Speaking in public through a huge animated avatar

The people at 1024 Architecture have taken on a very artistic and 'spiritual'-ish project with their installation 'Perspective Lyrique'. It feels 'spiritual' to me probably because we intuitively feel drawn to anything that is larger than us and slightly different in a superior way. It feels like it's a guide, a father, even a god. And so it grips us and makes us pay the one-pointed kind of attention. Quite an existential twist to this installation is that spectators can take on a protagonist role by talking into a microphone. The person's voice is then transformed and projected back through the animated face of the projection. So it is as if you can become this grander figure for a moment, on a public stage.

Living chairs

Too astounding to remain in the unblogged realms of the datasphere is Arthur Bodolec's living chair. It seems to be a black box, but when you sit on it, the backrest and even armrests pop up. What I particularly like is the chair being independent of stored energy in the chair itself, being powered completely by the sitter-to-be. And so the evolution towards a living world is slowly seeping ahead still. To see a prototype of the 'Jack' chair in action, skip the following movie to where the marker reaches 1:00.

there's some meat dancing to the beat down the street

Meat Market from Joan Healy on Vimeo.

Some pretty bizarre experimental work by Joan Healy. I mean I know we want to reprogram life, but isn't it a bit of a circumventive approach to first kill an animal and then try to bring its parts alive again in other ways? It's interesting to see though how the material aesthetics of products could change, and to explore the relationship between material and its behavior both as a communicative channel and as a way to afford richer physical interaction. I mean, look at that slab of flesh pulsate at the end of the movie, that looks greatly deep and refined, even when just hooked up to 2 servo drives.

control your cosmos

The movie 'World Builder' by Bruce Branit truly shows a vision about how we could come to contruct our own world, therewith clearly reflecting the new title of this blog. I must say though that this is the typical future vision of human-computer interaction based on Cartesian conceptions of space mapped directly onto our bodily actions. It's the typical thinking that arises from people wanting to control their world, while I think it's much more beautiful if we learn to flow with the inherent unpredictability of it, so that it can guide us, help us transform, and become enlightened in the end, seeing that even if we do not feel in control, everything we do and choose to perceive is already an act of creation.

feminine control over nature

In a world that is still very much dictated by male dominance, it's nice to see a feminine version of this human value. I sort of like the feel of this, woman and nature becoming one, resulting in a transcendent transformation.

Brandon Morse's dancing structures

Here's another artist you might want to get acquainted with. Brandon Morse examines instinctual interactions between technological forms and visualizes these in beautiful virtual sculptures. Recently he has worked on one that shows what appear to be two structures, consisting of a rubber-like material, that are connected to the ground, and at the top to each other, as if they were holding each others hands. Now because of the intricacies and complexity of the embodiment of this piece, an exquisitely beautiful and almost human-like physical behaviour emerges. The two structures are literally one, in form and in behaviour. This for me is a visual metaphor for true empathy, honesty, and harmony.

From a technology-evolution point of view, moving structures like this seem a logical step, for example in buildings. It would make everything so much more efficient and beautiful if entities would dynamically adapt to the current situation they are in. To get such a building to become reality, an entire new paradigm of manufacturing processes should be leant upon. One where each element is unique in proportions, adaptive and in continuous communication to other parts of the structure, like its neighbours. And of course products and the interior of the building should also conform to this paradigm. It is evident that an interior based on linear production processes in a physically adaptive, dancing building will be an incredible mismatch. Imagine a static straight floor with static straight furniture on it inside a moving building. All members or organs inside the building need to be active, or conscious on a higher level as one might call it in more mystical temrs, in this connected whole. The transition from static to dynamic technology will not be gradual, but more like a butterfly popping out of a cocoon and suddenly flying away.

It will be very hard to get to this sudden transition, but this is the necessary next step in the material evolution of technology. Where now we are frightened where we see a bridge moving, in the future we should be frightened, similar as with humans, if it is not moving. It is clear to me that this is the new paradigm of design; adaptive structures. Like a new modernism, it will be satisfactory again to design while staying true to the inherent qualities of the manufacturing process, having a coherent and synergetic interplay between both the core and the surface qualities of technological artifacts. So one of my wishes is to see this paradigm come true soon. It will not be easy, as many people of many professions have to be convinced of these deep notions, and the world largely (about 40% according to some study employing the framework of Spiral Dynamics) still pertains to capitalism so it will still be about the money.

Maybe governments will fund this if architects show them a movie of the Twin Towers dancing around and toying with two terrorist planes attacking them, eventually making them crash into each other. And moving with the characteristics of a mild giggle afterwards.

For more work of Brandon Morse, view his video on Flickr of his tugging sculpture, or visit his website.