WT docs

Concept

In our project, we regard “environment” as a man.

Which is different from tons of interactive installations, ours contain two parts of interactive concepts.the participates and the installation is the one, the other is the installation and the weather. In other words, this installation is an intermediary between participates and the “environment man”, both playing roles as message receiver, encoder and decoder.

When there’s something data higher than normal level, it means that the “environment” man get ill. And participates would be doctors, who are responsible for their patients. It’s nearly impossible to make the real environment to perceive participates’ behavior, however, through our installation, we can express a kind of concern or a kind of appeal for all the participants.

Description

Overview

Our installation receives real time environmental data from remote sensors, then visualizes those overproof part as some kinds of skin blemishes onto a human face(probable participant’s own face). Participants can pluck or strike strings(or maybe strings matrix) to cure these blemishes. On the same time, the sound created by these strings would be recorded and distributed away by internet or FM.

Structure and interaction

Basically, the whole installation is like a table, which contains three layers: screen, water and strings. And there are a camera and a kinect embedded in this table, which is used to collect participant’s face.

When a participant gets close and looks down to our installation, camera and kinect would get his face. Then screen will display a artistic face together with some skin blemishes, the number of which is according to the data received from remote sensors. When the participant struck or pluck the strings, these blemishes would fade out and the sound would be recorded and distributed.

Technical details

We use camera to catch real time face image and use Processing to do artistic work and add blemishes. The connection between strings and image is also realized by software(Processing or other Audio visualization tools). As for sound recording and distribution part, we maybe set some FM emitters or just update to internet.

Concept
Our work tries to make people a deep experience of the Serious environmental pollution problem, and made people Thinking.
By analysis the environmental data of cities and combined with the data before, we can get a current data of the change of our environmental and weather. We also used a distorted mirror to represent the change of our environment, and because of those changes many creatures also ‘distorted’.

Proposal
Device
Our devices are like distorting mirror placed side by side in the weather tunnel, every mirror represents a city.

We analysis environmental data from cities, and we use the level of distortion to show how much our cities and weather changed.
Interaction
Environment in good condition, the mirror image will show the normal specular reflection; the environment is not good, the mirror presents a distorted image distortion, according to a poor environment determines and the audience position, the mirror will follow the changes in the background, showing the city’s iconic images.

Effects
The audience through the mirror and see themselves distorted in the mirror, it suggests that our environment is get bad day by day, and the bad effects also have a strong influence on ourselves. From the different mirrors, audiences can feel the different cities are in different crisis, and some of the cities may be the one they life in.
Our work tries to warn people to protect our world from ‘variation’.

Technical realization
We have two plans to realize an active distorted mirror.
1. Cam + Screen
Use camera to capture the image in front of the ‘mirror’, and distorts images through a computer program. The level of distortion is made from internet database from the cities which set the box to check environmental data every day. The output images show in a computer screen.

2. Soft material mirror
Use a soft material as the mirror, distort the reflection from distort the mirror itself with a ‘little’ hardware.

Decision
We want to show more ‘things’ in the mirror (such as a landmark of the city as a background).so we intend to use the cam + screen plan.

Research
Data
We are concerned about temperature, humidity and precipitation which reflect the general state of weather and environment, and use current data compare with the prev-data. The historical data can be searched form internet.

Data of Beijing(includes: average air pressure, monthly Temperature, Monthly max-Temperature, Monthly min-Temperature, Monthly average relative Humidity…)

Budget
Camera 150 -200; Screen 1000-1200; Mirror frame 200;

Tian Li
Guo Haoyun
Guo Yao
Vivian Xu

Weather Tunnel Project | Spring 2011

Parsons New School of Design | Tsinghua University | National Art Museum of China

Professor: Benjamin Bacon

Concept

Environments are organic self-containing units that constitute of the individuals within. The individual can alter and shape the environment, while at the same time, the environment influences and molds the individual and his/her perception. In this endless cycle of impact, the boundaries between the two are obscured: the individual begins to acquire, not only psychological, but also “physical” characteristics that resemble characteristics of their surrounding environment, and vice versa. Rather than two separate parts of a system, the aforesaid duo merges into a whole, much like a single organic cell. An especially good example of this would be the relationship between cities and their residents. We are able to discern the differences between a New Yorker and a Texan, someone from Beijing and someone from Shanghai, not only by the difference in language, but also by gestures, physical appearance, general personality traits, etc. These at times subtle distinctions are not only a result of cultural activity, but are also a product of physical environmental influences. It is easy to imagine how cultural shifts can impact our lives,but to imagine how we are connected to changes in our physical world (at times so slight that we are unable to detect) is another question. In this project, we hope to emphasize on this connection between our environment and ourselves through the use of sound.

General description of project

@#$%^…  is devised as an interactive sound experimentation that aims to bring urban environmental issues into focus by making abstract data more perceivable to audiences through means of data sonification. In this project, we will utilize the environmental data collected by sensors in various cities throughout the world, and map this information accordingly onto ambient city noises recorded in said cities. The composited audio alterations will be displayed during the exhibition in real-time through the form of a sound installation.

We plan to use hard silicon material to create a shell. Within this shell, will be multiple stereos, each surrounded by six mechanical claws. The entire installation will be filled with soft silicon that will immerce the stereos. The altered sound of cities will be broadcasted through these stereos, but at the same time, be muffled by the silicon. The mechanical claws will open and close according to the sound that each stereo is transfering, and in doing so, attempt to open up the soft silicon material to allow the sound to travel more clearly. But with each attempt, the silicon will always flow back slowly, covering up the stereo once more. Audiences will be provided with stethoscopes to probe into the audio environment of the installation and listen to sounds of cities that are entrapped within.

ARTISTS BIOS

Li Tian received his BFA in New Media Art & Design at Renmin University. He is currently at the Information Art and Design program at Tsinghua University where he is studying inter-disciplinary studies in Engineering at the Department of Computer Science and Technology. He is a participant in the National 863 Research Projects, focusing on Critical Technologies and Prototyping Within Large-scale Multi-user Interactive Desktops. His work has been shown in various international exhibitions and events, and his research has been published in the International Conference in Computer Science selection numerous times.

Guo Haoyun is a media artist born in the 80s. His mother’s influence pointed him in the direction of art. He went to study interactive art in Singapore on a national scholarship. Since returning to China, he has been committed to pushing forward the development of new media art and design in china with fruitful results. He also has considerable experience in curation. He follows the latest developments in social media and science technology. He collaborates with CSR’s and NPO to impact society through community means. He is currently doing research on HCI and data visualization at the VISPKU(EECS) at PKU.

As a media arts student at Renmin University, China, Nathen Guo is passionate about humanities and has a strong interest in a wide range of audio and visual communications. He is motivated to utilize emerging media technologies: computer graphics, audiovisual, animation, electronic interactive design in his creative work. In 2009, he visited Taiwan as an exchange student to study digital arts, where he carried out comparative research in media arts between Mainland China and Taiwan. The experience had a huge impact on him. He will continue his studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in fall of 2011.