Interaction

M.I.T - Assist Sketch Understanding System and Operation

I also discovered a different group doing similar things to this drawing system that used physics ( unfortunately Firefox crashed and i lost the link) but they had developed a handheld display, a little larger than A4 size. On their device, the physics cut in straight away, so as soon as the user had drawn a circle and lifted his pen from the surface, physics took over, and the drawn object fell as if it was a dropped ball, and bounced on the bottom of the screen, knocking over any other drawn objects that were in the way. Instant animations, a great tool for teaching- as in the M.I.T video.



P-Soup is a interactive art java applet, that allows you to 'communicate visually' to other users with patterns, shapes and colours. I'm not sure how much communication you could have with someone, but it's an interesting idea and has some psychedelic coolness to the patterns as they emerge and disolve on screen



A little off topic - i don't know if anyone saw an article in the news recently, about chimps out-performing humans in memory tests.

The numbers 1-9 were briefly displayed on a screen, then the subjects had to recall back in sequential order the numbers by touching the screen. The chimps managed this at lighting speed, while their inadequate human cousins stumbled along making mistakes. Who needs opposable thumbs anyway? Completely bypassing the evolutionary stage of developing rudimentary tools, these chimps have mastered the digital interface with such proficiency, they make us humans look like primitive baboons. Check it out if you didn't see it - there are various videos of it on the BBC website.

TurntablistPC
This is an interactive Art installation from Mogens Jacobsen.



This oddly device is part of an ongoing art project, allowing users to control the turntable over the Internet. The amount of effect the user can have on the deck is controlled by the location of the user in relation to the TurntablistPC. This made me consider other forms of interaction to control the turntable, the presence of viewers around the installation, their numbers and movement having some effect. If there was a couple of decks, what possibilities would there be of mixing the two records together. Further thought led to using mp3s instead of vinyl, as this would allow users to have a way of choosing what tune would be played. Sensors could detect the location of viewers in the room, the density and position would determine what tune is picked from a database, for how long it's played etc.


Inspired by the practice of listening to the body to diagnose illness, the Sonic Body is an audio-installation that uses interactive technology to create an orchestra of the human body.


This installation was part of the recent Brighton Digital Festival, in which viewers were immersed inside the a representation of the human body, and heard bodily sounds gathered from by such instruments such as a stethoscopes and hydrophones.
“The looped results (of the sonic body) are addictively danceable mutations of minimal techno. As science looks ever outward, it seems culturally significant that such alien music would transmit from the internal network of our very bodies.” David Michael Perez, from My Body, My Discotech, review of the Sonic Body in Rhizome.