Photo from Valerie Lamontagne
Imagine wearing a dress that inflates or deflates depending on the weather? Or sporting a jacket that barks like a rottweiler if another person gets too close? Or having a garment that tranforms your breath into pulses of coloured light? Electromode at Emily Carr, part of the Cultural Olympiad, showcases a whole wardrobe of interactive clothing just like this by artists like Valerie Lamontagne, Suzi Webster, Sara Diamond, Joanna Berzowska, and others. There’s even the aptly-named Skorpions, garments that change shape as they’re worn, conceived as a living parasite that can constrict the body and even cause pain. Fascinating, beautiful, and technical, these pieces merge science and art and challenge the relationship between body and garment.
Corporate and VIP visitors to the BC Showcase at Robson Square become part of a unique ‘people powered’ interactive installation created by Switch Interactive, Fleming Design’s sister division. As visitors walk down a 110 ft long passageway, their movements trigger sensors that ‘paint’ the wall with animated vignettes of sector success in Canada’s West. Illustrations appear and morph, and digital energy lines advance and recede – all according to the number of people moving down the corridor.
Thanks to our Myron Campbell and Alex Beim of Tangible Interaction for last week’s incredibly fun Draw by Night event. Organized by Myron, the monthly drawing party went interactive as we got a chance to try out Alex’s Digital Graffiti Wall. Equipped with “spray cans” we had a blast digitally “painting” and “repainting” the two large screens set up in Emily Carr’s Intersections Digital Studios. Sometimes, you’ve just got to marvel at technology. For me, this was one of those times!
*relativity is an art project by Drzach & Suchy. Multiple images (up to three) are encoded within a single physical object — a white panel, which displays the separate images under appropriate lighting conditions. The underlying principle of this technique is based on a simple observation: the shadow cast by an object depends not only on the object itself, but also on the light; therefore the same object under changing lighting conditions can totally change its appearance.
See more videos on their YouTube site.
A collection of impressive interactive installations.
FLAIR Flair facade is a modular system by the Berlin-based studio WHITEvoid to create a dynamic hull for facades or any building or wall surface. Acting like a living skin, it allows a building to express, communicate, and interact with its environment.
5 pine planks (each 6 feet), 5 metal brackets, tools and materials from the gallery utility closet or found on the gallery grounds. Each of the five shelves that comprise this work is balanced on a single bracket. All maintain their level balance by the precise placement of the objects they bear.
The mechatronic installation at the new BMW Museum in Munich is built with 714 suspended metal balls and is a spatial translation of a design process. Seemingly weightless and guided solely by the power of the mind, the sculpture moves through a cycle of free abstractions and typical BMW vehicle forms.
