August 2014

Interesting Technologies

This week in the studio, it has been a bit slow with the dog days of summer (honored here with a picture of our office dogs) and the eventual buildup of meetings and conferences immediately after Labor Day.

That said, we have run across two interesting projects: one that reminded us of one of our past projects and another that might suggest some new ways to integrate visitors into interactive exhibits.

The first is the RiF010 Water Sport/Wave Pool planned for Rotterdam. See both the computer rendering and working model below.

 

 

 

 

This reminds us of a project a few years back in Sydney, Australia where we suggested that Darling Harbour should include a place to surf. This was part of some brainstorming for the National Maritime Museum to activate their Darling Harbour front.  Just looking at the apparatus here, we see possibilities to create some intriguing wave tanks, perhaps smaller, for both natural history and science installations. Creating a realistic model of ocean waves… we can think of many uses for that.

 

The second idea we want to share is the evolving reality of real-time monitoring of people’s physical activity. Examples such as the Fitbit abound, but take a look at the new clothing sensor line being created by Athos.

 

 

 

Technology such as this offers the opportunity to create experiences (interactive and individualized) that move exhibits of sport and competition into new realms. Visitors can record their performance over multiple visits, can become actual “artifacts” that are part of the experience, can be, in effect, their own demonstrations. We’re definitely seeing how this type of technology can be integrated into the “stuff’ and experience of museums and other public places.

 

What would you do with these technologies?

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Light Explorations

So, after a mid-summer blog break, we’re back to our “weekly” inspirations about ideas we’ve come across that make us think about experiences, museums and the like. This week, we’ve encountered two interesting pieces that explore ideas we have mentioned before – reflection and light.

The first is Light Barrier by kimchi and chips a South Korean design studio.

 

 

 

Using principles of reflection, projection, and some carefully crafted light beams along with scanning technology, they create a mesmerizing three-dimensional display. What’s interesting to us is two-fold. First, it shoes how powerful three-dimensional display can be without having the “resolution” that we normally associate with “display” in the museum setting. Certainly, there are aspects of content, text and other display elements that could utilize this same power.

Secondly, as clearly evident in the work, there are many mathematical and natural science phenomena on display in the work as it is. Certainly, this could be a powerful way to engage visitors with this content.

 

The second item we ran across plays directly with some of our other blog posts about reflection. Take a look at “wink” by Masakazu Sherine and Saya Miyazaki from Japan. It’s a walk-in kaleidoscope!

 

 

 

 

A fascinating part of this installation is that all of the panels are attached by zippers, making it almost infinitely changeable to the visitor – a kaleidoscope that changes while you are in it. This piece creates an almost magical space. It would be easy to see the same concept in an art or a children’s museum.

Where could you imagine installing these playful experiences? How would you adapt them to support something you’ve been thinking about or working on?

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