Transformative City - Sonic Projections
Posted by Martha on May 15th, 2006
Sonic Projections interactive demo
(.jar file, Java needed, 0.3 Mb)
Sonic Projections (Flash presentation, 1 Mb), is an installation for the central axes that lead to Bath’s museum. The original scope of this case study is to create an inviting element towards the museum.
A generative structure & an interactive installation that explores the creation of a new Dynamic Space.
A responsive environment that not only interacts with people when triggered, but also seeks interaction. The representation of this reaction comes with the form of attractors and repulsors that travel through the installation -as humans move- and change the shape of its shell. This installation can be realized by using SmartDust technology & Ubiquitous Computing techniques.
Unfortunatelly no music with this file (no dancing arches!) but I think you will enjoy it more if it doesn’t take an hour to download it!!!
The form emerges through a series of interactions between the humans and the particles and reality is blurred while the INTERFACE is consisted by space, architectural forms, individuals and SmartDust particles.
(Smart dust devices are tiny wireless microelectromechanical sensors -MEMS- that can detect everything, from light to vibrations. These “motes” could eventually be the size of a grain of sand, though each would contain sensors, computing circuits, bidirectional wireless communications technology and a power supply. When clustered together, they automatically create highly flexible, low-power networks.)
Mesh’s Movement
(flash movie, 1.3 Mb)Not all Sound Patterns trigger the particles. They choose what they consider “interesting” sounds - based on sound frequencies- and follow them. In that way, a new pattern of interaction is established, where people will be challenged to find ways to attract the particles, in order to participate to the installation’s transformation. When no people pass through the installation, a certain memory mechanism recalls recorded sounds from people who were previously there and tries to create new sound patterns (testing the results through a GA) from them, in order to attract more people… a new kind of Siren in search of her Ulysses…
Arches’ Movement
(flash movie, 1.1 Mb)The arches are generated via the script and are being transformed dynamically. This dynamic transformation is based either on input frequencies taken by a musical piece embedded in the code (dancing arches) or on the user’s interaction with the installation.
Transfomation
(flash movie, 1.6 Mb)A rendered visualizaton of the installation, in the road that leads to Bath’s Museum.
Particle Movement
(flash movie, 0.43 Mb)
Vortices and Dynamic Space
The SmartDust particles create an embedded network inside the installation. Human emitted Sound Patterns trigger the particles which gather around him/her. The particle network tries to keep an equilibrium by keeping minimum distances from the humans, as well as from each other. In that way, patterns emerge not only on the mesh (by forces of attraction and repulsion), but also on the way particles move. The system’s self organizes itself in such a way so that the particles create toruses and vortices. The louder the Sound Patterns, the more particles participate in the “pattern creation” game.
Astroidal Variation
A variation of this installation can be created if we replace the particles on the mesh’s nodes, with an “astroidal” component. The behaviour of the installation remains the same, while the formal outcome is completelly different.
This project was created with Processing programming language. All images produced through scripting. Rendered images were exported as DXF files and rendered in CAD application.