio waves are an integral element of our daily lives but they are mostly hidden to human perception. In this paper we present SKIN, a wireless wearable system that creates a new interface between the human and WiFi signals employing sensory augmentation. SKIN translates nearby WiFi data transmissions into a vibrotactile experience to alter the perception of the space around the human body. It is designed as a tool for examining how an embodied experience of the invisible waves affects our relation to both the physical environment as well as to the technology emitting the insensible dimension. We present the design and implementation as well as the results of two exhibitions in which SKIN was worn by 17 participants that demonstrate how SKIN helps to interpret and alters the perception of the built environment.
- I Want To: Interactive Installation for Understanding our Desire
Laewoo Kang, Cornell University
‘I Want To’ is an interactive installation controlled by live Twitter messages. One hundred custom designed wooden toys, a television screen and speakers comprise the installation. The system extracts public Twitter messages that start with ‘I want to.’ The expression ‘want to’ becomes ‘have to’, and the newly composed sentence is displayed on the television screen while also being vocalized through speakers. With each “I have to” phrase, the wooden toys respond by marching in unison. This installation gives the audience an opportunity to explore our hopes and desires as unconscious internalizations of external expectations and social norms.
- Rewilding Wearables – Sympoeitic Interfaces for Empathic Experience of Other-than-human Entities
Patricia Flanagan
Raune FrankjaerThis project involves a series of walks in rewilded environments mediated by a wearable interface, that enables the interlocutor to perceive the environment from an alien perspective. The aim is to foster empathy for other-than-human entities and promulgate holistic and biodiverse ecologies. Technocrafting the prosthetic device from organic and electronic materials by blending traditional with digital techniques, create devices that the authors term ‘cyborganic’. The focus of this paper is a device that sits as if grafted around the human head, and appears to come to life embodied with its own sense of ‘agency’. This paper describes the 1st and 2nd generation prototype of this devices, and its current configuration as an aid for empathetic experience of insects in rewilded spaces. To conclude we describe a testing methodology developed in Aarhus based on a series of walks with users where they engage in semi-structured interviews post-walk to evaluate their experience.
- Code{strata} Sonifying Software Complexity
Denez Thomas
Nicolas Harrand
Bruno Bossis
Benoit BaudryCode{strata} is an interdisciplinary collaboration between art studies researchers (Rennes 2) and computer scientists (INRIA, KTH). It is a sound installation: a computer system unit made of concrete that sits on a wooden desk. The purpose of this project is to question the opacity and simplicity of high-level interfaces used in daily gestures. It takes the form of a 3-D sonification of a full software trace that is collected when performing a copy and paste command in a simple text editor. The user may hear, through headphones, a poetic interpretation of what happens in a computer, behind the of graphical interfaces. The sentence “Copy and paste” is played back in as many pieces as there are nested functions called during the execution of the command.
- Lets Fake News
Léon McCarthy
‘Let’s Fake News’ is an interactive media art installation that forces participants to realize that anyone can create fake news and may even find joy in doing so. The artwork addresses the conference themes as an interactive installation that challenges ideas around ‘post-truth’, creating an experience that engages with digital representations of the discursive interactions.
- Opto-Phono-Kinesia
Time: 18.00 – 19.00, Location: Main Hall
Steve Gibson, Northumbria University
Opto-Phono-Kinesia (OPK) is an audio-visual performance piece in which all media elements are controlled by the body movements of a single performer. The title is a play on a possible synesthetic state involving connections between vision, sound and body motion. Theoretically, for a person who experiences this state, a specific colour could trigger both a sound and a body action. This synesthetic intersection is simulated in OPK by simultaneity of body movement, and audio-visual result. Using the Gesture and Media System 3.0 motion-tracking system, the performer can dynamically manipulate an immersive environment using two small infrared trackers. The project employs a multipart interface design based on a formal model of increasing complexity in visual-sound-body mapping, and is therefore best performed by an expert performer with strong spatial memory and advanced musical ability. OPK utilizes the “body as experience, instrument and interface” [1] for control of a large-scale environment.